How I stopped myself snacking after dinner

I struggled to lose weight for a few months last year. I mean I was overweight for a few years, but I never struggled with it, I kind of liked it. 6 months ago everything changed and I had to lose weight because the lifestyle I led was slowly killing me.

I always woke up full of good intentions. Light breakfast, muesli, or low fat and low carb cereal. Lunch was similar. Often just some nuts and a couple of pieces of fruit. Dinner was the hard part. I would eat a normal meal, but it never seemed to fill me up. I then had a couple of pieces of fruit. It’s healthy, right. Apparently not in such quantities, especially for someone watching their sugar intake.

Then I had a few hours before bed and often I’d work on my images, or lately watched online courses either in photography or golf. When I sit on the couch, I have to eat something. It’s like a reflex. Like I used to light up a cigarette every time a phone rang. I liked chatting and smoking. It was difficult to give up that habit. And it was almost impossible to give up my nightly munching sessions.

I tried to find food that was low in carbs and fat, but which would fill me up. Unfortunately unless I munched on cardboard, everything I are had calories and sugar. Simple rice cakes seemed like nothing. Very light; but they are almost 100 % carbs. And I never just had 1, I would often go through the entire pack in 1 sitting. Could not stop.

After I got rid of these, I re-discovered baked sunflower seeds. Got addicted to them. They are also not heavy on nutrition or carbs, but the flavoring was, and even the seeds themselves were 30% carbs. And I used to finish a pack every night. That’s about 300g of artificially flavored seeds. Not a good choice, but I could not stop.

Last few days I have been testing a new solution to my evening eating habits.

Actually I have 2 solutions. First is to play golf until it’s dark, so when I get home it’s already late and I don’t have time to do more eating. The more I play sport, the more my body burns the fat I have, plus the less time I have to eat at home. Double bonus.

Snacking at night kept my weight up

The other solution is simply to take shower right after dinner, brush my teeth and basically be ready for bed. I do not sleep until at least midnight, but the trick of brushing my teeth fooled my mind into thinking that the eating is done for the day. I still have cravings, but so far I’m quite successful at overcoming them. It’s only been a few days, so I should not be patting myself on my back just yet, but every night it gets easier to resist the urge to eat.

Tonight I was quite OK not to eat. I drink some green tea when I feel like getting a snack. I steep my green tea 3 times, so by the night there is hardly any caffeine left, so it should not be interfering with my sleep. So far so good. This morning I was 87.9kg. I want to get down to 86 by the end of the month. I think it’s achievable.