Evening Problem – AKA “Nighttime eating”

If I’m about to spend hours in front of my computer in the evening, I’ll experience an “Evening Problem” a few nights a week. Ok, I’ll admit it, I’ll get it almost every night because I’m a nighttime eater. As a matter of fact, it is happening right now, as I write these words. I had a thick lentil stew with a few small bites of braised pork (added for flavor) around 6 p.m., accompanied by a large spinach and green onion salad with Italian dressing. Now is 8:30 p.m., and I’m fidgeting. If I eat an apple, I’ll be fine until 9 or maybe 9:15 p.m., but then I will go into the kitchen again. I already had a small 4 oz. glass of the red wine around 8 pm. So, I’m deciding what to do. What I do most of the times is prepare a mini “Binge Emergency Kit” that contains a small or medium green leafy salad serving, with some low-fat yogurt as a dressing and 50 grams of low-fat farmers’ cheese on the side (one boiled egg will do too instead of the farmers’ cheese). That is enough for me. After I eat that, I feel more than full and I know that I’ll be fine until bedtime. Sometimes even half of this meal will do. Then, I’ll simply stop eating and leave the rest of it for another day.

When I was yo-yoing, I would go for a few cookies. But, more than once, that turned into a binge party where I would polish off a half gallon of ice cream after the cookies. Now I don’t have a single cookie or any ice cream in my house, I have my “Binge Emergency Kit” and I’ve managed to be binge-free for years. But I can’t go to sleep with my stomach empty, and if I don’t eat a  “Binge Emergency Kit,” I have to have at least an apple or two.

It is estimated that 6 million Americans suffer from NES or “Nighttime Eating Syndrome.” One third are obese and turn nighttime snacking into a binge. If you search the Internet for advice on how to stop nighttime eating, you will find different suggestions from “eat your breakfast” to “buy supplements to stop nighttime eating.” But these are written by thin doctors who don’t have a clue what we feel after 9 p.m. My suggestion is not to fight this urge to eat before sleep. Accept it and live with it; you’re not alone. But don’t go into a binge, don’t eat refined carbs or any carbs at all. Instead, follow my advice and eat fruits (or fruits & nuts or seeds), have a cup of tea or eat a mini “Binge Emergency Kit.” Since I started to eat Superfoods chocolate every afternoon, I don’t crave sweets in the evening. My wife was shocked the first few times she saw me making a coffee after 10 p.m. and then eat 2 apples with that coffee, which was just before my bedtime, and then find me sleeping like a log 5 minutes later.