Night Eating

I’ve been sitting here thinking about why I cannot lose weight. I definitely think I eat too big of portions at night. Given I’m not eating anything very unhealthy, I guess I am still taking too much in. I started recording everything I eat on Livestrong lately, being totally consistent and honest, and I realize I’ve been having a lot of sodium. Primarily from hummus, fat free feta, and salad dressings, so the past two days I cut down and I did drop some water weight. Still my issue is in the evening, I get home from work and the gym, and usually eat dinner around 830-9pm. I am sure that is way too late, but I don’t go to bed till almost midnight usually. My dinners usually consist of the same variation, a bag of lettuce, a tomato, bean sprouts, about ½ piece of tofu cooked with onions and tossed in, depending on what else I have on hand usually beets, avocado, or feta, or all of the above, with about 4-6 tablespoons of dressing. I either use a whole foods fat free balsamic or a vons brand of honey mustard dressing. The whole foods has 25 cals for 2 tbsp and the vons kind has 40 cals for 2tbsp. After I eat dinner and I’m sitting around watching TV with my husband, I end up 9 times out of 10 snacking on something else, either a glass of wine, popcorn, an apple, a banana, whatever is around. At that point I am not even hungry but I eat anyways.


I really want to get myself back on track and not eat so heavily at night. That is probably why I have a hard time going to bed earlier because I am so full. Another thing that bugs me is that I am not living up to the advice of the vegan/raw/any community that eats healthy ideals. I always end up thinking “I shouldn’t have had that or this or cooked that.” Tomorrow will be a better day and I end up doing the cycle all over again. I guess I need some advice, so I started googling this and I got some tips. I need to try to incorporate at least one of these. I think I am just bored at night and eat as a habit. Ugh this is so frustrating….

Tips to Not Eat at Night

-The other option is not to eat anything. Give this a try: After dinner do not eat anything. You will get hungry and you will feel the urge to go into the refrigerator. Please resist the urge. Go to bed hungry. When you wake up in the morning you will notice two things. You will be hungry (time to "break" the "fast") and your stomach (guess what?) will be flatter

-Ban nighttime boredom. Late-night eating often is a result of having nothing else to do. Pick up a new hobby, connect with your spouse, take a walk.

-Form new habits. Stop eating after a specific time — say, 7 or 8 p.m. — for a week. Then aim for a month. By that time, your new pattern should be set.

-Go to bed. An earlier bedtime will keep you from eating and control production of hunger-triggering hormones.