
How To Stop Late Night Snacking
Do you eat right during the day only to blow your diet at night? Here are two easy and practical ways to break your late-night eating habit.
There are so many ways we subconsciously sabotage our weight loss efforts.
At the top of the list for many of us is habitual nighttime snacking.
You might find eating right to be easy during the day, yet as soon as the evening rolls around you fixate on food.
There is a personal torment that can come with this feeling of being out-of-control.
This uncomfortable feeling can be almost as frustrating to deal with as the consequences of the extra calories.
In this article and video, I share two very easy and practical ways to wipe out your habit of late-night snacking.
The Steps to Stop Late-Night Snacking
You have to attack your late-night snacking habit from two directions: Diet and Mindset
1. Diet: Eat Enough At Dinner
You want to make sure that you are eating enough at dinner. I’m not talking about calories, I’m talking about volume.
You want to include plenty of foods that are naturally high in volume and naturally low in calories in your evening meal.
Two must-haves for dinner are vegetables and/or vegetable & bean soups.
These foods physically fill your stomach and they are high in fiber, which means they empty out of your stomach slowly. The longer food stays in your stomach, the longer hunger and cravings stay away.
If you need some ideas on how to make these soups, you will find free recipes in the 7-Day Junk Foods to Super Foods Challenge.
2. Mindset: Play the Can I Be Satisfied With...Game
To make a permanent change, you need to break your old habit. Playing this simple self-quiz game will help you do that.
It consists of four questions:
Can I be satisfied without eating right now?
Can I be satisfied with veggies and dip?
Can I be satisfied with a protein?
Can I be satisfied with a slow-digesting carbohydrate?
When you feel the urge to snack, take a moment to ask yourself each of these questions.
If your answer is yes, have a small portion of the healthy late-night snack, and then prevent overeating by using a Stopper.
If your answer is no, simply move on to the next question (see video).
What you will notice is that this brings you into the present and allows you to evaluate your need for food in a calm and controlled way. Simple, and it works.
About the Author
Dr. Becky Gillaspy, DC graduated Summa Cum Laude with research honors from Palmer College of Chiropractic in 1991.