The Evening Eating Cycle
Picture this, you start the day off focussed and committed to your health goals. Breakfast goes well, so does lunch. You head into the afternoon feeling good and confident.
Then all of the sudden, you get blindsided by food cravings and find yourself eating food you had no intention of eating earlier in the day. You end up standing in front of the fridge and searching through cabinets to find certain snacks. The evening ends in feeling out of control, defeated and thinking about how you might never reach your weight goals with plans of recommitting tomorrow morning.
So what the heck keeps happening??? Why are evenings so tough?
If you struggle with this, know that you are not alone. Evening eating is the number one issue clients come to me about. It can be a vicious cycle that feels impossible to step out of.
You Can Conquer Evening Eating
The good news is that evening eating is something you defiantly can get control over. And it probably isn’t as hard as you think. It is possible to go from feeling out of control in the evenings to not really thinking that much about food or being tempted to eat.
The first step is to know what is contributing to the eating and food cravings. When you know what the underlying drivers are, you can address them directly and find lasting solutions that stop the food cravings at the source.
Top 3 Drivers for Evening Eating
- Hunger. We often are more strict with our eating in the day time and sometimes this means we are too strict. Whether it is trying to make up for eating off plan the night before or a perfectionist view that a good eating plan must be strict, we can undereat in the early portion of the day. This means by the time we get home, tired from work, our hunger hormones (like Ghrelin) are elevated and so we are hormonally driven to overeat.
- Fatigue. When we are tired (and let’s face it, most of us are chronically tired) our hunger hormones are also elevated. That means you could be digging through the fridge for a solution that isn’t there. Sometimes you just need to go to bed. Even if it is ridiculously early. Even if you still have things on your to do list.
- Stress. Our days are often stressful. There are a lot of demands on our time and our attention. Often, we don’t actually get a break to process any of the stress until we come home, depleted and exhausted. It’s no wonder the ice cream at the back of the freezer seems like a good solution!
This is a great example of how some eating behaviour has nothing to do with the food. To address this driver, you need to back way up and look at how you manage your stress earlier in the day. Now, before you get overwhelmed thinking that so much would need to change for you to not feel stressed, hear me out. Small changes have big results. You do not have to change everything. Make one small change and see what ripple effects it has on your day. Maybe you take a micro break in the day… Maybe you work on your thoughts about busy days and choose ones that are more empowering and create less stress for you.
This week’s episode goes into detail about overeating at night and how to stop it. Click below to listen.
I can help you stop any difficult habit with ease!
Sometimes, habits are hard to stop on your own. Private coaching is an efficient way to take you from feeling like you will never be able to stop overeating or binge eating to understanding why the habit is there in the first place and knowing the most efficient way to stop it for good.
To learn more about how I can help you stop difficult habits and lose weight without relying on willpower, schedule a free introductory session by clicking below.
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