What can you eat at night before bed so as not to suffer from hunger, sleep soundly and lose weight at the same time?

Humans naturally have an “evening” eating schedule, so in the afternoon, as a rule, we develop an appetite.

However, remember: overeating at night is very harmful.

For many, having a hearty breakfast is almost a fantasy; in the morning, food simply “doesn’t fit” for them. But it’s difficult to find those who don’t like to have a delicious dinner. For most, trying to give up eating after 18:00 is a serious test, and adherence to the ban leads to irritability and breakdowns.

Doctors give a detailed answer to the question
why you shouldn’t overeat at night .
The fact is that in this case, the production of insulin, a hormone that leads to the accumulation of fat deposits, increases. Thus, it turns out that not eating before bed is bad, and eating is actually harmful to the body.

The solution to this dilemma is to avoid overeating in the evening. In order to adjust your diet, you can use three groups of techniques: psychological, dietary and behavioral.

Dietary ways to get rid of evening overeating

If you don’t know what to do when you overeat before bed, try these effective dietary methods for adjusting your diet:

1. You can only eat low-fat foods

There is an assumption: the less fat we eat, the less fat there will be in our body. Therefore, at night you can safely eat foods such as cereals with water, low-fat cottage cheese and meat. All of these foods are very filling, and they all have minimal impact on excess weight. However, you should not eat a lot of sweets and starchy foods, i.e. fast carbohydrates. They are fast because they are absorbed very quickly. And everything that was not consumed by the brain and muscles turns into fat deposits.

1. The best food is a low-fat snack

If you eat a piece of lean meat and vegetables within a couple of hours, then nothing bad will happen. You can also prepare the following snack: boiled buckwheat, cottage cheese (50 g), 2 tablespoons of muesli and fermented baked milk. Its energy value is only 130 kcal, and its fat content is no more than 4 g.

1. Instead of one dinner, several

It’s strange, but after a large dinner you always want to eat faster and more strongly than after a light meal.
Therefore, if you can’t eat enough, change your tactics: replace one meal in the evening with several.
For example, eat yogurt before leaving the office. When you get home, grab yourself a light snack. Then after a while, start having a full dinner. Eating this way will allow you to better control your evening diet and choose low-fat foods.

1. Variety in food

The more components a dish contains, the more interesting the flavor combination and the slower you will eat. This way you can feel full with less food. Overeating is a consequence of taste monotony. We quickly get used to “monotonous” food, we don’t notice how much we’ve consumed, and as a result we return to the question: “I ate too much at night, what should I do?” A great way to add variety to a dish is to use different vegetables.

1. Pre-meal

There is such a trick: if before dinner you eat a slice of meat, fish or low-fat cottage cheese with bread, washed down with a glass of kefir, then during dinner you will be satiated much faster and will be able to control yourself. This happens because the combination of animal protein and starch provides maximum satiety with a minimum amount of food eaten.

If you want to give up extra calories, then simply drink a glass of milk and mineral water 20 minutes before dinner. You should drink in small sips.

1. Little treats

Our overeating is most often the result of a desire to indulge. However, treats are not intended to give us satiety; their purpose is to bring pleasure and lift our spirits. Sweet and fatty foods always lead to extra pounds. Don't deprive yourself of treats, but eat them a little at a time, savoring every bite.

1. Herbal tea instead of food

Try mint tea. Its excellent taste and refreshing aroma will help you get rid of obsessive thoughts about food.

1. Avoiding spices before bed

Don't add herbs or spices to the last dish you eat in the evening. They will only increase your appetite.

1. Small dessert

Treat yourself to a mini dessert after dinner. Let it be fruit, low-fat yogurt or a piece of dark chocolate. This will lift your mood and help you curb your appetite.

What else can you eat at night?

An evening snack does not have to consist of one product, it can be a whole dish.

Here are some useful options:

• If you use whole grain bread, you can make a sandwich with lettuce and slices of not very fatty hard cheese.
• You can make cheesecakes from low-fat cottage cheese with added sweeteners and without flour for the evening.
• With proper nutrition, a small portion of oatmeal and buckwheat with kefir is allowed.
• Vegetable soups and seafood dishes are suitable for a late dinner.
• Another good option is hummus, a chickpea paste with spices. You just need to choose the option that uses a little oil.
• You can make okroshka with vegetables and herbs from kefir or yogurt.
• A glass of low-fat chicken broth satisfies hunger well.
• In addition to nuts, pumpkin seeds are useful as a source of fiber, magnesium and zinc. You can eat 30-50 g of them before bed.

Behavioral techniques for overeating

Are you tired of thinking about what to do if you overeat at night? Try behavioral techniques whose main goal is to make food less plentiful and organize it.

1. Walking before bed

Food is a great sedative, and our desire to eat more is not always caused by hunger. Sometimes this is the result of a desire to calm down. In this case, a short walk will be an excellent substitute that will not add pounds.

1. Joys for the body

Various body treatments can help reduce appetite and calm down: massage, shower and bath with aromatic oil.

Having received his portion of pleasure, a person is no longer so drawn to food.

1. Walking

Physical activity can invigorate, reduce appetite and lift your mood. Of course, a sense of proportion is important here. Healthy walking is very useful

. It can reduce the feeling of hunger and start the process of breaking down accumulated fats.

1. Early bedtime

If you overeat at night again, then think about whether you should start going to bed earlier. The fact is that this way you will eat less, and a person who gets good sleep can successfully control his appetite.

1. Inhale the aromas

Aromatherapy is a great way to reduce food cravings. You should use soothing scents: chamomile, mint, lavender.

Prevention of overeating

There are several basic rules, following which you will never overeat:

1. Pour into your plate as much food as will fit in your palms, but no more;
2. Chew your food thoroughly.
3. Eat only in the kitchen and do not engage in extraneous distracting activities during the process - do not watch a movie, do not talk.
4. Food should evoke only positive emotions in you. If you are under stress, it is better to drink tea.
5. Avoid junk food, which does not saturate the body and contributes to excess weight.

Most importantly, remember that food is not the greatest pleasure that life can provide us! Love food, but treat its preparation as an art - make small, beautiful portions and enjoy the taste of the prepared food.

Psychological techniques for overeating

“I overate on a diet... What should I do? I’ll get fat... This is what a woman thinks who couldn’t tame her appetite before bed. Perhaps psychological techniques that involve changing her attitude towards food will help her in the fight against overeating.

1. “Everything is allowed to me”

If a person is confident that he can eat as much as he wants, then he will not overeat, he has no need to. And if he has set such a ban for himself, he will constantly break down.

1. Lack of time to eat

Modern life often passes at such speeds that there is no time left for food. You can take advantage of this and go to exhibitions, cinema and theater more often. This way you will get positive emotions and not eat extra calories.

1. Out of sight

Do not keep high-calorie foods in a visible place. It’s better to put fruits and vegetables there: snacking on them is not a problem.

1. You are the thinnest

Picture yourself as charming and slim, and you will be less hungry at night.

1. Stickers on the refrigerator

Place sticky notes on your refrigerator promising to break bad habits. Perhaps these records will stop you the next time you decide to eat before bed.

1. Photo on the refrigerator

This could be a fat woman whom you are afraid of turning into, or, conversely, a fashion model whose image you strive for.

All people are different, so there is simply no single recipe for getting rid of overeating. Select several techniques that are optimal in your opinion, and combine them at your discretion.

What to do if you overeat at night - 20 ways not to eat at night!

First, you need to remove all excess fluid from the body, and after overeating, as a rule, there will be a large excess.

If you had to attend some event in the evening where there was a grand feast, or you still couldn’t resist and ate heavily at night, and not just ate, but ate high-calorie food in large quantities, the following tips will be useful to you.

In the following days, you need to thoroughly cleanse your body, which is overloaded with excess calories. So, cleansing the body should begin in the morning and continue with all your might until late in the evening.

First, you need to remove all excess fluid from the body, and after overeating, as a rule, we will have a large excess of it. The next day, under no circumstances should you eat anything salty or too sweet, so as not to interfere with the removal of excess fluid in the body. It is highly recommended to eat a minimum of carbohydrates and a maximum of protein. For example, you can eat chicken breast, eggs, low-fat cottage cheese, etc. The body, easily assimilating protein, will itself get rid of excess fluid accumulated in our body.

Whenever possible, try to eat foods that contain cleansing fiber. These products include dried legumes, bran bread, or whole grain bread. At the same time, you should not limit yourself in calories, since malnutrition is fraught with the awakening of a strong appetite, and the feeling of hunger can, in turn, provoke gluttony. If this happens, then you will have to start all over again. Therefore, before you start cleansing your body, it is better to stock up on all the necessary products in advance so as not to experience a calorie deficit. If you have iron willpower, then you can eat only black grain bread and chicken breasts all day.

Even if dinner was too rich, you still shouldn’t skip breakfast. If you don't have breakfast, then by lunchtime you may experience an acute feeling of hunger, due to which you may break down. Therefore, remember that breakfast must be complete, and not just a cup of coffee for show.

When working to restore your water balance, in addition to protein, you need to drink a lot. The most commonly recommended drink is ginger tea, which normalizes our metabolism and removes excess fluid from the body. You can also drink plain water; it is better to avoid sweet drinks altogether on this fasting day.

If you overeat at night regularly, then you should think about why you overeat? According to statistics, most people suffer from this bad habit due to stress. Some people already develop the habit of eating a lot in the evening due to a disrupted daily routine. Or maybe this is happening because of the companies?

Another common reason for evening overeating is a low-calorie diet throughout the day. This mainly concerns women, because the required minimum for them is from 1500 to 2000 kcal per day. The best and safest option for dinner is fresh vegetables, fruits, light salads, and low-fat cottage cheese.

Overeating is terribly unpleasant, but sometimes we realize it too late. At such a moment, this is fraught not only with extra centimeters, but also with poor health. So, you discovered that you should have stopped much earlier. What to do now?

Signs and consequences of overeating

Eating large amounts of food does not always indicate overeating. It can be recognized by a combination of the following signs:

• rapid absorption of food;
• unusually large portion of food;
• continuation of the meal after satiation;
• uncontrollability of the nutrition process.

As a result of such actions, a person complains of the following symptoms:

• heaviness in the stomach;
• nausea;
• vomiting;
• bloating;
• problems with bowel movements, etc.

Psychological overeating is indicated by:

• desire to eat alone so that no one can see the amount of food eaten;
• constant feeling of hunger;
• feeling guilty after eating;
• piecework, etc.

Overeating at night not only leads to unpleasant sensations. It may be hazardous to health. First of all, eating too much at night leads to the accumulation of subcutaneous fat, which over time can lead to obesity.

Regular overeating leads to disruption of metabolic processes in the body. The load on the gastrointestinal tract and other organs increases, because the body does not rest during sleep. Due to overeating, organs become enlarged, which is why the heart pumps blood more actively to saturate every cell. This leads to hypertension and other cardiovascular diseases.

Overeating causes problems with the functioning of the intestines and other organs.

The harm of overeating at night affects the liver, as it works under constant load. A lot of foods require a lot of enzymes. This can lead to increased fat synthesis in the liver. Because of this, problems arise with the functioning of the intestines and other organs. People who are accustomed to eating heavily at night often suffer from pancreatitis, cholecystitis, colitis, etc.

Immediate Action

Dancing

Even if the party doesn't involve dancing, it's time to start dancing! Cardio exercise will help you by delivering energy from the food you just received into your cells. The bad news: you need to dance for at least 30 minutes.

Walk

Go for a walk: fresh air and movement will speed up your metabolism. While walking, breathe deeply and bend to the sides from time to time to help food move into the esophagus.

Drugs

If you feel that you won’t be able to resist again, take action in advance by swallowing a Festal tablet while eating.

Ginger tea

Prepare ginger tea: grate a ginger root the size of your thumbnail, pour boiling water over it, add lemon. Ginger will help: it activates digestion, speeds up metabolism, prevents the formation of gases, and relieves heaviness.

Gum

Try chewing gum. Enzymes from the saliva released during the chewing process will help speed up the breakdown of food.

Potato

This seemingly far from dietary vegetable can be an excellent side dish for meat if prepared correctly. Boil it in its jacket (but not until fully cooked - it should remain slightly raw) and leave it covered for two hours. As a result, the starch contained in potatoes turns into a prebiotic - food for beneficial bacteria living in the intestines. Potatoes should account for 100 kcal of the total calorie intake - about 90 g.

The morning after

After a large meal with libations, give your body time to cleanse itself. Start the next day with fresh lemonade: squeeze 1 lemon into a glass, add water, drink. We recommend drinking more liquid throughout the next day: let it be water, ginger tea, green tea or hot water with lemon. For breakfast, eat oatmeal or buckwheat porridge with a tablespoon of bran added - fiber will help cleanse the intestines. Physical activity will also help: jogging, exercise, walking. We also recommend taking a contrast shower.

What should you not eat at night?

When losing weight, only those foods that contain a lot of calories, fast carbohydrates or fat are strictly prohibited.

The list of what you should not eat in the evening includes:

• red meats, fatty poultry;
• smoked fish and meat products;
• sweet products, baked goods made from premium flour;
• soft wheat noodles, white polished rice;
• any fast food dishes;
• animal fats, mayonnaise;
• all tonic drinks (black and green tea, coffee);
• alcohol.

Sample menu

Here's what a sample menu might look like the day after the feast:

Breakfast:

omelette/cottage cheese + tea/2 soft-boiled eggs/oatmeal

Dinner:

baked or boiled skinless chicken/fish/seafood + fresh salad/stewed vegetables

Dinner:

vegetables, low-fat cottage cheese and kefir.

The last meal should take place no later than 4 hours before bedtime. The interval between meals is 2-3 hours. Include 2 snacks on the menu.

Eat fruits in the first half of the day (as well as sweets). Sweets should “weigh” no more than 150 kcal (1 banana, 40 g of dried fruits, 1.5 pieces of marshmallows, 30 g of dark chocolate, 3 chocolates).

A similar diet, if followed for 1-2 weeks after the holiday, will help you regain your previous weight.

Lentils

An excellent source of both protein and complex carbohydrates. Bean dinner can be recommended for vegetarians - lentils also contain essential amino acids. And by combining it with chickpeas, you can get a full set of amino acids in one meal, without consuming animal products. For dinner, it is better to choose black lentils - they cook quickly, only 5 minutes.

For the future:

What lesson should be learned from what happened?

• Start your holiday meal not with hot or greasy food, but with a fresh vegetable salad. This will allow you to feel full faster, and digestion will begin to work faster and better.
• Eat slowly, chew for a long time - this way you will feel full faster.
• Feel free to get up from the table with a slight feeling of hunger - the blood is saturated with nutrients approximately half an hour after a meal.

More interesting things

Sooner or later, the desire to eat deliciously before bed will prevail, and you, no longer hiding your joy, will take out the cakes with protein cream or cheese cheesecake hidden for a rainy day. A ten-minute evening pleasure will inevitably affect your figure - fats that are poorly digested after 18-19 hours will settle on the stomach and sides, and dreams of ideal volumes will remain unrealistic.

Hunger after six in the evening is a natural phenomenon: having spent energy during the day, the body wants to replenish it during rest hours. It is wrong to think that until six o’clock you can eat everything in a row without restrictions, because in the “hungry” evening hours all the accumulated calories will be burned. This will not happen, besides, filling your stomach with food before dusk in order to sleep peacefully without dinner is dangerous. You can not only disrupt the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract, but also not achieve any result: a large amount of food stretches the walls of the stomach and every day you will need snacks more and more.

How to deal with food addiction

Dreaming of finding a slim, seductive body, many girls push themselves into strict limits and set goals that are impossible to achieve. You can use pure enthusiasm and willpower to eat only apples and kefir, but then a “breakdown” occurs, and you pounce on food in the blink of an eye, destroying all the foundations. Ask yourself - why do you want to eat? Maybe recent stress is to blame, or maybe a bar of chocolate is a way to brighten up evening boredom?

The bottom line is that in order to control your desires, you need a competent approach and the right diet.

• Food is different - the concept of “not eating after six” is quite loose, and you shouldn’t take it literally. The main rule: you must eat in the evening, but the food should be light: no fried potatoes or meat. Boiled chicken breast with a vegetable side dish three hours before bedtime is ideal, but provided that the portion is small. Severe hunger pangs can be calmed with light snacks: an apple, low-fat cottage cheese, a glass of kefir or creamy yogurt.
• Don't skip breakfast. After all, only in the morning you can eat as much as you want.
• 3-4 slices of cheese and a glass of warm milk can work wonders. Cheese creates a feeling of fullness and helps you fall asleep faster.
• Chew the pieces thoroughly, put food on a small plate - this way you can deceive the body and eat less food.
• Find an activity for the evening - play with your child, do Pilates or aerobics. Relaxing baths or walks in the fresh air will push away obsessive thoughts about food.
• Hide sweets - if you see them before your eyes every time, you may not be able to resist the temptation.
• Spicy spices and garlic seasonings stimulate the appetite; do not use them in the evening.
• A little trick: many people don't eat dinner in the evening if they brush their teeth. After all, after the meal you will have to go to the bathroom again.
• Soda or alcohol have a stimulating effect. Closer to 11 pm you may feel hungry again.

By eating right and in small portions, you will learn to control your needs, and the evening meal will not turn into a sacred ritual. Gradually, the body will learn to be full during the day and at 21-00 you will not want to run to the refrigerator.

Video recommendations

Many people don’t even realize what consequences, besides weight gain, the habit of overeating before bed can lead to. More detailed information is provided in the following video:

https://youtu.be/A1ExTeJ7J8s

Knowing why you can’t eat at night will help you switch to a new diet, the benefits of which will not take long to arrive. If your body receives the necessary rest at night, in the morning you feel full of strength, energy and can boast of excellent health.