Seeing a huge pattern in my eating problem...

I only looked at a few days, but it looks like you are eating very light for breakfast and lunch. That would explain why you are feeling so hungry by the evening. In my experience, when I eat light earlier, I have a harder time keeping on track later in the day. I like your idea of trying to eat more through the day. I didn't look at individual items, just the calorie totals for each meal. Play around with it. Some foods keep me full longer than others.

I can get like this too so I try to start eating late morning - less hours left in the day to consume. I also try to keep it lightish most days until later in the day so that I have some extra calories to play with. Is it possible you're tired at that hour? A nap, if possible, might be an alternative to eating.

So here's the thing. When you are going throughout your day you have 1,000 points of willpower.

You use a few to a few hundred on your breakfast and lunch. A few to a few to decide if you should flip off that crazy driver or not, a few here, a few there.

By the end of the day you've spent most of your willpower points probably. Which is my thought process on why you're struggling with your evening meals.

I can relate.....Some days I feel like my food tracker looks like this:
BREAKFAST - kale smoothie
LUNCH - quinoa salad and a banana
AFTERNOON SNACK- licking an apple
DINNER - two buckets of fried chicken, 21 tacos, 52 spicy chicken wings, 73 sides of ranch, 25 donuts and a bottle of wine
AFTER DINNER SNACK - cake and bottle of wine

cjrito wrote: »

I can relate.....Some days I feel like my food tracker looks like this:
BREAKFAST - kale smoothie
LUNCH - quinoa salad and a banana
AFTERNOON SNACK- licking an apple
DINNER - two buckets of fried chicken, 21 tacos, 52 spicy chicken wings, 73 sides of ranch, 25 donuts and a bottle of wine
AFTER DINNER SNACK - cake and bottle of wine

Thank you for making me actually laugh out loud.

Try eating a heartier breakfast and lunch with about 1/2 of your daily calories. Eat food that will fill you up with protein, complex carbs, and fiber.
Example: breakfast - two eggs sunny side up with salsa and a piece of whole grain toast ( about 300 calories ) OR nonfat Greek yogurt and 5 strawberries with oatmeal (also about 300, depending on what you use)
Lunch- turkey burger on sandwich thins bun, a slice of cheese, lettuce, onion, tomato, avocado, or any other veggies you like and a squirt of ketchup (about 350 calories) apple slices for a side is about 35-40 calories.
That leaves you enough wiggle room for a healthy afternoon snack or mini meal ( about 150 calories ) like a fiber one bar and strawberries, or string cheese and applesauce.
Eating 'filling' foods earlier in the day will keep you from being famished later and wanting to devour the entire contents of your fridge. Plan ahead, and keep emergency snacks available BEFORE you feel starved. It works for me :-)
Good luck, I hope this helps!

Sophiareed218 wrote: »

Try eating a heartier breakfast and lunch with about 1/2 of your daily calories. Eat food that will fill you up with protein, complex carbs, and fiber.
Example: breakfast - two eggs sunny side up with salsa and a piece of whole grain toast ( about 300 calories ) OR nonfat Greek yogurt and 5 strawberries with oatmeal (also about 300, depending on what you use)
Lunch- turkey burger on sandwich thins bun, a slice of cheese, lettuce, onion, tomato, avocado, or any other veggies you like and a squirt of ketchup (about 350 calories) apple slices for a side is about 35-40 calories.
That leaves you enough wiggle room for a healthy afternoon snack or mini meal ( about 150 calories ) like a fiber one bar and strawberries, or string cheese and applesauce.
Eating 'filling' foods earlier in the day will keep you from being famished later and wanting to devour the entire contents of your fridge. Plan ahead, and keep emergency snacks available BEFORE you feel starved. It works for me :-)
Good luck, I hope this helps!

Great advice. This also shows why I say "look at what works for YOU". This sort of plan USED to work for me very well, but in recent years I have noticed the opposite holds true, so I am changing it up. For reasons I cannot explain scientifically, I personally actually do BETTER now when I have low morning and totals IF they are low in protein and fat. I know that it makes no logical sense and sophiareed218's advice does, but this is what my body is telling me from the data. Generally, her advice works very well for most people, as I have observed. I am a weirdo. <g>

So, everyone will find a different type of eating that works best for them -- some people need a hearty breakfast and a light dinner, whereas that would make me hangry and doomed to fail. It'll take time to figure out what works best for you, and what your overeating triggers are, and how to plan a day that works for your eating preferences and habits.

That said, here's what works for me.

• I don't eat breakfast until 10am, and on weekdays I try not to keep it under about 300 - 350 calories. The size of my breakfast rarely has any bearing on how hungry I am later in the day, and a large breakfast takes too many of my calories.
• I try to add a fat to each meal. Fat helps me feel fuller, and I like it. Reduced fat things don't make me a very happy eater, and rarely cut many calories, in my experience.
• I try to plan a lunch in such a way that I have at least 1,000 calories left over for the evening. The more, the better. I may not always eat those 1,000+ calories, but having a nice big buffer to work with allows me flexibility to snack when I get hungry after running, or to have dessert, or to have pizza, or to have a beer with friends if that comes up. I need that or I will falter 9 times out of 10.

It's just a matter of trying stuff, looking at your eating patterns, and then applying what you learn. It takes longer than I'd like, I've discovered, but it's worth it.

I've only been doing this a while but had my first treat of the week yesterday......Small Affogado. Seemed to hit the spot and not too many calories. . I've used my nutribullet too when I've felt a hunger pang

OP, you're hungry when you get home because you are hardly eating anything during the day on most days.
You are also eating very low protein. and consuming a lot of beverage calories.
Try to get more protein during the day, it often helps with satiety.
And honestly no judgement, I am all about enjoying an alcoholic beverage when you can fit it in (there is wine and beer all over my diary), but you are using alot of calories on wine, and if you are struggling with hunger, cutting that back a little to leave more room for food would be an easy fix. It might also be affecting your ability to make smart choices about what you are eating.

I honestly think your issue is just playing around with your diet to find a more manageable way to distribute your calories, not an issue with sugar or anything else. Good luck!

This sounds just like me. The late afternoon and rest of the night is the hardest time for me to have self control. When I come home from work I am ravenous, specifically for JUNK food. Even if I eat a late lunch and healthy snacks throughout the day I jones for sugary junky snacks when I come home. And after dinner it's like I'm not satisfied, rather, my body is just getting warmed up and I have often binged for the rest of the night.

What is the answer? I wish I knew, but I there's a few things I do to try and get through it without blowing my whole day. First, I've heard that thirst can often fake us out and feel like hunger. So I drink water when I come home and sometimes I'll have a cup of coffee too. I also know that watching tv at night is a prime time for me to wear a path in the carpet going back and forth to the pantry so I try to avoid that, but if I have healthy snacks around to keep me busy that helps... really low cal stuff like cut up strawberries, baby carrots, clementines, grapes, popcorn.