late night snacking
 

After much good work with proper diet and exercice (lots of cycling) I've gotten myself int really good shape...except for about 10 lbs that I can't shake. The problem is out of control late night snacking. Anyone have some good strategies to fight off this habit?

I have this problem in massive doses.

I have some solutions, that may or may not work:

1. Go to bed early, before the serious peckishness sets in.

2. Work on your bike (or whatever in the garage) for a few hours. Keeps your mind otherwise occupied.

3. I frequently eat a bowl of DRY homemade muesli (mostly raw rolled oats), which takes quite a lot of masticating to work through; by the time I'm done there, I feel quite sated.

Thanks for the feedback. I think the "going to bed early" is the real key for me. It will also feel better to get a good night's sleep. To be continued....

I have found that after my commute home from work at 6am, which is at the end of my night shift, I usually go to bed. I found I would get up within a couple hours to snack on something. It really bothered me to wake up in the middle of my sleep, hungry and wrestless.
What has worked for me lately, is to drink a whey protein shake after my ride home, which is of course right before I go to bed. The big glass of milk/shake really fills me up, and gives me something worthwhile to digest while sleeping. I sleep longer, and more soundly as a result.
I also wake up with legs that are much less sore than they have been otherwise in the past. I think I will continue this practice for a while, and see how it turns out long term.
The shake I drink is the Pro-Rated brand that is sugar-free made with Splenda, so there is no sugar to prevent me from sleeping.

this may sound stupid to a lot of folks, but I have eaten pickels for years to curb late night hunger. I buy Vlasic dill spears at the grocery store JUST for that purpose. They have essentially 0 calories and they're really salty. Anytime I get that urge to eat at night I will drink a big glass of water while I eat a pickel spear. I'm instantly gratified and no extra pounds.

If you are hungry you need to eat.
Just pick quality foods.
Carrots are good.
Have a high fiber piece of bread toasted.
An apple.
Watermellon.

I eat vegetables/fruits for late night snacks. Apples, bananas, celery sticks, carrots etc.

Healthy and they fill you up.

its my understanding that apples will keep you awake. I used to eat them when I worked overnight shifts rather than coffee and found they worked.

I have found that the suagar in fruit can keep me awake too. Try to keep cut veggies in the fridge, they are easy to reach for.

Also i brush my teeth after dinner. I think food tastes gross with a minty mouth.

I end the day with a bottle of stout or beer, sitting in bed, reading. The stout satisfies my hunger and relaxes me, telling my body that my day is done. I've been doing this for twenty years. Seems to work well, though I could stand to lose 5 pounds.

Is it food or sweets you crave at night?
If its food, try higher volume/low cal foods like veggies(not fruit). carrots, celery, pickles and lettuce are very low cal and filling
If it is sweets try sugarfree jello with some fatfree coolwhip(25 calories for jello & topping)

I fight that same urge to snack at night. I've made some progress by:
1. Never have potato chips or icecream in the house. If I know its there, it calls my name.
2. Keep a calorie log. (i'm using fitnessjournal.org but im sure there are others) Just by having to write down what i am eating, and how many calories, i dont let myself go out of control with the munchies.
3. Keep Kashi granola bars, sugar-free popsicles, sugar free jello, Dannon LightNFit with fiber yogurt stocked in the house. These items have easily countable calories on the package. I just let myself one "unit". (if i had a bag of chips or cookies...like the ad used to say "noone can eat just one."

Its good to know I'm not the only one struggling with these issues.

Personally I dislike using sugar free and related stuff to satisfy an urge to snack, because it goes after the symptoms instead of the cause. The cause is perhaps peckishness or bad habits or whatever, by indulging in diet coke or the like, you gain no extra control. Or maybe I'm just spouting hot air right now.

The pickle idea sounds good. But I have just recently read that smoked and pickled stuff is really bad for you. I'll stick to my dry muesli for now.

Another thing I found helped is to drink a glass of chocolate milk immediately after the ride, it seems to help curb later food passions.

It's good to hear that people have found successful strategies to control late-night-binging. I'm still searching. Funny how the logical, sensible part of the brain steps aside to let the primitive part take over when it comes to food.

I could have written the original post. I'm in exactly the same place: stuck at 10 pounds heavier than my goal, and since I've been eating so much healthier than I used to, late night snacking is my biggest problem. Plainly, I'm not alone.

If you're hungry, why not bake some brownies
and then eat half the pan? Obviously not all
at once, spread it out over the course of two
hours. Another thing that's good is to buy two
different flavors of ice cream and then put several
generous scoops of each into the same bowl, or
better yet, in a large mug so that one flavor-
like cookies & cream is on the bottom and then
put the rocky road on top of it--really good.

HAHAHA! Good suggestion. I think that will really help control the late night cravings. :)

Oh yeah :D The body goes into
some kind of insulin shock so after
the binge it craves 'real' food,
something with meat--all told it's
prolly a 2000 empty calorie detour.
But, hey, i figure i can burn that
off carrying all those heavy soda
bottles into the car... :D

No, for late snacks i've been making
oatmeal, it's got a lot of fiber, and
i've heard somewhere that high fiber
stuff makes us feel 'full'. Only thinng
is is that it's fairly high calorie, but
at least it's 'good' calories.

I never really thought about it, but the guy above mentioned beer. Sometimes i'll drink a beer instead of having some chips/trail mix. That usually satisfies me. But i'll limit it to 1 beer.

Fiber filled, and whole grain, and very healthy.

Having decided some years ago that constant insomnia was worse than weight gain, I started having a big bowl of popcorn every night about 1/2 hour before going to sleep.

It works, it's like styrofoam pellets to fill your stomach cavity. And the popcorn has lower calories than some of the alternatives. (I don't use microwave, I use old fashioned with very little oil)

Results: I sleep much better, and I've gained 5 lbs/yr: total 30 lb weight gain!

Now I'm cycling to take off the weight, but keeping the popcorn so I can sleep.

I don't pretend this makes sense, but it works for me.

I'd say go with something high in protein but low in carbs if you must snack. That's what I've been told because the protein won't turn to fat as fast as the carbs will. I have no idea how true it is.

I used to be extremely overweight (lost 230#). In addition to being an overeater, I was a big late night snacker. I still have the urges. To keep me from doing so I try to eat dinner within 3 of 4 hours of going to bed. And I brush, floss, and rinse within an hour after dinner. This helps me from eating anything later because I don't want to go through my dental hygiene 'ritual' again. I just drink water between then and bed.

From a fat loss perspective, is it better to not eat anything before bed even if you are hungry (if you can handle the hunger, of course), or is that not good because you can risk going into starvation mode?

no no, I think you're misunderstanding "starvation mode". This occurs when you don't take in enough calories in a given day. So your body thinks you're starving (has nothing to do with feeling hungry) and starts to conserve fat.