A Simple Solution to Nighttime Overeating

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. 

You Can't Heal Food Insecurity With Restriction

If you have a history of food insecurity, dieting and food restriction are holding you back and making things worse. Here's why.

Food insecurity is defined as a lack of consistent access to enough food for an active and healthy life. Food insecurity can be experienced in several different ways.

Growing up (and even now), your family may not have had the financial means to provide enough food. You may have been hungry at times, or just never quite full enough. You may have had enough food some days or weeks and not enough on others.

Or, growing up a parent or guardian may have been withholding certain types of foods from you. You weren't allowed to have treats, sugary foods, or "junk" foods. You may not be calling this food insecurity. You may be seeing this as a way to be healthy by trying to avoid bad foods.

Whether the food insecurity was due to financial or "health" reasons, both experiences of food scarcity were well out of your control.

When someone with past food insecurity tries to control their weight and restrict food, experiences of "not having enough" continue. Dieting and restricted eating leads to overeating and binging. For those with a history of food insecurity, they may have even more intense experiences of overeating because of their unmet need of having enough food available to eat.

Folks with a history of food insecurity feel unsafe in their body when they don't have enough food.

Purposeful, voluntary food restriction will only activate past food insecurity responses: anxiety, worry, fear of not having enough. Feeling helpless and out of control.

To heal past food insecurity, let your mind and body know that you will be offering yourself enough food consistently. Reassure yourself that food is available to you and that you will not need to experience the discomfort and trauma of hunger.

When you notice that you've had enough food, be clear with yourself that this is what you're experiencing. Note it to yourself by saying "I have enough food. I'm safe." File it away so your body can identify what enoughness feels like.

What do you notice in your body when you've had enough food?

Night Time Overeating (through the lens of intuitive eating and health at every size)

** I know overeating can be uncomfortable and painful. I understand you want to stop. Remember that your body isn’t doing anything wrong when you overeat. It’s working to keep you in balance. **

Late afternoon and evening are the most common times folks overeat. 

There are three common things your body could be needing around this time. 

But first, let’s take a lesson from archery. When you pull the string of a bow back, you’re putting tension on that string. The further you pull back, the harder it is to hold the string in place. This takes effort. Eventually, you let go and the arrow flies. 

It’s the same for when we restrict ourselves from what we need. Restriction takes effort and puts tension on our minds and bodies. Eventually, we can’t hold on and overeat. 

1.Steady energy from food

Are you someone that skips breakfast and has a light lunch on the go? Late in the day, you find yourself so hungry that you would eat almost anything in sight?

Your body needed fuel all day long, but you didn't offer it the energy it needed with regular meals and snacks. 

When you finally slowed down and gave yourself a chance to eat, your body demanded that you fuel up fast.

When you’re over-hungry, it’s hard to eat calmly and mindfully. 

2. A variety of foods that you desire

Many folks try hard all day to stay on a formal diet plan. They eat the “right” breakfast and lunch, but then when it comes to the end of the day, they can’t seem to stay on track. This is because our minds and bodies aren't designed to live under diet restrictions like this. I know diet culture tries to convince us otherwise. 

It takes a lot of resolve and energy to maintain this restriction, something most people don’t have at the end of the day when they’re tired.  In addition, when you tell yourself you can’t have something, you generally want it even more (the forbidden fruit phenomenon). 

If you’re eating “forbidden” foods at the end of the day, it’s because your body is asking to eat a wider variety of foods (with unconditional permission, of course ;)). 

3. Rest, downtime and fun

So many people hit the ground running the moment they wake up and don’t stop until the very end of the day. Slowing down, building in time for relaxation and having fun are rarely prioritized when they have laundry to fold, dinner to get on the table and emails to catch up on. 

As amazing as our bodies are, they need rest. We need space and enjoyment to feel balanced and at ease in our life. 

Many folks don't know what slowing down feels like because they don't prioritize it. Our culture glorifies the hard worker, just like diet culture glorifies the disciplined eater.

If you’re noticing that you look forward to a food “treat” or “reward” at the end of the day, this is your body’s way of relaxing, slowing down and enjoying part of the evening. 

Nighttime eating is really how your body reacts to the restriction of energy/calories, a variety of foods, and downtime and fun. 

What is your body asking for?

You Weren’t Put on This Earth To Have a Thin or Perfect Body

When it comes to your health, food and your body, dieting and pursuing weight loss aren’t your only options. 

For decades, I never thought I had a choice but to try to make my body smaller. I learned at a young age that I shouldn’t be eating certain foods and that exercise was a way for me to keep my weight down. 

I never challenged the idea. And in a super judgy way, I felt better about myself that I was so committed to my health. I'd be proud of my juicer, the smoothies I carried around with me, and my to-go bags of celery and carrot sticks. 

Yet, eating “healthy” and being “good” wasn’t something I could do all of the time. I’m sure you can relate. I overate and binged a few times a week. If my husband and I got take out on the weekend, I'd always over do it so my belly felt way too uncomfortably full. If I started to eat chocolate, cookies or brownies, I couldn't stop myself from eating way too much. 

This is the trap that many dieters are in. It’s nearly impossible to stay on a diet. Overeating and going off the diet is just inevitable. Yet, when you don’t realize you have another choice, what do you do? 

You keep trying other diets, hoping a new one will work. 

Because diet culture convinces us the diets do work, you may blame yourself when they don’t work for you. 

Yet, the research is clear that diets only lead to weight gain after 3 years. 

You may even say “screw it” and just decide to not pay close attention to how you’re eating and how food makes you feel. You refuse to diet, even though a part of you still wants to lose weight. You may feel like you’re betraying yourself. 

To get yourself out of this trap, you need to know you have another option when it comes to food and your health. 

You can eat a wide variety of foods that you enjoy and not feel guilty about eating. 

You can tune into your body’s hunger and fullness signals and allow them to guide how you eat. 

By letting go of trying to control food, you can allow food to be a source of joy, nourishment and satisfaction. 

This option exists! 

When you practice this, you will reclaim time and energy and feel peaceful around food. 

You’ve Tried Everything To Stop Overeating

Except for this one thing that made a huge difference for me

I had a sugar hangover on most Monday mornings. Still filled from eating too much the night before. Still empty and hungry for something I couldn’t name.

My mind would be busy trying to figure out how to stop myself from overeating and losing control around food ever again. I’d tell myself, “If I could just fix this, everything else in my life would be better.”

Yet, a week would pass. A month. And many more. Despite all of my efforts and prayers, I couldn’t stop myself from doing what I kept doing week after week. And I tried everything. More diets. Calorie tracking. Nutritionists. Therapists. Mantras. Journaling.

There came a point when I knew that I had to try something new. I felt somewhat insane doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Here is what I did.

What’s happening now.

Chances are, you’re frustrated when you eat too much because you’re afraid of weight gain. You want to change your body and get healthier. Yet, overeating is painful because it’s getting in your way.

Overeating becomes an obstacle on your path, preventing you from getting to where you want to go.

The obstacle gets bigger and bigger because we create a lot of stories around overeating and what it means to have this problem. The first time you overate, it may have been a pebble. Now, after months or years of this pattern, it’s turned into a massive boulder.

A problem becomes a problem when we make it mean something.

Eating 10 Oreos has become a big deal. It’s personal. It means something about you, your value, and your character.

Consider an “I do this… because I’m…..” statement. For example, “I can’t stop overeating because I’m broken, and there is something wrong with me.” This may be a typical conversation you have in your mind.

Overeating is no longer about having a filled belly; it means something more. It can mean you’re broken, wrong, damaged, and have no willpower.

Overeating becomes a personal attack.

Explore how you’re making overeating a problem in your mind. Consider questions like these:

When you just ate that second bowl of ice cream, what did you say to yourself about yourself?

What does it mean about yourself that you ate more than what your body needs?

What does overeating say about you, your character, your health, and your body?

Stepping around the obstacle.

Overeating isn’t the problem. The problem is how you’re thinking about overeating. Feeling broken is the real problem.

This is why you may feel stuck. Your focus and attention have stayed on the same internal conversation.

You’ve been pouring your energy into trying to fix the problem the same way over and over.

Without the narrative around what it means to overeat, you can look at your patterns with food with fresh eyes. Overeating will no longer be an obstacle that’s in your way.

Examining why you feel damaged and believing weight loss will fix that is the real work. But let’s put that aside for now.

A new approach.

When I stopped focusing on stopping myself from overeating and started focusing on tuning into my body, my binging quietly and unceremoniously slowed down and eventually stopped.

Give yourself permission to let go of the stories and beliefs that have made overeating significant to you.

When these patterns are no longer personal, you’ll change your focus and attention to make the changes you desire in your relationship with food.