Late night snacking. Help!
 

HELP! I do really good throughout the day, but once 10PM rolls around, I get that itch. I'm not starving, and I'm drinking water in bucketfulls, but nothing is taking the edge off. I don't even want candy or cake or anything, I just want FOOD. I've tried adding more fiber to my diet, and eating slightly bigger meals for dinner (but I exercise an extra 15 min when I do that).

I don't know what to do. Is there anything small I can eat that will hold me off until morning, or should I not risk it? People keep telling me contradicting theories. Should I a) listen to my body or b) just wait it out and go to sleep.

I was thinking a super tiny bowl of pasta salad, but that's got lots of of carbs in it. I'm so lost. I guess I could have a pickle. I forgot about them.

Whatever you're counting - carbs, calories, points, you could try to save some for that time of day. I eat about 200 calories around 9pm, and it has not hampered my weight loss. I don't think I'd be able to sleep w/o that planned snack.

Originally Posted by Jane:
Whatever you're counting - carbs, calories, points, you could try to save some for that time of day. I eat about 200 calories around 9pm, and it has not hampered my weight loss. I don't think I'd be able to sleep w/o that planned snack.

Calories, and normally I save myself 100-200, but today got away from me and I have no idea where I'm at calorie wise. :?:

I usually have a bowl of oatmeal or popcorn every night while watching late night with jimmy fallon. That way i'm eating something but it's not bad for me. I just make sure i save a few calories for that reason. I usually zig-zag my calories so it works out and hasn't hurt my weight loss at all. Neither one has that many calories.

I also get on here and read most evenings so that helps too! :) Keeps my mind off food if it is going to mindless eating.

I find going to bed earlier helps, even though I'm a night owl. It avoids the problem altogether, but also means I get a great sleep which means I'm much less hungry overall the next day than if I didn't get a long sleep.

This old adage about not eating before you go to bed really applies to people who go to bed early... or at least that's what I reason. ;) How long do you go during the day without eating? Not more than 4 or 5 hours, right? Of course you're hungry before you go to bed (if you eat dinner somewhere around 5 - 7). Lately I've been eating borscht before I go to bed (cultural thing lol, you could make cabbage soup or even just plain chicken broth!). It's warm so it's satisfying and if you have veggies in it (like cabbage) it's nice and chewy so you are eating "real" food, like you said you were craving. It's super healthy, and the way I make it, it's got about 30 calories in a big bowlful. If I don't eat anything between dinner and bedtime, I wake up starving and sometimes make bad choices... But this really takes the edge off and I wake up normal-hungry. ;) Although there are probably optimal ways for you to ration out your calories for the day, it really just matters how many calories you average every day for an extended amount of time to determine weight loss or gain. ;)

Good luck!!

I usually leave room for my mandatory night snack. I too have been losing consistently. I found a great popcorn without a lot of calories, but I get a HUGE bowlful of it. For me, I need multiple hand to mouth motion, guess I gotta keep my hands busy!

Why not sleep? The reason I find myself snacking is because I'm antsy, trying to find the energy to stay awake. Otherwise, yeah, save yourself some cals or a meal or a great snack so that it turns into something you look forward to :)

knitting! I can't knit and snack at the same time. My hands are busy, my mind is busy (I have to really concentrate to knit) and I forget about food.

But when I find I'm still actually hungry (and not just yearning for something vague) I tend to have some veggies and a bit of garlic hummus. I always run out of hunger before I run out of 2 tablespoons of hummus (only 40 calories!). Depending on your plans once you finally go to bed you might want to go for regular hummus tho....

I tend to eat smaller meals during the day so just in case I have a snack attack I can have at least some of what I want and not kill my whole day. I mean, last night I had a WW ice cream cup, a skinny cow bar, and a chocolate GNU bar (but that was kind of my dinner since the pizza delivery place forgot my chicken in my no-crouton, no-dressing, no-tomato caesar). I started to feel like I was heading toward binge mode, so I chugged a full 16 oz and walked upstairs. I woke up this morning with half a pound gone :)

If I think I need a snack at night, I allow myself only REAL, unprocessed, healthy food. (NO chemicals, no box) If hunger is the problem, any real food will cure it, not some over priced processed piece of low calorie garbage....lol ;) Depending on if I have reached my calorie max and if I am truly hungry and want a snack, I have one of the following...
Apple
Watermelon
any fresh fruit (not in a can)
carrot sticks
sliced tomatoes
any fresh lower carb veggie (not in a can)

If I have actually saved a couple hundred calories for the snack occasion I have a yogurt with some berries and a little fibre one sprinkled on.

I think when people snack at night they are usually not really hungry, they are craving the crap that many of us food addicts crave. Don't give in with junk food...even if it is labeled "diet" if there are food additives and chemicals, it IS JUNK FOOD.

You say that you're not starving, you're not hungry. So to me, it sounds like it's just a matter of HABIT. Which means that at some point you're just gonna have to suck it up and work past the discomfort of telling yourself no, of BREAKING the habit.

Keep yourself busy at that time. Knit, sew, do a puzzle, the computer, read, write, move, clean up the house, play hopscotch, run in circles, ANYTHING. But plan it out. Have a plan as to what you WILL do at that time.

And of course, you CAN save a few calories for that time of night. I do. For me, it's usually cucumber salad or some sugar free jello or both. And I always end the night off with a 20 calorie Nestle Fat Free Hot chocolate. VERY filling. satisfying, yummy and it's my signal that there's no more food coming my way till the morning.

I broke the snack habit by eating dinner late and going to bed a couple of hours later. Now, I have trained myself that dinner is the last thing I eat for the night.

I've had a few emergencies where I felt like I had to eat, but I try to stick with something nutritious a glass of skim milk or stir fried broccoli.

Pickles are good in that they are low calorie, but they are loaded with salt, which might make for a disappointing weigh in the next day.

Well... I am in bed by 10 pm. Too sleepy! But I do have a snack most evenings. If I want a salty crunch, I like Orville's 100 cal. bag of popcorn. I have also heard protein is a good b/f bed choice, so a dolup of low fat cottage cheese often helps take the edge off if I am that hungry b/f bed.

Another thing I have heard is a good b/f bed snack is an apple. The bulky fiberousness (is that a word?) will fill you up with min. calories.

Or if you can... just go to bed! Or do word puzzles. (I get the easy ones, so that I don't have to think too hard, but it keeps my hands busy)

I'm not much of a night snacker - but something that has helped me in the past, on nights I was hungry and maxed on calories for the day was to use my tooth whitening strips. Brushing my teeth, then applying the minty fresh strips - who wants to eat after that.

Mint is one of those things that is rumored to help supress the appetite. It works for me.

Another trick might be that instead of water - have a fiber drink (if you need more fiber) which will help fill you up. Or try a flavored tea. Sometimes, for me at least, just plain water doesn't cut it. I need flavor. So I'll drink a sleepy time tea or a dieter's tea at night to help me relax, go to sleep and curb the appetite.

Our body is biologically preprogrammed to work around the circadian clock (active during the day and relaxing at night), that's why our boddies don't burned enough calories at night. I suggested eat something low or non calories like fruit, salads and vegetables.... Good Luck


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Originally Posted by lucysam77:
Our body is biologically preprogrammed to work around the circadian clock (active during the day and relaxing at night), that's why our boddies don't burned enough calories at night. I suggested eat something low or non calories like fruit, salads and vegetables.... Good Luck

Is that true? I know I've seen it used all over the place but I thought it was disproved. With-in the normal waking hours of a healthy human being your body handles the food you give it the same way whether it gets it in the morning, afternoon, or night. That big piece of cheesecake isn't going straight to your hips because you ate it at 9pm; it would do the same at 10am because it put you 1500 calories over your daily allotment.

For certain your body needs sleep and if you don't get enough or if you sleep at times against the natural circadian clock (like shiftworkers are forced to do) there are a number of things that happen that physiologically that make it harder for you to lose weight, even if all you are eating is small green salads. (all my bookmarks for this are on the work computer which I'll access around midnight tonight...) All I can remember is the increased ghrelin and decreased leptin from shift work makes it harder to lose but there's more to it than that.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings, I obviously need more sleep before work tonight. But I don't think the actual type of food you eat at night matters, it is you're more likely to eat more of it because of bad habits and decreased leptin. Better to skip the snack and go to bed early - your rested body will work better at handling the food you feed it and you can't snack while you're snoozing so it's a double win!

Here's an article on webmd about how lack of sleep makes it harder to lose weight. Really, those late night cravings are your body telling you to go to bed...

http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders...while-sleeping

a couple interesting quotes from the article:

So what's the connection to sleep? "When you don't get enough sleep, it drives leptin levels down, which means you don't feel as satisfied after you eat. Lack of sleep also causes ghrelin levels to rise, which means your appetite is stimulated, so you want more food," Breus tells WebMD.

Until doctors do know more, most experts agree that if you are dieting, logging in a few extra hours of sleep a week is not a bad idea, particularly if you get six hours of sleep or less a night. You may just discover that you aren't as hungry, or that you have lessened your craving for sugary, calorie-dense foods.

"One thing I have seen is that once a person is not as tired, they don't need to rely on sweet foods and high carbohydrate snacks to keep them awake -- and that automatically translates into eating fewer calories," says Breus.

and then details from a study where 1000 men were deprived of sleep:
When sleep was restricted, leptin levels went down and ghrelin levels went up. Not surprisingly, the men's appetite also increased proportionally. Their desire for high carbohydrate, calorie-dense foods increased by a whopping 45%.

It was in the Stanford study, however, that the more provocative meaning of the leptin-ghrelin effect came to light. In this research -- a joint project between Stanford and the University of Wisconsin -- about 1,000 volunteers reported the number of hours they slept each night. Doctors then measured their levels of ghrelin and leptin, as well as charted their weight.

The result: Those who slept less than eight hours a night not only had lower levels of leptin and higher levels of ghrelin, but they also had a higher level of body fat. What's more, that level of body fat seemed to correlate with their sleep patterns. Specifically, those who slept the fewest hours per night weighed the most.

I can eat minutes before going to sleep and it does nothing, absolutely nothing to my weight. As long as I stay within my allotted calories within that 24 hour time frame, it doesn't make one lick of a difference when I eat them.

Originally Posted by Vladadog:
Better to skip the snack and go to bed early - your rested body will work better at handling the food you feed it and you can't snack while you're snoozing so it's a double win!

Go to bed! Sleep! I get that if you are eating within your plan and eat your final calories of the day right before bed that it will not affect your weight. BUT, if you are staying up late and are tired, you are more likely to make poor decisions. You can't eat while you're sleeping.:p

lol, true, thanks for all the good advice everyone. Unfortunately, last night I was up until 2amish. Ugh insomnia! When I finally crawled into bed, I started to feel sick, checked my blood sugar and realized I had to eat something. So I drank a little glass of OJ. I hope that didn't screw me up. :( I checked the scale today and it says I'm back at 180... but I drank a LOT of water yesterday, plus it' really hot today, plus it'snot even my official weigh in day (that's like 12 days away lol) so I'm not going to worry about it.