The dreaded night eating

Save up your calories for your night time eating. It's ok to eat at night.

reneelancaster0101 wrote: »

My biggest problem is around 6pm I have a major sweet tooth and although I might have a few calories to spare, I really need to NOT give in! Any advice?

Sure. Decide NOT to give in. When you want to reach your goals badly enough, the decision becomes easy.

This is a really good topic.
There are days that I feel so good about eating healthy all day, and then night falls...lol...and I absolutely agree that's it's boredom related.

I actually made a background on my cell phone that says, "You're not hungry, just bored!" LOL

Don't fight the snacking, accommodate it. I have a snack between 8:30 and 9:30 every night. Just put your night snack into your diary first, and then put the daily food in. This way snacking doesn't bust the day for you.

I totally understand this. I just want something at night. Anything will do. I almost NEED food late at night. It is a deeply ingrained, well, more than habit. I blame my father; when I was growing up he always had a nightly snack, and since I was his baby girl, I was in on it. From the time I was 3 to 18, every evening, this was our ritual.

Sooo. . .I always plan for an evening snack and make sure it is something that will last and then I try to avoid the kitchen as much as possible. These days I make a big travel mug cup of decaf Joe, put in just enough cream or creamer, then dump in a SF Torani syrup in some amazing flavor and sip on it until I go to bed. It curbs the worst of the cravings.

Normally I want to eat at night from boredom. I usually want something crunchy or cheesy. So here are my go to snacks
1. Mini babybel cheese or weight watchers string cheese
2. Kim's Magic Pop. Only 10 calories and super crunchy. I love it. I get it off of Amazon by the case. Usually snack on 3 at night. I like the original flavor but they have other favors too.

maylasia wrote: »

ok so u eat a heathy breakfast and a light snack at lunch I literally don't get hungry in the day and I'm fine but when nighttime hits my appetite seems to go into overdrive any thoughts???????

Yep. I think you should eat a more sustaining lunch. Then eat a dinner to fill the rest of your calories

What is a healthy breakfast? If its sub 500 cals then of course you will be starving.

to me a light lunch is still 400cal+

Smash a good dinner with fats, protein and carbs with a few glasses of cold water and see how you go

MickeyCastello wrote: »

Don't fight the snacking, accommodate it. I have a snack between 8:30 and 9:30 every night. Just put your night snack into your diary first, and then put the daily food in. This way snacking doesn't bust the day for you.

^This.

I'm a night snacker too. It's just how my body works. I never feel satisfied until I've had something sweet in the evenings.

Before, I used to eat TONS of snack food, chocolate, cookies, cakes, entire cartons of ice cream... heck, if I didn't have anything to satisfy that sweet tooth, sometimes I'd go so far as to mix up a batch of cookie dough and eat it raw. I was probably eating thousands of calories of that stuff.

In order to stick to this, I made two major changes:

1. I build an evening snack into my day and pre-log it. Usually it's something like berries, followed by some chocolate. But it could be anything. The point is, I pre-plan it, and I get to look forward to it all day. It helps me anticipate it and enjoy it a lot more, especially since I get to eat it guilt free. Sometimes I'll play a little mental game with myself as to how late I can go before eating it. 'Cause once I eat it, I close my diary and I'm done.

2. I committed to quality over quantity. Instead of an entire box (!) of cheap sugary cookies, I eat one square of dark chocolate. But I only buy really good quality dark chocolate. I spend more on it, but because I'm eating it so slowly, it actually costs me less overall. I've just decided that my calories are too few and too precious to be wasted on mediocre chocolate.

reneelancaster0101 wrote: »

My biggest problem is around 6pm I have a major sweet tooth and although I might have a few calories to spare, I really need to NOT give in! Any advice?

If you have the calories to spare, why do you need to "not give in"? What will that gain you? You won't gain extra points for being miserable. Eat what you want, when you want, within your calorie and macro goals. Boom, success. It's not rocket science.

maylasia wrote: »

ok so u eat a heathy breakfast and a light snack at lunch I literally don't get hungry in the day and I'm fine but when nighttime hits my appetite seems to go into overdrive any thoughts???????

Meal timing has zero to do with weight loss. You can eat whenever you want, as long as you eat less than you burn

I workout in the morning, so my breakfast is pretty big, and then my meals throughout the day are smaller. I love my desert, and sometimes I eat right before I got to bed. I lost 44 pounds and have been maintaining for a year.

Maybe you can save some calories for night?

I build in a late night snack. Popcorn is good for the crunchy salty snack. I will even eat a candy bar. Sometimes I eat nothing, drink hot tea or ice water. Depends on the day.

Secret here is that I am planning my snack and not eating a whole sleeve of Chips Ahoy or a Family Size bag of Lay's like I used to.

I eat about 40 percent of my calories late at night and honestly it's worked fine for me. I've lost 60 lbs without changing that at all. As long as you're staying within your goal and it isn't having an impact on how well you sleep, then there's no need to worry about it.

As long as you are still within your calories, eat when you want hun calories cant tell the time. x