How To Stop Late Night Cravings That Are Ruining Your Progress

Picture this:

You wake up early, and head to the gym. You are never hungry upon awakening, so you pour yourself a coffee and head out the door. Thank God for adrenaline and cortisol, because you crushed your workout while fasted! As you head back from the gym, you are thinking of the quickest breakfast before heading out the door. A protein shake is what all the fit girlies are doing, right? So before leaving your house, you toss in your protein powder, water, banana and ugh... realize you have zero ingredients to make a meal-replacement-worthy-smoothie*, so, blend blend blend. Yikes... it's pure liquid, becasue of the lack of ingredients. Oh well, out the door you go. As you sit at work, you get hungry around noon... and I mean, really hungry. You've already burned through 600 calories with your workout class and the mornings to-do's. You open up your *meal prepped lunch* and devoire the vegetable salad with chicken that you packed the night before. You think, "Thank God I packed that, because I'm so hungry I would've just ordererd a large sub and chips!" But, nothing will get in the way of you and your fitness goals. After lunch, you check your watch to see what time it is becasue you want to fast for at least 5 hours before dinner. They say fasting is good for calorie control and focus at work, so this has been a "game changer" for you and limiting the snack attacks. As you leave work around 5, you head home and start cooking dinner. Yes, you meal planned so the entire family knows they're having turkey meatballs, broccoli and a potato. But you've been so good all day, why not have some crackers and cheese while cooking? (clocks in an additional 300 calories before dinner). After dinner, you realize you're kinda still hungry. Well... duh! You were so active during the day, so you deserve a little treat right? All the fit girlies eat dark chocolate before bed...right? Well, one square didn't do it for you so you had the bar. (another 300 calories). As you wind down, put the kids to bed, and get the main floor ready for action tomorrow... you snag a quick spoonful of peanut butter because it was left out from the kids. (another 200 calories).

This girl had the best intentions of crushing the day, but she let her incredibly strict behaviors detour the plans she had for her nutrition. And unforuntatley, this girl is most likely going to be stuck in this same cycle of restrict- restrict- binge, until she decides to fuel her body more apporpriately throughout her day.

If this is you.... here is some not so fun news:

This is stalling your progress in building muscle, losing weight, controlling bloodsugars and hormone regulation. Yep. Binging and restricting throughout the day, especially in this order, can cause so much confusion to your bodies' energy needs, hunger cues, cortisol release, bloodsugar management, and more. These factors, when out of whack, actually cause weight gain...even if you are still eating less than before trying to lose!

Your body needs to be in a caloric deficit to lose weight. By restricting all day, your body not only craves energy at night but your inhibition lowers, your brain convinces you "you deserve it", and guess what? You're still hungry after you let yourself snack!

Again, if this is you.... here is some light at the end of this roller coaster:

You CAN fix this. You will have to restructure your days' meals, your mentality around restriction, and shift your mindset from "will power to more power". Your body needs more energy (calories) throughout the day, plain and simple.

Here's how you can finally stop binging at night and take full control of your calorie cutting goals:

1) You must understand the difference between hunger and boredom

This is listed as the first step because this is easily the quickest fix and the most beneficial when connecting your brain to your stomach. If you're eating dinner at 6:30 every night, then begin to wind down to watch your TV show at 8, you'll most likely have a few hours of "sitting and binging". Binging tv is okay (to an extent), but food has a greater impact. A great practice to incorporate to you nightly munchie routine is to ask yourself if you are physically hungry. If you immediately think "yes", but had dinner only a mere two hours ago, then ask yourself this: "are you hungry for raw carrots?" . Or wait.... even better, "are your hungry for a chicken breast?". Carrots are high in fiber and contribute to satiety. If you're hungry, carrots will sound great. And a chicken breast is high in protein, another saitating macro. If you're truly hungry (not just munchie), a chicken breast would sound devine. Now, if you ask yourself these questions and decide "no, you're not hungry". Then its simply because when you thought about eating, you thought about popcorn, chocolate, or the classic ice cream in the pint. Yes there is room for all foods in the diet, but when you're grazing every single night you're going to go over your calorie goal much easier than simply filling yourself with a chicken breast or carrots. This is a great practice to understand if you are truly hungry or not.

If you're not hungry, just bored...

Go move. Yep, I said it! Taking a walk after dinner, cleaning the house, or even playing a board game with the family will make you "busy" and quickly forget about the munchies you once had. These practices are also healthy practices; walking after meals aids in digestion. Movement after a meal allows your body to also utilize the calories you just consumed, compared to sitting and eating more. My tip for you is to fill your boredom with a healthy habit you can do solo or with the family, unrelated to food.

If you're truly hungry...

Cook the chicken breast, and add the carrots! Yep, if you're hungry, choose foods that will actually fill you up. These are not snacks. These are meal components like protein, fiber, and maybe fat. This plate may have an extra 300 calories, but it's still less than half a pint of Ben and Jerrys.

2) Don't run for seconds or snacks until you've waited at least 30 minutes

Most Americans eat too fast. I actually heard an intersting story once.. that the youngest kid in the family learns this behavior in fear that the older siblings will eat the rest of their food. How crazy! Eating your food too quickly can become problematic because although you finished your plate, your body hasn't fully digested the food or created the feeling of fullness yet. This is when many people get seconds... then realize they are stuffed a mere 30 minutes later. If they had just waited before reaching for more, their body would've digested and dumped the food into their stomach creating satiety. My tip to you is to practice waiting 30 minutes once finished with dinner, before reaching for more food.

3) Shut down the kitchen for the night

This one actually still resonates with me. After dinner, my husband or I clean up the cooking mess and dishes. This is probably a normal chore one does after dinner, am I right? Instead of just thinking "clean up", shift your perspective to "shut down". Store all leftovers in the fridge and be done. Put away all ingredients in the cupboard and be done. There's something about shutting the room down for the night that tricks your brain - and your families'- into moving on to the next part of the evening. My tip for you is to clean the kitchen and shut it down until the following day.

4) Track and evenly distribute your calories across your day

This is a huge one when your stomach is more powerful than your mind. So you've tried all of the above, but you are actually physically hungry? This is most likely 100% due to not consuming enough food throughout your day. Your body has a certain amount of calories it needs to think, be energized, function properly, and regulate hormones. Your body also needs a certain amount of calories to sustain its' current weight. When you don't consume enough food throughout the day, you'll eventually get really hungry. But what if you're trying to lose weight? There is still a way to do this without binge eating, and here it is:

Step one... track your calories.

If you only allow yourself a calorie amount that is less than what you need to currently maintain your body weight, you'll ensure weight loss.

Step two.... distribute your calories throughout the day.

Try to evenly distribute your calories between breakfast, lunch and dinner, with a snack thrown in as needed. This will allow your body to feel satiated and energized all day. Better yet, you'll mitigate the "end of the day hangry" because you've appropriately fueled your body all day long.

My tip for you is to track your calories and distribute them amongst three meals and a snack.

5) Do not skip breakfast

Going along with point #4.... do not skip breakfast. If you're working out in a fasted state, your body needs carbohydrates and protein post workout to recover and build stronger muscles. By skipping breakfast, you're not only making it incredibly challenging (cough cough impossible) to build muscle, but you're more likely to consume these calories at the end of your day when your body doesn't utilize them for strength gains. This is a key tip to finally eating to fuel your goals; eat around your movement goals and fuel your body!

6) Take control of your surroundings

Lastly, be aware that you will fail some days. This is inevitable in all of us; don't worry about the one random time you had late night pizza and soda. These very few and far between moments won't do anything to hinder your progress. It's when these moments happen weekly, or daily, that we see major challenges with weight loss and muscle growth. One thing you can do to better prepare for these times of failure is to keep trigger foods out of your house. It doesn't necessarily mean you're never allowed to have ice cream again; but if you're truly hungry for ice cream, you will drive in your car to get it (and make it a single serving one at that). You will most likely not do that on a Tuesday night with kids at home and school the next day. But allow yourself the freedom to these foods when they're that worth it. And when they're not, keep your cupboards and fridge stocked with healther sweats like chocolate protein bars, greek yogurt and granola, or rice cakes and nut butter. These foods are hard to "over consume" and are more likely to contain fiber and protein.

Foods I love to keep on hand when the munchies attack:

• greek yogurt (zero added sugar)

• Purely Elizabeth granola (cookie flavor!)

• Legion Protein Cookies

• Nuts' N More birthday cake protein peanut butter (with celery)

• Snack size packs of Lesser Evil Popcorn

Follow these steps to finally stop late night munchies and take control of your nutrition.

Need extra help with your calories and macros? Email amanda@fitandfearlessamanda.com to get personalized nutrition coaching which includes discussing more helpful topics like this!