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How to Stop Snacking at Night?

It has been observed that the phenomenon of late night eating is on the rise among the urban populace and the main causes are – Easily availability of snacking foods, Late night TV shows/Internet addiction and Stressful life situations. It’s common for people to store snacks, in their refrigerators, like cold chicken, pastries, ice-cream, sandwiches, burgers, pies, cheese, candies etc which are enticing to the mind and the slightest of hunger cravings causes one to beige on these foods causing a phenomenon called “Late night binge eating” or Late night snacking. So how to stop snacking at night? And more importantly is late night eating bad for you?

Is Snacking at Night Bad for You?

Studies have proved that there is no real difference between snacking at night and snacking in the day time, one is not more harmful than the other. So you will not end up with undigested food, or store up fat, simply because you ate late at night. Your body is well capable of assimilating the food at night as it does in the day time. It’s an urban myth that eating at night will cause you to become fat.

The only reason you will put on weight is by consuming more calories than your daily requirement. So if you are beige eating at night, and stock up calorie intensive foods, then you are going to gain weight – it’s not because you ate at night, but because you ate more than you daily requirement of calories.

But most people do end up eating a lot of snack foods at night, while eating healthy foods during the day time. This will upset their diet and calorie calculations. Night is also a time when people feel a lot more relaxed and have a tendency of eating a lot of food while enjoying late night shows, this again leads to an hike in calories. So it’s advisable to reduce or stop your late night snacking.

How to Control Your Late Night Snacking Habit?

Here are few simple tips on how to stop, or reduce, snacking at night.

• Avoid working late into the night and try to turn in before midnight. It has been observed that staying awake after mid-night inordinately makes you feel hungry.

• Have a plate of fruit salad half an hour before you go to sleep. Fruits are not weight inducing, and they provide healthy calories which will cause the body to stop craving food late into the night

• In countries like India, it’s believed that drinking a glass of warm milk will help you sleep soundly, so you won’t wake up in the middle of the night to snack up.

• Eat sufficient food during the daytime, making sure that you get you daily requirement of calories. If you end up starving yourself during the daytime, your body will crave food at night when it’s more relaxed.

• Stress is known to be the direct cause of “beige eating”. So if you have the habit of late night beige eating, then you can stop it by reducing your stress levels during the day time. A healthy mind always precedes a healthy body.

• Stock your refrigerator with healthy snacks like – raw vegetable salad, fresh fruits and nuts, which are low on fat and provide “healthy” calories (being whole foods). So if you feel like eating at night, you will not beige eat on these foods because by their very nature they are not foods that induce craving.

• Avoid watching Tv late into the night. It’s very common for people to snack unconsciously while being glued to some interesting movie or program. Internet surfing at night has the same effect as watching Tv. You are bound to feel fatigued and hungry when you stay up late, which in turn will cause you to eat more food.

These are some simple tips on how to stop snacking late at night. The bottom line is to eat healthy during the day time and get some sound sleep at night. So what time should you stop eating at night? That’s not important as late night eating is not bad for you as long as you eat healthy wholesome foods, in moderation.