You want to stop eating at night, but know this first
My client Lauren (not her real name) comes home from work starving, feeling like dinner can’t come soon enough. After dinner, she just keeps eating. She hates that she doesn’t taste the food she’s eating. After a long and busy day, this was the time for her to finally relax. And she was just numbing out with food (her words, not mine).
At the end of the night, Lauren feels really guilty for overeating. One of the common reactions people have when they feel guilty about what they’ve eaten is to make a plan to do better next time.
The plan can include things like:
Tomorrow, I’ll work out (harder, longer).
I’m going to drink more water.
I’ll skip breakfast and not eat until noon.
I’ll avoid all carbs.
But here is what’s really happening. As Lauren and I reviewed what she was eating on a typical day, she shared that even though she ate breakfast, she was eating a light lunch with no carbohydrates. She only had a small piece of fruit before her dinner around 7 pm.
If you’re eating like Lauren is, you’re not giving your body enough nourishment during the day.
When dinner time comes, your body demands that you make up for the deficit. That’s why nighttime eating feels so urgent, like someone or something has taken over your body. In some ways, that’s exactly what’s happening. Your hunger is beyond comfortable. This is why it’s hard to pay attention to what you’re eating and how your food tastes. Another factor is that at the end of the day, you’re tired and no longer have the busyness of your day to distract you from hunger. As you wind down, you don’t have the energy to fight off the hunger signals any longer. And, as you slow down and start to wind down, you start to notice the sensations in your body with more acuteness.
Without realizing it, nighttime overeating can be a painful cycle. You’re trying to be good during the day and eating the “right” foods. Or, you’re not taking the time to eat enough. As a result, at dinner time, you have to eat more. The guilt and even shame you feel for overeating may drive you to restrict what you’re eating the next day. Come dinner time, you’re back where you started. Overeating at night.
There is a simple solution to break this cycle. Eat 75% of the nourishment you need before 5 pm. If you think about your day in terms of quarters, you need most of your nourishment before dinner time. Here are some ideas:
As you consider each meal and snack, try including protein and carbohydrates. Despite the latest diet craze that demonizes carbs, we need carbohydrates to properly fuel our bodies.
Eat breakfast.
Eat lunch.
Add in a mid-morning snack and a mid-afternoon snack.
If this is a big change for you, take your time. Make small changes over time. Or, if you feel uncertain or a bit nervous about making this change, experiment for 5 days and see how it goes for you.
If eating the majority of your calories before 5pm feels impossible, let me offer you another option. Forgive yourself for night time eating. It’s not the end of the world that you’re overeating at night. Honor your body for knowing how to stay in balance. And don’t beat yourself up when you do it.