Eating late in the night is not just a bad habit but can cause several health challenges. Though a lot of us know this, we still find our selves eating late in the night. This bring us to the question, how can we stop late night eating?
The best way to stop eating late is to plan and schedule your meal for each day, you should have a well written plan of what food to eat and what time you will eat them.
Just as we know that being late is a bad habit, late night eating is also one of the things you have to avoid if you are trying to live an healthy life.
At What Time Should I Stop Eating?
There is really no specific time that is late to eat but research has proven that the ideal time to eat dinner is 2-3 hours before your bedtime. So if your bed time is 9, you should eat your dinner between 6-7 in the evening.
Causes of Late Night Eating
- You don't eat enough during the day.
- You are eating too much sugars/ carbohydrate.
- You are stressed out
- Hormonal imbalance
Effects of eating Late
1. Increase your blood sugar - when you eat very close to your bedtime, especially if you eat carbohydrate rich food, there is an increase in glucose level which lead to an increase in your blood sugar.
2. Disturb sleep schedule - When you eat, your body releases insulin and send a signal to your brain that you are still active and this can prevent you from falling asleep easily.
3. Cause weight gain- You tend to consume more calories at night than in the day, and so when you go to sleep immediately after dinner, your body do not have enough time to burn out the extra calories this in turn leads to weight gain.
How To Stop Late Night Cravings
1. Avoid keeping snacks at home
Keeping snacks at home can be very tempting for someone who wants to avoid late night eating, it is advisable you don't even have these unhealthy snacks so you either don't eat at all or you eat healthy ones.
2. Brush your teeth
Have you tried to eat beans immediately after brushing your teeth, of course you get this odd taste. Brushing your teeth at night can discourage you from eating.
3. Go to sleep early
There is tendency for you to feel hungry when you are still awake hours after eating dinner. It is better to eat your dinner few hours before sleeping.
4. Plan your meals
You should schedule the number of times you are eating for the day according to your bed time. This will help to eat at the right time and avoid overeating.
5. Eat proteinous food
When you eat proteinous food, you feel full for a long period of time and this help you not to binge on unhealthy snacks since you don't feel hungry quickly.
6. Eat regular meal
It is important you eat regularly at the right time and not skip meals. When you skip meals, you tend to overeat when you eventually eat.
7. Identify your trigger's
Everyone has something that trigger's them to eat, for some they feel the urge to eat when watching television and for others it is when they see others eating. You should identify whatever trigger's you to eat at the wrong time and avoid it.
8. Eat healthy night snacks
Sometimes no matter what you do, you just want to eat something at night so the best thing to do is to eat healthy night snacks.
Here are examples of healthy night snacks
- Hot cereals like oatmeal
- Yoghurt especially Greek yoghurt
- Eggs
- Banana and peanut butter
- Popcorn
- Walnuts
Always try to avoid eating very close to bedtime because at the long run, it can cause health challenges and weight gain.
Hope you enjoyed reading? What are the things that triggers you to eat at night? Don't forget to leave your comment below.
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