I've been doing Atkins since the beginning of January without any weight loss. I'm discouraged by the results, but I'm doing it for health reasons, and am motivated to stick with it.
That said, I'm back to having a problem that resurfaces for reasons unbeknownst to me. I'll wake up in the middle of the night, ravenous, and easily consume 600-800 calories. I'm awake at the time, so it's not sleep eating, but the hunger and need for food is not like hunger I experience during the day. It makes me think that this is what diabetics experience when they have low blood sugar and need to eat, but I have no idea what my blood sugar is when this happens.
Note that I consume enough calories during the day. I had dinner at 7:30pm, a whey shake (no sugar) at 9:30, and had a magnesium supplement before bed. What triggers this? It's really frustrating to wake up in the morning and realize that you can't eat because you've already consumed a ton of calories for the day.
Last edited by veggiechic; 02-04-2015 at 03:26 PM.
well i have never faced with such problem and non of those whom i know too. I can't be very helpful probably. But i only can recommend to go to the doctor! you need to run tests- maybe your organism is lack of some vitamin of mineral?
I have experienced something similar for the past two years - enough to cause my weight to balloon up to 165lbs. Often times I will be semi conscious of the event, other times I have engaged in sleep eating, but often end up consuming 1000+ calories in a night 'binge' state.
Personally I have found the pattern to be worse when I am restricting food throughout the day, and if I am not consuming enough carbohydrates. I tried a month of high protein, low carb - but found myself eating approx. 2000 calories a night, every night. When I went back to a more balanced diet approach with carbs, fats and proteins, the binging has lessened and I get the occassional nights now of not eating anything during the night at all.
I am just shooting in the dark but with your name "veggiechic" I might guess you are trying to do a vegetarian Atkins? That would limit your food choices and may suggest a nutrition deficiency.
I know the challenges because my brother is on atkins and his wife a vegetarian, they haven't had a meal together in months because there is not a lot of overlap.
I go through this now and I hate it very much. Every night I wake up about 2 or 3 in the morning and am starving. And it doesn't matter if I eat even an hour or two before bed because I still wake up in the middle of the night and have to eat something. I don't eat a lot but I still don't like to do this because I know it has helped with my weight gain. I eat and then lay back down so that doesn't help at all.
The only suggestion I can give to help all of us with this problem is to drink some green tea or water before bed and maybe drink some green tea or water with lemon in it when you wake up in the middle of the night and need to eat. I got this from another thread on this site and I am going to try it today and tonight to see if it helps keep me from overeating throughout the day and eating in the middle of the night.
I have this sometimes. It feels like I have an almost physical hunger pain, though I know I ate like normal and shouldn't be hungry. It makes it hard to get back to sleep, it's just gnawing at me. But, if I do, I find that when I wake up I'm not particularly hungry at all and certainly no longer the same level of ravenous I felt in the middle of the night.
I just was at the doctor and all my checks came back okay, nothing wrong with my blood sugar or thyroid or anything, so no clue what's causing it. I just try to ignore it. It helps for me that the kitchen is downstairs, and I am ridiculously lazy.
When you're waking up in the middle of the night to consume that much calories, it would be best to drink water instead. It works for me. It fills me up, takes food out of the mind, and helps to put me back to sleep.
Middle of the night eating
