Are you looking for ways to quit your late night eating habit for the good of your weight and overall health. It’s something we see on TV and in the movies that is about as close to real life as Hollywood can get: those scenes where a character creeps to the fridge late at night to assemble a snack that they know isn’t good for them, but that they can’t resist anyway! We’ve all been there, when we’re not able to resist the low hum of the fridge in the late-night silence. We nearly always regret it afterwards but it doesn’t stop us at the time! If you are somebody who has developed an unwanted pattern of snacking way into the dead of night, then take a look at these five ways to quit your late night eating habit.
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1. Keep a Regular Meal Schedule
One of the best ways to quit your late night eating habit is to eat your meals on a consistent schedule. For those that work normal daytime hours, you should be trying to stick to a fairly traditional schedule for your three main meals of the day. Breakfast is always the most important, lunch is the perfect top up and dinner should always be the last thing you consume in a 24-hour cycle. Eating three balanced meals a day should be enough to stop you from needing an energy or hunger pick-me-up closer to bed time. If you find that you want to snack during the day as well as late at night, consider switching from three meals to five or six smaller meals a day.
2. Eliminate Trigger Foods
For some people it’s chocolate, for others it’s potato chips, but whether your trigger food is sweet or savoury, the easiest way to ensure that you don’t grab a handful past 10pm is to simply not have it in the house! Instead, restock your kitchen with healthy snack foods, meaning that even if you do give into late night snacking temptation, you aren’t doing as much harm as you were before.
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3. Make Your Fridge Motivational
My fridge wears the motto “fridge pickers wear bigger knickers”. Stick motivational messages on the front of your fridge to make you stop and think before you open the door. Use magnetic letters, stick up your favourite quote or mantra or pictures of someone who inspires you. If you want to lose weight for a specific reason, stick up a photo to remind you.
4. Create a New Habit
A good way to break the old habit of eating late is to create a whole new one. Maybe choose a new series on Netflix and turn your attention to a new episode every night around the time that you usually find yourself in the kitchen. Or perhaps change your bathing hours to then so that your body is being totally distracted with another task.
5. Start a Streak
For every night that you don’t snack late, give yourself a shiny new sticker on your calendar. It’s human nature to want to achieve positive goals, and the more stickers you start to see lining up, the more you will want to continue with your healthy streak. Of course, if you break the chain, then your streak disappears, and nobody wants to start all over again!
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6. Consider Seeking Help
If all else fails and you find that you are really struggling to curb your eating habits, then there is absolutely no shame in seeking a professional to help you break the cycle. This could be in the form of a dietitian or a personal trainer or even a therapist. Choose whichever avenue you think will be most appropriate to your sensibilities and needs.