Can't Sleep so I get up and eat

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benchstep
benchstep Posts: 18 Member
in Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
The last 2 months I am having a problem. I wake up 3 or 4 times a night. By the 3 or 4th time I am going down to the kitchen and eating something and then I am over my calories. Anyone have a similar problem?
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Replies

  • Mrsrobinsoncl
    Mrsrobinsoncl Posts: 122 Member
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    I wake up a lot when my blood sugar gets low, once I eat I can typically go back to sleep. Maybe try planning a healthy snack for the middle of the night, or something right before bed.
  • Xellercin
    Xellercin Posts: 924 Member
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    What happens if you don't eat when you get up?
  • benchstep
    benchstep Posts: 18 Member
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    Nothing happens if I don't eat but then I just keep waking up and usually if I eat I fall back to sleep.
  • corinasue1143
    corinasue1143 Posts: 7,467 Member
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    I do that if I don’t have a high protein snack an hour or so before bedtime.
  • IAmTheGlue
    IAmTheGlue Posts: 701 Member
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    I drink a protein shake at bedtime and it helps. I’m in cirrhosis due to my autoimmune liver disease so I try to avoid medications when possible. The casein protein shake is the best thing I have found to help me sleep.

    I was waking up at 3:30 every day and laying there quietly until my alarm went off so as not to disturb my husband. I have been sleeping so much better. Last night I did wake up at 3:30 and I drank a second one (this one was just a Members Mark brand 30 grams of protein, 160 calories) and slept in until 8am but I had been moving rocks (landscaping project) half the day so my body probably needed something more than usual.

    Maybe your body needs something. Figure it in to you calories every day and you won’t go over. Also, you never said what you are eating in the early morning hours, but I would make it worth the
    calories and make sure it fits your goals.

    Good luck! I know sleepless nights are the worst.
  • IAmTheGlue
    IAmTheGlue Posts: 701 Member
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    Additional thought: if you eat something at night, log it towards the next day. That’s what I do to help keep me on track.
  • Maelstrom143
    Maelstrom143 Posts: 5 Member
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    IAmTheGlue wrote: »
    Additional thought: if you eat something at night, log it towards the next day. That’s what I do to help keep me on track.

    Since he is going over his Kcals with the after-hours snacks, if he counts it as the next day meal Kcals, he will have to eat less than normal during the normal day to account for the Kcals he ate during his sleeping hours, so he will go hungry.

    He may, instead, wish to plan meals that have less Kcals, but are more filling, plan more meals throughout the day, and begin checking his blood sugars in the morning, before bedtime, and when he awakens in the middle of the night to see if that is the problem.

    @benchstep Are you waking up from hunger or are you eating simply because you are already awake? (Meaning did something else wake you up?).

    Either way, try a protein-rich snack with a glass of water (not meat/steak/pork). It's better than carbs.
  • jasch2020
    jasch2020 Posts: 1 Member
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    Dang! I’m a sound sleeper. However my husband wakes up numerous times during the night. Two things help this problem: he tries to stop drinking water by ~6 pm, and he takes a THC/cannabis gummy before bed. Wyld, marionberry, 5 mg THC is the one he’s finally settled upon.
    Some nights he doesn’t get up at all now, and some nights once or twice. (Depends if he has a glass of wine after dinner,)
  • StealthyJen
    StealthyJen Posts: 8 Member
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    I take time release melatonin, which has a quick dissolve layer to help fall asleep and a second layer that releases slowly to keep the person asleep. I find it enormously helpful….before I started taking it, I would wake up like clockwork at 3 am and not be able to get back to sleep. Now, if I wake up to use the restroom I can 9 times out of 10 get back to sleep in a few minutes. Bonus- studies are showing that melatonin supplements help prevent or slow down Alzheimer’s because your brain is getting enough quality sleep to clear out the plaque.
  • GaGasheesh
    GaGasheesh Posts: 1,094 Member
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    Calcium and magnesium relaxes your body. I've also heard that a small snack of cottage cheese in the evening has the slower release protein and calcium to help with staying asleep.
  • reinventingsharon
    reinventingsharon Posts: 5 Member
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    My sleep is seriously bad. I have fibromyalgia and have been told sleep disturbances are a symptom of the syndrome. I often go to bed, lay there for an hour, then get up. And I eat. I sleep better when my stomach is full, sometimes a bowl of cereal will help, sometimes it is a bowl of cereal or snack bag of chips and an hour or two of TV before I can sleep. I am 74, working very part time, so sometimes I can sleep in in the morning but not always. And I don't do well on 4 or 5 hours of sleep! Interested to see suggestions to eat protein before bed - I have always read that it is carbs that induce sleep and protein causes wakefulness.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,910 Member
    edited December 2022
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    reinventingsharon wrote: »
    My sleep is seriously bad. I have fibromyalgia and have been told sleep disturbances are a symptom of the syndrome. I often go to bed, lay there for an hour, then get up. And I eat. I sleep better when my stomach is full, sometimes a bowl of cereal will help, sometimes it is a bowl of cereal or snack bag of chips and an hour or two of TV before I can sleep. I am 74, working very part time, so sometimes I can sleep in in the morning but not always. And I don't do well on 4 or 5 hours of sleep! Interested to see suggestions to eat protein before bed - I have always read that it is carbs that induce sleep and protein causes wakefulness.

    Carbs DO induce sleep for me...and then some time later there is perhaps a blood sugar dip or something that wakes me back up.

    I do sleep better when my bedtime snack is balanced.
  • LifeChangz
    LifeChangz Posts: 457 Member
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    waves hand, yes....

    i pre-plan/schedule a middle of the night snack. my fav is a small banana (easy to peel and eat in the dark. Sometimes will make a snack ahead and keep in fridge so it is ready to eat. (think getting ready for work and packing lunch the night before so it is ready to go.) Then, if I don't actually eat the middle of the night snack, bonus. I remove it from my tracking for the day. I consider my day to start at breakfast in the morning. So doing this (pre-planning a middle of the night snack) helped me reign in free for all raid the fridge eating and work it into a reasonable calorie meal plan. I eventually left off middle of the night eating habit which developed over years/decades... I tried to cold turkey stop eating in the middle of the night and found it difficult/stressful emotionally - so this approach was a baby step/emotional compromise towards changing that. Worked for me - took a good few months - and I notice the urge returns when I am stressed out... and I go back to pre-scheduling the middle of the night snack.
  • Dianedoessmiles1
    Dianedoessmiles1 Posts: 12,125 Member
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    When I do that, I just something that's small such as a slice of cheese. I do leave the calorie allowance before bed, because I know this likely will happen. I'm rarely hungry it's more of a comfort thing.
  • BartBVanBockstaele
    BartBVanBockstaele Posts: 623 Member
    edited December 2022
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    benchstep wrote: »
    The last 2 months I am having a problem. I wake up 3 or 4 times a night. By the 3 or 4th time I am going down to the kitchen and eating something and then I am over my calories. Anyone have a similar problem?
    Hunger in the middle of the night (and any other time as well) used to be a big problem for me. It no longer is. The hunger is still there, it is persistent and uninterrupted. However, I learned to tolerate it when it is not distracting or debilitating, and when I cannot tolerate it, for example when it makes it impossible to sleep or concentrate, I simply acquiesce and eat. I just eat something that is very low in calories, such as 250 g of broccoli, okra or a non-starch vegetable blend, log it and go on. It'll set me back about 60 kcal and while I love vegetables, they are significantly less likely to trigger a binge fest than other trigger or gateway foods. I also usually weigh myself just before I eat, and I log the weight. That helps me to keep in mind there is a reason I am on a diet.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,910 Member
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    My therapist just said something very helpful to me: "We can train ourselves to be hungry in the middle of the night, and we can train ourselves to not be."

    We are starting Cognitive Behavioral Therapy next session.

    I've long had a goal of not eating in the middle of the night and I'm now "preloading" by eating way too much (ie: going over my modest calorie deficit) right before bed :frowning:

    On the plus side, my sleep is the best it's been in years. Many (if not all) of those reasons will not be applicable to the general population, but here they are anyway:
    1. I had 11# of fibroids (and my uterus) removed. The bottom ones were pressing on my bladder so now I have more bladder capacity.
    2. I was taking gabapentin for night sweats. It didn't help with that (stopping progesterone when I had my hysterectomy seems to have eliminated the night sweats) but does help me sleep.
    3. I changed my antidepressant from Cymbalta to Remeron, which I take 2 hours before bed. (If I take it right at bed time I am groggy the next morning.)
  • RT32DO
    RT32DO Posts: 1 Member
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    How to Stop Binge Eating at Night
    Nighttime overeating is a very common problem, and it's often the last one people solve as they are recovering from binge eating, but it doesn't have to be as difficult as it feels. The most important thing to do first is to identify the cause. Which of the following might apply to you?

    • Over-restricting during the day: More often than not, I find people who struggle with binge eating at night tend to have had too little to eat during the day. Perhaps they are trying to stick to a diet that is too rigid, or which causes them to lose weight too quickly. When that's the case, the brain often fires the "be less discriminating with food and feast" at nighttime, when willpower is lowest.
    • Not enough self-care during the day: Just as over-restricting calories during the day can cause the brain to rebound with a feast response at night, so too can too little self-care. In particular, subjecting yourself to constant pressure and decision-making without enough input-and-decision-free breaks can wear down your willpower too. There are only so many good decisions you can make in a day. If this is you, try to add another two more breaks completely away from other people, electronic devices, and the necessity to respond and/or make any decisions. It can make a big difference. So too can a short period of meditation and journaling or free-writing.
    • Not enough sleep: Paradoxically, nighttime eating can be exacerbated by not getting enough sleep. And of course, eating at night can interrupt your sleep too, creating a downward cycling snowball. Pay a little more attention to your sleep patterns, consider going to bed at a standard time, make the bed for sleep only

    If you struggle with nighttime overeating, you might also want to try making your nighttime food decisions in the morning. Plan out your evening meal and be sure it's substantial enough for you to look forward to

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