First, I have to admit I don't usually snack at night. Almost never. I think it's because I make sure I have a satisfying dinner and most important, is I plan ahead. I always know what we'll be having and I even write it down in advance so that I'm able to see how the day went overall. Sometimes, if I've eaten lightly, I might indulge in something small but most of the time, if still hungry I grab a piece of fruit or, make sure we have snacks which aren't so high fat and calorie dense such as pretzels. If I want something sweet, sometimes I'll have a glass of skim milk and put 1 teaspoon of Nestle Quik in it. Yes, one teaspoon - it's barely anything but gives it just enough sweetness to satisfy my craving.
Congratulations to Pat and to Parsleysage! And congrats to all of us who are returning to the thread!
I have a rather silly question, but there's always a method to my madness. What's your best trick to not eating at night? Or to avoid the BINGE? Remember me saying that we still had the peanut M & Ms, chips, etc in the house? Well, I hit the binge fan pretty much as soon as I got home from work. As I was making dinner, I hit the peanut M & Ms, followed by the potato chips, followed by dinner. It's what I do and I'm so tired of it. I even asked myself yesterday, "Do you REALLY want to do this?" And basically said, "Aw, the heck with it!" and down the hatch it all went. Of course, I felt bad last night, not only because I binged, but well, I ate a lot of food last night. It's almost like somebody else is in my mind and I'm not even thinking about it. It just happens and then when it's over, I feel terrible. I can stay on tracks for days on end, but then BOOM!
Most of the time, I'll have a big glass of iced water on the counter next to me while making dinner, or I'll slice some baby carrots and munch on those, not a lot, maybe two or three, and I include them in my calorie count for the day. Fresh veggies are always good for us, and I think it helps. But last night, I hit those peanut M & Ms so fast it wasn't even funny.
They're still in the pantry, too. I wanted to throw them out last night, but Rick said he would eat them. The problem is that I swear they call me. And it wouldn't matter, even if they weren't there. It would be something, even if it's cereal and milk, peanut butter bread. It's a binge and it doesn't matter what I eat....as long as I'm eating something.
Does that make sense to all of you? And what can I do about it? I'm not trying to evade responsibility for my actions; I want to take responsibility and stop it.
Snacks a lot of times comes from boredom, at least for me. I think it's important to try and identify what emotion is it that is compelling you to eat. Then, slowly work on that. Acknowledging it, for me, usually takes me out of the craving. Not to say I can control this all the time, but most of the time it works.
Do you track your food intake daily? Have you tried using some of the online programs to do so? I know that as I increased my understanding of nutrition, better choices became more intuitive. Learning portion sizes is really helpful. It becomes automatic after a while. For me, I just tend to overeat in general if I don't know the nutrition of things. Like, left to my own devices I'd eat 20 Tator Tots, but I now know 9 pieces is a serving so that's it (not that we even eat that much, but it's one of those less-than-better choices we indulge in periodically).
Last, throw it out if all else fails. Who cares that your husband says he's going to eat it? If it's a trigger for you, try and communicate how important it is for you to discard the items. Talking it through is SO helpful. Tom and I do this on a daily basis. In fact, we had left over Halloween candy still in the house, which we had finally been ignoring and I just up and tossed it without even asking him lol. He didn't even notice until days later.