I recommitted to losing weight about a week ago (sort of). I've started going to a yoga studio, I speedwalk or jog for at least an hour a day, and my eating has been impeccable...until midnight rolls around.
Sometime between 11 pm-1 am, I get ravenous. Not just an-apple-will-make-it-better hungry, I mean REALLY hungry. Inevitably, I end up pretty much binging and canceling out all of the good work I did that day.
Any advice for tackling this? I know it's something I need to figure out if I ever want to actually succeed in losing weight- and keeping it off.
Drink a big glass of water and go to bed by 10 pm, then you can sleep through the hunger. Just have a good breakfast planned. That is what I do and it usually works.
How long are you going from your prior meal until midnight? If you eat (as an example) a snack or small meal every three hours during the day, and then stop eating at 6 p.m., that would explain why you're hungry at midnight.
Personally, and the OP may be different, my eating schedule is kind of reversed. Because I start work at 3:30 in the afternoon, my breakfast is anywhere from Noon until 2 p.m. Whenever I wake up and/or get hungry. Lunch is around 5 p.m. Dinner around 8 p.m. with my a snack usually between lunch and dinner, and again before I go home at 11:30. Some days I don't eat dinner until 9 or 10, depending on how hungry I am.
Since you can't go to bed earlier, plan in a small snack for 11pm ish. That way you don't have to feel guilty about having a snack. Or if you don't want another separate meal, you could split your dinner into 2 and have the rest of it at some point between 11 and 1. Another thing I feel helps is a cup of hot tea (with or without milk depending on the tea) or reduced calorie hot chocolate. I'm a night person so I tend to stay up late and get most of my work done then and a large mug of hot tea (right now green tea with mint is my fave but last month it was lapsang and a couple of months before that earl grey, so it doesn't really matter) really helps.
@toastedsmoke, I love the idea of splitting dinner into two--that way, when I get super hungry around 11, I'll get a fairly substantial amount of food.