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.
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.
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