- July 24, 2019
- Life style
- Irina Sergeeva
Very often, diets and severe dietary restrictions lead to the fact that a person begins to snack at night simply because he cannot sleep on an empty stomach. Sooner or later, such trips to the refrigerator become a habit and provoke the emergence of “psychological hunger,” which is quite difficult to combat.
Reasons for late-night snacking
Before deciding how to stop eating at night, you need to understand the reasons for this phenomenon. Why do some people feel drawn to the refrigerator when night falls? To eliminate this phenomenon, it is enough to find out its causes.
- Poor nutrition and incorrect distribution of portions throughout the day leads to night snacking. This is usually experienced by people who do not eat breakfast well or periodically skip lunches due to heavy workload. And now it’s time for dinner, and our stomach sends a signal to the brain that it’s time to have a “festival” for the stomach. Often, high-calorie foods are used in the form of fried potatoes and spicy pickles.
- Depression and constant stress also often result in snacking at night. Instead of looking for positive emotions and sources of positivity, most people prefer food at night.
- Often “night breakdowns” occur in those people who have health problems, such as diabetes or high stomach acidity.
Is it harmful?
Late-night snacking can lead to extra pounds. People who get up at night to eat feel tired and irritable the next morning. They are often tormented by heaviness in the stomach. After a late-night snack, you don't feel like eating in the morning. The appetite comes closer to the evening, the daily routine is disrupted, food enters the body not during the period of activity, but during the period of rest.
Poor nutrition leads to obesity. After all, according to biorhythms, fat reserves are consumed in the first half of the day, and accumulated in the second.
Doctors advise not to overeat at night, since there is no benefit from this process. Too much food will not have time to be digested, but it will greatly stretch the stomach, sometimes up to 10 liters. It is not possible to compress the muscle apparatus back without surgery. A person can become a slave to his stomach for the rest of his life. He will constantly want to eat.
Harm
You've probably noticed that most people can easily do without breakfast, but finding someone who can easily give up dinner is not at all easy. Many people like to have a snack in the evening, some prefer to do it while listening to their favorite series or TV show. All these habits negatively affect our health and figure.
From a medical point of view, late-night snacking leads to fat accumulation that is not easy to get rid of. Try to replace your meal before bed with a glass of kefir. Soon your body will get used to this diet, and you will be able to control your appetite at night.
Dietary ways not to eat at night:
You can eat... but only low-fat foods
Usually this rule helps everyone, because the formation of fat in the body is influenced by the fat we eat. And if we eat less fat, it means there will be less of it in the body. Feel free to eat low-fat cottage cheese and meat, cereals with water - they are filling and do not affect excess weight.
Low-fat snack for the night
If you eat a slice of lean meat with vegetables an hour or two before bed, nothing bad will happen. Before going to bed, you can prepare a delicious snack from 50 g of cottage cheese, boiled buckwheat, fermented baked milk and a couple of spoons of muesli. Its calorie content is only 130 kcal, and its fat content is 3-4 g.
Proper dinner
Surprisingly, the more abundant and fatty the dinner was, the more you will want to eat within a couple of hours. This means that it is unlikely that you will be able to eat enough at one time, so it is worth changing your tactics and eating small portions several times during the evening.
Before leaving work, eat yogurt or granola. When you get home, you can have a light snack. And in about half an hour - a full dinner. Thanks to this technique, it will be easier for you to control yourself at dinner and choose low-fat foods.
Variety of food
The more components in your dishes, the more varied their flavor combinations, and the slower you eat. That is, you eat less food. Overeating is usually associated with taste monotony. We quickly get used to food and forget about it, which means we don’t notice the amount of food we eat. To diversify the dish, combine several types of vegetables, etc.
Pre-meal
There is a small dietary trick - if 20 minutes before a meal you eat a small piece of fish, lean meat or cottage cheese with bread plus a glass of kefir, then at dinner you will be full much faster and will be able to control yourself. This happens because animal protein in combination with starch always gives maximum satiety with a minimum of calories.
If you don’t want to “eat” extra calories, drink a glass of milk or mineral water 15-20 minutes before dinner in small sips.
Allow yourself treats in reasonable quantities
Sometimes our overeating is associated with our desire to indulge. But treats are not designed to saturate our body; they are created to give us pleasure and lift our spirits. It is always fatty or sweet foods that affect the formation of extra pounds.
To avoid overeating treats, savor each bite slowly to savor the flavor.
Instead of food - herbal tea
Brew yourself some mint tea – its incomparable aroma and refreshing taste will curb your cravings for uncontrollable late-night eating!
Last meal without spices!
Do not add spices and herbs to the dish during the last meal - they exacerbate the feeling of hunger and increase appetite.
Mini dessert
After dinner, treat yourself to a light dessert - a small piece of dark chocolate, low-fat yogurt, fruit. This food will lift your spirits and help you fight your nighttime appetite.
Regular meals
Most often, the question of how to stop eating at night is asked by people who do not have a proper eating schedule. The habit of snacking in the evening often occurs among those who skip meals during the day. To get rid of this problem, you need to learn how to prepare food in advance. In the morning, you can easily take the necessary containers with prepared food to work and will not hastily look for the nearest store or cafe for a snack. Moreover, food to go is an excellent solution for a modern person who leads a fairly active lifestyle.
Fresh fruits and berries help cope with irresistible cravings for sweets. The optimal number of meals per day is considered to be 4–5 times.
Eat treats on your own time
In the evening we often overeat not because we are hungry, but because we want to eat. Treats are special foods. Its task is not to nourish it with energy, proteins and vitamins. It’s about bringing pleasure, joy, elevating your mood, and creating a feeling of comfort with its bright taste and aroma. The need for treats may be greater or less. But rarely does anyone have it at all.
Do not swallow goodies on an empty stomach. Don't turn enjoying them into eating them yourself. Eat small amounts at the end of dinner, having already had your fill of everyday, low-fat and not very sweet foods. Eat slowly, savoring every bite. And then a small amount of treats will be enough for you. Cut the candy into slices, enjoy, slowly, savoring each one, drink tea with them. Also cut the next one and you will eat significantly less candy.
Psychological hunger
How to stop eating at night? Quite a pressing question among most people trying to overcome this bad habit. Sometimes hunger comes unexpectedly, and your body may require a specific product. Most likely, you are dealing with a psychological problem.
There are many reasons for this unhealthy eating behavior. Perhaps it’s stress, resentment, complexes, lack of self-confidence, etc. That is why it is necessary to start with solving internal problems, and only then establish proper nutrition. First, try to rebuild your diet. Choose healthy and low-calorie foods. Rid your refrigerator and kitchen cabinets of all the “food junk” that could serve as another late-night snack.
Why do you want to eat late at night?
The main reason here is stress. “It triggers a whole cascade of pathological reactions that disrupt the nervous and hormonal regulation of processes in the body,” says Mikhail Gavrilov. — Hormones responsible for appetite and eating behavior, mood, metabolism and biorhythms “fly”. First of all, the synthesis of cortisol and insulin is disrupted, which in turn leads to a decrease in serotonin levels and an imbalance of dopamine. The ratio of the hormones ghrelin and leptin changes. The first is produced in the walls of the stomach and is responsible for stimulating appetite, the second is produced in adipose tissue and is responsible for suppressing it. All this, in turn, makes it difficult to fall asleep normally. Hormones and neurotransmitters, the activity of which should decrease, “boil” and force you to eat. In the long term, this leads to disruption of circadian rhythms. A person falls into a trap: there is no proper sleep and there is a tendency to overeat late in the evening and at night.” Ultimately, this can form night eating syndrome, which was described back in 1955. According to our expert, this syndrome is closely related to disorders of neurotransmitter metabolism and therefore often manifests itself with symptoms similar to anxiety-depressive conditions, which can develop into severe forms of psycho-emotional disorders. The presence of such symptoms is a reason to consult a specialist.
Leisure at home in front of the TV screen or computer monitor also encourages late snacks. At the same time, as a rule, we reach not for vegetable sticks or chicken fillet, but for potato chips, cookies and sausage sandwiches. A poorly organized daily routine, when we go to bed after midnight, also does not contribute to an optimal eating routine.
We have already talked about how to cope with the desire to eat late in the evening and at night.
Consequences
“Don’t eat at night!” - You may have given yourself this setting more than once, but still broke into another late-night snack. There is a great technique for combating late-night snacking. It works effectively on women. Every time you decide to head to the refrigerator, go past the closet and pull out an outfit that is clearly too small for you. To make the technique work better, you can try it on. Believe me, all desire to eat in the middle of the night will immediately disappear. A great motivation for girls is often a photo of a fat lady on the refrigerator, which serves as a talisman against overeating.
Bright and rich life
For people who want to know how to stop eating at night, the advice of a psychologist is not just for informational purposes. They really work! If you feel the desire to eat heavily late in the evening, it means that you are not tired during the day, and therefore, in order to fall asleep, you need reassurance in the form of food. I will not generalize, since this rule does not apply to everyone; a lot depends on the habits, rhythm of life and psychological state of a person.
Remember that an active and varied life, filled with vivid emotions, reduces the amount of food consumed several times. How to diversify your day is up to you. But in addition to work, a person should have a hobby or hobby that will relax him.
What can you eat before bed?
When circumstances are such that you need to eat before bed, try to limit yourself to something light - fruit, low-fat yogurt, cottage cheese or cheese. If you can’t satisfy your appetite with such a snack, have dinner with chicken fillet, baked lean meat, lean fish with a portion of vegetables - fresh or cooked. Vegetarians can recommend vegetable stew or soup, a dish made from cereals.
Avoid heavy foods, fried, salty, fast carbohydrates. For example, red meat, fatty fish - food is quite difficult to digest. These dishes are best eaten at lunch. Eliminate olive, flaxseed and other vegetable oils from your evening meals. They are, of course, healthy, but too high in calories for a late dinner. If you cannot do without them, try to limit yourself to half a teaspoon.
Late evening is not the time for tonic drinks. Coffee, black and green tea create an increased load on the cardiovascular and nervous systems and harm the gastric mucosa. Drink water - plain or mineral, herbal tea.
Bullseye
“I eat at night. How to stop gluttony? - a familiar question, isn't it? Despite the fact that apple diets are promoted by teenage girls who strive for maximum thinness, in the case of evening meals this method works great. You need to make sure that you always have a bowl of apples on the kitchen table. Let's say you felt an irresistible urge to head to the refrigerator in the middle of the night and snack on something tasty. Stop, then go to the table and take the apple. Lost your appetite?! It means you're just not hungry.
A rather pressing question in the modern world: “How to stop eating at night?” Reviews from most girls regarding this topic are based on water. And indeed it is! The fact is that we very often confuse hunger with thirst. Try drinking a glass of water before snacking. If this method does not help, then return to the apple again. And if you don’t want to eat it, then, most likely, you’re not hungry, but just dreaming of bread and butter and sausage.
Behavioral techniques of not eating at night
The main task is to organize food and make it less fatty and plentiful.
Walk before bed
Often evening overeating is caused by the desire to calm down, and not to be satiated. After all, as you know, food calms you down. But not only food can calm you down; for example, a walk in the fresh air works just as well.
Make your body happy, not your stomach
Body treatments, such as a bath with aromatic oils, massage and shower, also help to calm down and reduce the need for food. They cause pleasant sensations, which means they reduce the need for “edible” pleasure.
Walk more
Physical activity perfectly improves mood, invigorates and reduces appetite. But the loads should be moderate, for example, healthy walking, which will reduce the need for food and start the processes of fat breakdown.
Go to bed early
The secret is simple - the earlier you go to bed, the less you eat. And adequate sleep makes it easier to control weight.
Inhale the aroma!
Aromatherapy or incense sticks will also save you from evening overeating. Use soothing scents - lavender, mint, chamomile.
How to get rid of food addiction
How to stop eating at night? Advice from psychologists is mainly based on work on food addiction. It is enough for a person to admit his problem and start working on it.
Adviсe:
- Go to the mirror, examine your body from all sides. Analyze your figure, then honestly admit to yourself whether you are happy with your appearance.
- Try to understand the importance of your appearance to you. Are you ready to change your lifestyle?! If yes, then you need to start getting rid of bad eating habits today.
- Be clear about your desires and goals in terms of your appearance and health. You can choose a specific period to lose weight. Let's say you want to lose 3 kg in a month.
- There is no need to “eat with company.” This action will not be appreciated by your friends, relatives and acquaintances, and it may have a negative impact on the beauty of your figure.
- Fill out a food diary for a week and try to stick to this diet. If you experience stressful situations during the day, do not eat them under any circumstances. Remember that a burger or sandwich can always be replaced with an apple and a glass of water.
- Change your attitude towards life. Very often, people who are dissatisfied with everything eat away at their problems. Try to change your outlook and start enjoying life.
Tips for girls
Psychologists give the following recommendations to lovely girls:
- Women who often overeat need to change their daily routine and schedule meals strictly by the hour.
- Next, you should create a competent diet and strictly adhere to it. If you want to have a snack before the set time, then give preference to light food (kefir, cottage cheese or a glass of yogurt).
- Don't set strict limits for yourself. If you snacked at night and now decide not to eat after six, then your body will experience serious stress. As a result, this can lead to you eating much more junk food than before.
- It has been noticed that young mothers suffer from anxiety and constant lack of sleep. Light sedatives (tea with lemon balm or chamomile, as well as minimal dosages of valerian) help cope with stress.
Often psychological hunger appears in people who cannot cope with their problems. This state differs significantly from the physiological year. Subsequently, “psychological hunger” forms a food habit, which is based on eating problems. The person begins to think that now he will eat another delicacy - and everything will be fine. It is very important to prevent this condition from occurring, as it is quite difficult to combat.
If you notice that you like to snack late in the evening or at night, then start getting rid of this negative habit today. And remember that your success depends solely on your desire. Down with bad habits!
An exception
If you want to eat at night, sometimes you can eat something. It happens that a person simply did not have time to eat normally during the day because he was busy with something important. At night you can eat cottage cheese dessert, yogurt, fruit, and a small portion of vegetable salad. The main thing is to give up sandwiches, sausages, sausages, and fried meat.
A simple yoga exercise will help you cope with hunger. You need to get out of bed, straighten your back, put your hands on your stomach and exhale. As you inhale, you need to pull in your stomach, helping yourself with your hands. At this moment you need to hold your breath for 4 seconds, then slowly exhale and relax. It is advisable to repeat the exercise 10 times, and the feeling of hunger will be over.
