Help, I ALWAYS end up overeating past 5pm.

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  • ladyreva78
    ladyreva78 Posts: 4,080 Member
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    My problem is the time between getting home and having dinner. Once I've had dinner, I'm quite content with my cup of tea for the rest of the evening. But until then, I'll hunt through every nook and cranny in the kitchen for something edible. Part of it is hunger, part of it is simply habit.

    I've sadly developed the habit: get in through the front door -> go to kitchen and grab something to eat. It doesn't matter if it's 3pm with another 3 hours to go till dinner or 7 pm and dinner will be on the table in 15-20 minutes. I still reach for something to munch on. The worst part is my train of thought: "I'll be eating in 15 minutes; this doesn't even taste good; dinner is that super yummy leftover from yesterday; why am I eating this?" I know what I am doing and that it's stupid. That realization alone hasn't helped me break that cycle yet. Not giving up though.

    So, carrot sticks have become my friend. I prep a 1kg bag of carrots into sticks every Sunday afternoon. So when I come home, I can grab a couple of those to munch on. It seems to satisfy both the hunger (when present) and the habit until I have dinner sorted on the table.

    Figuring out why I was overeating when I get home after work has helped me find tricks, if not to prevent it, at least to limit the damage. I suspect that given time, I'll either figure out how to break the habit completely or learn to accept it and just continue to deal with it.
  • kellysmith410
    kellysmith410 Posts: 58 Member
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    This is why I eat constantly throughout the day. I find that if I don't eat much during the day, i'm STARVING by the time I get home from work and want to binge. I will still save calories because I do like to eat bigger meals in the evening, but I will snack on things every 2 hours or so to keep myself from feeling those hunger pangs when I'm about to get home.

    Also I think it might be worth it to identify why you're mindlessly overeating and not logging.
    For me it was that I had too much free time.
    I now fill my evenings with gym time, or if it's a rest day I will run errands and do some housework to keep myself busy.
    If I sit on the couch to relax, the mindless eating will happen.
    It also took some time with a counselor to work through my unhealthy eating habits.

    Good luck!
  • armchairherpetologist
    armchairherpetologist Posts: 69 Member
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    ladyreva78 wrote: »
    My problem is the time between getting home and having dinner. Once I've had dinner, I'm quite content with my cup of tea for the rest of the evening. But until then, I'll hunt through every nook and cranny in the kitchen for something edible. Part of it is hunger, part of it is simply habit.

    I've sadly developed the habit: get in through the front door -> go to kitchen and grab something to eat. It doesn't matter if it's 3pm with another 3 hours to go till dinner or 7 pm and dinner will be on the table in 15-20 minutes. I still reach for something to munch on. The worst part is my train of thought: "I'll be eating in 15 minutes; this doesn't even taste good; dinner is that super yummy leftover from yesterday; why am I eating this?" I know what I am doing and that it's stupid. That realization alone hasn't helped me break that cycle yet. Not giving up though.

    So, carrot sticks have become my friend. I prep a 1kg bag of carrots into sticks every Sunday afternoon. So when I come home, I can grab a couple of those to munch on. It seems to satisfy both the hunger (when present) and the habit until I have dinner sorted on the table.

    Figuring out why I was overeating when I get home after work has helped me find tricks, if not to prevent it, at least to limit the damage. I suspect that given time, I'll either figure out how to break the habit completely or learn to accept it and just continue to deal with it.

    Could you eat dinner earlier as an alternative?
  • lmew91
    lmew91 Posts: 88 Member
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    I can relate. Since I have entered maintenance, I've noticed that I still want to be really careful with how many calories I consume during the day (while at work.) So I space it out, and I'm not hungry really during the day, but my stomach starts to growl as I'm driving home.

    By the time I get home, I'm prowling the kitchen and snacking on whatever I can grab. This usually results in something like Cheez- Its, and I scarf down a few handfuls, which then leads to the mindset of "oh well, too late, can't weigh them now, might as well not even try to estimate." Sometimes after this, I still eat the dinner I had planned, and the damage probably isn't too bad. Other times though, one little un-logged snack can easily lead to three before I've even had dinner.

    For me, I've just had to accept the idea of eating more during the day, because I have more calories to eat since I'm now in maintenance, and I am also exercising more. Having snacks on hand that fit within my goals helps too, and the act of slowing down and weighing my snacks out before eating them helps me stop and think about what I want, is it worth it, and how much should I have?
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,728 Member
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    lmew91 wrote: »
    I can relate. Since I have entered maintenance, I've noticed that I still want to be really careful with how many calories I consume during the day (while at work.) So I space it out, and I'm not hungry really during the day, but my stomach starts to growl as I'm driving home.

    By the time I get home, I'm prowling the kitchen and snacking on whatever I can grab. This usually results in something like Cheez- Its, and I scarf down a few handfuls, which then leads to the mindset of "oh well, too late, can't weigh them now, might as well not even try to estimate." Sometimes after this, I still eat the dinner I had planned, and the damage probably isn't too bad. Other times though, one little un-logged snack can easily lead to three before I've even had dinner.

    For me, I've just had to accept the idea of eating more during the day, because I have more calories to eat since I'm now in maintenance, and I am also exercising more. Having snacks on hand that fit within my goals helps too, and the act of slowing down and weighing my snacks out before eating them helps me stop and think about what I want, is it worth it, and how much should I have?

    For me... what seems to be working is single serve packs. I know that I'm going to want to crunch something while dinner is prepping, so I've got single serve packs of fruit snacks and goldfish(I know not super healthy) to munch if I'm feeling cravy or peckish
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,521 Member
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    Eat dinner later and skip breakfast.
  • lgill1127
    lgill1127 Posts: 47 Member
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    I like logging my whole day of meals first thing in the morning to see if I have any flex calories leftover for dessert.

    Other ideas:
    -log all of your overeating snacks. Sometimes seeing the numbers and going over goal is enough to curb the habit.
    -not buying snacky foods that you're prone to overeating. I have a moratorium on keeping chips, pretzels, blocks of cheese, and frozen snacks in my house. The candy is hidden out of view so I only eat it when I know I have the cals to spare.
    -perhaps you're not eating enough food for breakfast/lunch/snacks before dinner?

    For me personally it helps to have 250-350 cal meals with a few snacks throughout the day. I'll typically have a mini Larabar in the morning around 10:30-11 am, a string cheese and carrots around 2:30-3:30pm , and either a laughing cow cheese wedge + 7 small crackers before I workout around 5:30pm or an 8oz glass of plant-based chocolate milk after I workout around 6:30pm before dinner at 7:30-8:30pm.
  • bvff35
    bvff35 Posts: 74 Member
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    exordiuminseoul wrote: »
    I end up over eating and not logging things later in the day. Before 5pm I log everything easily and eat healthy meals but after midday Idk what happens and ruin my "diet". I will sabotage myself eat junkfood and stop caring. This has been happening for 2 months, what should I do? Any one else go through a similar situation? :(

    Oh my you sound just like me! Night time is the worst! I think some of it is from changing hormone levels as the evening progresses and being more tired. I have noticed that I am continually more hungry when I don't get enough sleep. I have to really force myself to not over-eat at night and I eat less throughout the day just to help offset this a little so that I can rat more in the evenings.
  • Ironandwine69
    Ironandwine69 Posts: 2,432 Member
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    Go to bed at 5.01.
    Problem solved.

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