Beating the Late Night Binging!

Realize your motivation and then determine the best strategy for either changing your motivation 

or dealing with it.

Reasons for evening eating
There are three common culprits of nighttime snack attacks:

Boredom
You may be bored or dealing with another emotion like stress, and use this time to preoccupy or anesthetize yourself with food.

Restriction
You have restricted your calories too much during the day and truly are hungry.

Off-limits thinking
The psychological nature of "dieting" prompts you to feel that late-night eating is taboo which, in turn, creates "off limits" thinking. Sometimes when we tell ourselves we can't have something, we end up wanting it all the more.

Underneath it all, we are all human, and we are all motivated first and foremost by desire. When our desires contradict our current goals, then we must stand square and control them, so that they don't control us.  

You have complete and total control of one thing and one thing only: Your own MIND. When this thought enters your subconscious mind, you have the power to NEVER turn the thought into an action.

Late-night survival tips
To combat those cravings, here are some real-life survival tips for beating the battle.

• Be sure to eat 3 good meals during the day with 1 or 2 between meal snacks. A good insurance policy is to eat most of your calories before 6 PM.
   
• When you feel the urge to eat late at night, try drinking 2 or more cups of water. You can also make a cup of herbal tea sweeten with honey or artificial sugar. Hot liquids have a soothing effect on emotions and appetite.
   
• Remind yourself that it's normal to feel hungry late at night due to habitually eating late. Breaking this habit is like learning to quit smoking. Remind yourself of your goal to lose 20 or 30 pounds and the key to losing this weight is to STOP late night eating.
   
• Much of late night eating after dinner can be avoided by hiding the junk food. Put foods that you're prone to eat late at night out of sight. Better yet, don't buy junk food at all.
   
• Suck on hard candy. Most hard candy have only a few calories and they give you the satisfaction of snacking.
   
• Keep a written copy of your diet plan in view, which will keep your goal of losing weight firmly fixed in your mind. The temptation to snack late at night will not be as great if you don't give into the urge for several weeks.
   
• Some people have great success by simply brushing their teeth late at night. This method has been known to curb late night eating for many people.
   
• The most vulnerable time for eating late is 1 hour after dinner right up to bedtime. Keep your life interesting by working on a favorite hobby and NOT watching TV. The ads on TV can subconsciously trigger the impulse to eat. Boredom is your biggest danger to late night eating.
   
• Psyche yourself for the battle. You know that you will feel tempted to snack late at night. It's an artificial feeling that will go away when you go to bed. The next morning, you probably won't be hungry .... eat breakfast anyway .... it's the most important meal of the day.

If you need help creating a sensible diet plan that will help you to lose weight, let us help. We specialize in personal diet plans that will help you lose 1 to 2 pounds per week. Our menus with snacks have helped many successful clients. To get started on your personal diet plan, click  Join Our Club.

My Meal Planner                                    Team Beachbody® makes it easy to plan  everything you’re going to eat, so you’ll  always have delicious food that supports  your fitness and your weight loss program.  You can figure out your personal nutrition  requirements, build and print out menus and  shopping lists, and make sure you have  plenty of variety so you’ll never get bored.