How to Stop Eating at Night?

When it comes to gaining weight our body has harder time processing food after certain time. our metabolism work differently, and this also depends  on how it functiones.

Never the less, eating late at night is not a good idea for various reasons, and we will list some of them.

Causes of eating late at night

The main thing you need to do when hunger stikes is to determine from where it comes from. Hunger tends to be connected with a lot of different emotions. It can be caused by stress, boredom, feeling depressed and many other emotions.

In these cases, the feeling of hunger is not real. We eat to somehow replace or comfort those feelings, and „cure“ ourselves from them. Food is known to be an addiction to many people, and some of us don’t have control over our meals as others do.

It is important to tell yourself that you are not hungry, and it is not what you are feeling. The best thing you can do in these moments is to stack up on healthy food options. If the hunger is too strong, it is better to eat something healthy rather than those unhealthy snacks, and other fatty and sugary foods.

If this feeling of hunger comes along with these feelings, but it didn’t came suddenly then it is a real feeling of hunger. In that case satisfy your hunger feeling, and always stay on track as far as your daily limits go.

Eating late at night doesn’t have to be unhealthy, because if you’ve spent your whole day on work and you haven’t had a normal meal, than eat whenever you feel hungry. Just follow your meal plan, of course .

Exhaustion can also be the cause of hunger late at night. Sometimes our body feels so tired and in need of fuel, that it can send mixed signals to our brain. This makes us feel hungry, especially for those salty and sugary snacks.

If you are skipping meals throughout the day, or if you are crash-dieting then this can also be the cause of your hunger. You will be so concentrated on food, and your brain will keep imagining food until you fall asleep. This can come hard, of course, because feeling hungry can cause your insomnia and then it is hard not to satisfy that hunger.

Cause of eating late at night can also come from boredom. This happens more often at night, when you are relaxing, watching TV or searching the web.

We keep on grabbing on snacks without thinking about it, and since they don’t make us feel full at all, we won’t think of them as a threat.

Hormones can also be the casuse of your night time eating. If you feel the lack of insulin and other hormones, it will make you feel hungry. Insulin is the hormone that helps us digest sugar. If we feel lack of it, we will feel hungry.

When level of insulin goes down, we feel weak and hungry. What we need to do in that moment is eat something sweet to raise your sugar.

This feeling can also come later, and that is when you feel the need to eat something at night. You almost feel like passing out, and to avoid this feeling skip on carbohydrates and sugars at dinner, and try to eat regularly during the day.

Leptin on the other hand helps us feel full. He registers that we have eaten enough.

Eating too much sugar can prevent this hormone from recognizing that we are full, but also if you eat too little sugar it can also lead to the same thing. So, always be moderate.

Hunger can also be caused by Gherlin Peptide YY and other types of hormones, that regulate our hunger and appetite.

The one hormone connected to emotions and hunger is Cortisol. This hormone controls our stress level and when the amount of it is high in our blood, we feel hunger.

So, avoid stressful situations and know when it is hunger caused by stress and when it is real hunger.

Few advices to stop hunger at night

It is important to eat regular meals. Every meal you skip will come back haunting you later.

The most important meal of the day is breakfast. When you skip this meal, first thing in the morning, you will extremely hungry later on. Your blood sugar will not be on your normal level, and your body will feel the need to make up for this lack through the whole day.

Foods that have a high glycemic index, can help you feel more full throughout the day. Foods like whole weat products, vegetables and fruit. You want to look for foods that have over 55 GI scale. Anything below won’t make you feel full and you will end up being hungry later on.

If you are a person who likes eating at night, or you simply don’t have enough time throughout the day, try to prepare snacks that you will eat at night. They can be healthy salads, meals that contain less carbohydrates and foods like vegetables and fruits.

Make small meals and pack them in containers, and grab them at night when you feel hungry. Make sure to follow your meal plan and stay on track. This way you will be eating healthy, and sleeping peacefully.

It only takes few minutes to prepare these meals, but it is a huge difference when you are feeling hungry at night and too lazy to prepare something.

Also, when you feel hungry at night because you are bored or you can’t sleep try to find something to distract you. Feeling of hunger at night can be caused by pure boredom, so keeping your mind busy when this feeling comes, can be helpful.

Grab a book, or even embrace a new hobby you can turn to. This can be a new instrument or something similar to that. This is both useful for you, and it will keep those ponds from sticking on, by eating late at night.

If you feel exhausted and bored throughout the day, you might feel stressed and sad at night.

So, keep yourself entertained during the day so that you don’t feel like this when it’s late at night. Socializing can also be helpful, so try joining a group or go out more.

Brushing teeth is also important so right after dinner, so keep your hygene on point. Toothpaste helps, because it will change the taste of food and it won’t be so tasty as usual. Sugar free gums can also help, so keep them close when you are feeling hungry.

Staying hydrated is very important, and sometimes feeling of hunger can be due to being dehydrated. So, try drinking a tall glass of water and then if you still feel hungry, grab something healthy instead of unhealthy foods and snacks.

Overall, you need to determine whether your hunger comes from emotional source or is it a real hunger. If you can’t so anything to fight it, then eat some healthy snacks like almonds or perhaps some whole wheat cereals instead of something too salty or to sugary.

Knowning the source is the most important thing, so use these advices and learn how to distinguish the real hunger from other types of hunger.

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