Hey there! So, like I said in the title, I get a little out of control with food in the evenings, and at about 4 pm. Munchies galore, and I swear, I will eat anything! It's terrible, lol.

Any ideas how to counter this? I want out of the 180's, and this is just not helping me in the least, no matter how much I exercise!

Help!

What's your eating plan?

If you prefer to eat a lot in the evenings, can you eat light in the day and save up your calories for later in the day?

If you prefer eating this way, you can certainly adapt to it. Alternatively, if you find that you are eating a lot of junk in the evening, try and prepare some healthier alternatives instead. Or if you continually get hungry at the 4pm mark, have a snack to tide you over.

Figure out what works for you whilst remaining on plan

I have this exact same problem. In the morning, I am the will power queen. In the evening, I will eat/drink ANYTHING that sounds remotely good. I have tried two strategies, and I go back and forth between them.

1 - I am rigidly controlled in the evening. I decide exactly what to eat, and stop eating completely at 7 p.m. Somehow, if I'm not eating anything at all, it's easier for me to avoid the out of control eating. This occasionally backfires, however, and I end up way over calories.

2 - I eat next to nothing during the day and save my calories for when I want to eat more. I like this approach, but I tend to eat less nutritious food this way.

Laurie

I pack up a bunch of fruit in a bowl, apples, slices of pear, grapes and pineapple and set it out on the coffee table with a big pot of hot tea.

If I take some fruit, it's just fruit. But I know I have a treat if I want it. Maybe try something like that? So you have -something- to munch on?

Thank you everyone for your suggestions. In fact, I went out and bought a big bag of apples...I read, in the Weight Watchers forum (since I do Weight Watchers) that if your body craves sugar, it's not looking for Oreos (mmmm Oreos...I digress, lol), give it some fruit instead.

@LaurieDawn, I'm going to try and be a little more rigid myself, like you are. I'm the power control queen too in the mornings, and most of the day!

And this is such a good idea. That tea idea? It sounds DELICIOUS.

*runs off to make hot tea*

i save my calories for night mostly. i know that i am a night eater and instead of making myself miserable all evening i just save the bulk of my calories for evening.

Hello there! I can absolutely relate. I have struggled with this for years now. Most recently, I'll have dinner and then I'll allow myself one planned item. I'm in love with Pomegranets so I'll save that up and it takes forever to eat. If not that then I"ll plan a protein bar with some hot tea and take very tiny nibbles out of it. Another option is frozen grapes. I"ll portion them out into 100 calorie bags and they take a long time to consume. I'll also chew tons of gum.

OMG I am terrible at this too and today is day 1 of really trying to put an end to it! My diet is usually perfect until after I've had my evening meal and then I snack all evening and ruin all my good work. Tonight I'm drinking jasmine tea and I'm doing ok. Once I've finished my tea I'm going to go brush my teeth and gargle with mouthwash because I'm sure I won't feel like eating after that. Another thing I'm thinking is that I might start some sort of craft project to keep my hands busy.

Good luck!!

I had the same problem. In order to break it, I would put a small bowl of mixed veggie or fruit on the kitchen counter. When I wanted something I would grab some of that. Eventually I broke the habit and no longer need to do that. I still like a big dinner but I eat lighter during the day and also make sure I fix a lot of veggies for dinner which don't have a lot of calorie, such as larger portions of green beans or asparagus, etc.