What to do at night when your hungry?!?!

egable1 wrote: »

I have several pieces of advice to kick the "hunger" issue. I always had issues with it, as well, but I learned how to eliminate the problem after a few years of trying various diets and keeping a log of what I ate and how I felt.

1) Increase your protein intake, reduce carb intake, and eat healthy carbs like vegetables and some fruit. Personally, I recommend you look up what your "maintenance" protein intake is and then double that. Eat at least that much protein each day and it will really help stave off hunger. If you need a quick number, eat 0.7 grams of protein per pound of body weight. So, if you weigh 200 lbs, then eat 0.7 * 200 = 140 grams of protein per day. As you lose weight, the number will quickly approach the recommended intake per pound of lean body weight. Most importantly, it will help you lose weight quicker and easier because it will eliminate those insane hunger pains. The other thing to keep in mind is that vegetables and fruit are mostly water, so they are quite filling for few calories. However, they tend not to stick with me as long as protein does, so focus most on protein intake.

2) When you wake up in the morning, if you are not hungry, don't eat anything until you feel the first hunger pains. Then, eat a high protein breakfast like no-fat greek yogurt, scrambled eggs, or some lean meat. Personally, I like to make a smoothie in my Vitamix using 1 cup of greek yogurt (23g of protein, 0g fat, a handful of carbs), 1 scoop of Vega One organic protein powder (which provides lots of vitamins and minerals equivalent to several servings of vegetables and fruit and 20g more protein), plus 1C - 2C (70g - 140g of each) of frozen blueberries or peaches (to sweeten it). If you use blueberries, you must get the ones which are very large, otherwise they won't provide much sweetness. I use the fruit to sweeten it instead of sugar because it is obviously healthier. I add about 8oz of water and then blend. It makes almost 32oz of smoothie with around 44g of protein. Plus, it provides half of my daily vitamin needs. It typically comes in under 400 calories. I use Vega One as the protein powder because it is basically ground up and dehydrated organic vegetables. That gets me much larger dose of vegetable intake than I would normally get.

3) When you start feeling hungry again, eat a small, high protein snack and wait until you feel hungry again before eating your next meal.

4) Make sure you stick with protein and veggies as the main items you eat for your meals. Eat at least 35g of protein for each meal, but 45g would be better to start with. Choose lean meats or fish to keep the calories down. You want at least a half of a plate of veggies with each meal, but a full plate would be better. The less "dressed" you can make them, the better. For example, I sometimes eat an entire bag of fresh cut green beans (12oz). To prepare them, I put them in a pot of water, raise them slowly to a boil on medium heat, strain, add 7g (half a tablespoon) of Organic Valley Pasture Butter (my favorite butter) and stir to coat, then add salt to taste and eat. It is basically a full plate of green beans and has only 63 calories of butter on it for extra flavor.

5) Eat your last meal of the day relatively close to bedtime. I get up at 5:30am and go to bed at 9pm. So, I typically eat dinner either between 6pm and 7pm or between 7:30pm and 8:30pm. I try not to eat after 8pm, but sometimes life is crazy and it just happens. You need to have about a 3 - 4 hour window between when you eat your last meal and when you fall asleep. If you fall asleep less than 4 hours after you eat your last meal, and you ate a lot of protein in that meal, you will not quite be done digesting the protein at that point, so you should not be hungry. But, you will have had enough time to digest most of your meal so it shouldn't keep you awake.

6) When all else fails, eat watermelon! Seriously. 1kg (2.2 lbs) of watermelon is only 300 calories. For the small round seedless melons, that's typically half or more of the melon. For the larger elongated melons, it's still probably 1/4th of the melon. Watermelon is about 93% water. All of that water really fills you up fast. Because it is contained in the food itself, it keeps you full longer than if you had just drank the water from a cup. Even if I am nearly fainting from hunger, I find it hard to eat more than 300 calories of watermelon in one sitting, and that much watermelon keeps me full for quite a while. I will slice a bunch onto a plate, weigh the plate, eat as much as I want while putting the rhine back on the plate, then weigh the plate again and log the number of grams I ate.

7) If you get a craving for sweets, eat watermelon first until you are full. Then if you get another craving for sweets, eat more. Repeat until you hit the end of the day. If you have cravings on the next day, try it again. If on the third day they have not disappeared, you can either try it again or you can try a single serving of 70% cacao or higher dark chocolate. Try Perugina if you like chewing your chocolate or Lindt if you like letting it melt in your mouth.

Using these tactics, I am able to get by on as little as 1,000 calories per day without feeling much hunger. It's a lot easier to do 1,200 - 1,300 calories per day without hunger. At the time of this writing, I am 253lbs. I'm male, almost 6' tall, and fairly muscular. If a guy of my size and build can get by on such a small calorie count without feeling much if any hunger during the day, you can too.

For a last-ditch effort, if you are still having issues with hunger after making those changes, there is one sure-fire way to kick it. However, it takes 3 days of going out of your mind, wanting to pull your hair out and climb the walls to do it. That no-fail method of kicking the feelings of hunger is to consume nothing but 12 - 16 cups of water for 72 hours. If you want to go that route, I strongly recommend you find something *very* engrossing to do for those 3 days. Like binge-watch multiple seasons of your favorite TV show or a new show you always wanted to get into or play a super-engrossing computer game or walk 10 miles from civilization in all directions with a tent and sleeping bag and some books and water and set up camp for the three days. By the end of the 2nd day it won't be so much the feeling of hunger that gets you but the insane, mind-bendingly overwhelming compulsion to eat. I recommend everyone try it at least once. It will give you a new respect for drug addicts who have gone through withdrawal, regardless of whether they succeeded or failed to kick their habit.

frankiesgirl21 wrote: »

Go to bed and imagine myself the way I want to be. Wake up be happy isuceededed yesterday ..if I did.... Start again today. Repeat.

kirayng2 wrote: »

For everyone drinking water after dinner before bed, how do you sleep through the night? If I have so much as a 6 ounce cup of tea I get up to ... 2 or 3 times a night> Great advice egable1. Also what are good bedtime snacks? I would imagine it would have to be a bit of protein, some carbs and not much fat. An apple and a few almonds? Fruit and nuts seems like a good combo but easy on the nuts.