Night time binging?

[AlainaNYC]

Anyone have trouble with overeating at night?

I have been doing IF for quite some time now and it works well for me. I am a law student and very busy during the day - I have very little time in between classes and taking barre exercise classes. I usually have fruit and raw veggies during the day and a large veggie centric dinner at night... then usually have a post dinner snack, or two. This habit is one of the main reasons that I am doing the April Whole30, and it is going very well so far! I am still doing IF but I am having three meals a day usually around 12pm, 3pm and 7pm. My main change has been adding more protein and fats during my earlier meals and making my dinner more satiating so that I can be more full after my dinner meal. However, despite these changes, I do feel like I am more hungry at night and crave something sweet after dinner.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!  

[frogtox]

Seems to me your meals are too close together. All three meals within a 7 hour timeframe is different than the 4-5 hours between meals that's recommended. Shifting them around so that they're more evenly spaced, or eating your first meal sooner or last meal later may help?

[MeadowLily]

http://whole30.com/2015/10/fasting/

Melissa says....

"In addition, most people don’t practice IF the way they’re supposed to. You do it every day, which isn’t very “intermittent.” And you don’t eat anywhere near a day’s worth of calories in your feeding window, because it’s hard to consume that much food in such a short period of time. (This is especially true if you’re also on a Whole30, where everything you’re eating is real food, and therefore incredibly satiating." 

 

Here's more good discussion about IF from Melissa.

 

http://forum.whole30.com/topic/43314-adaptation/#comment-444932

 

[MeadowLily]

IF, practiced every day, is simply skipping meals.   If the eating window is open for biz later in the day  - you are actually eating when the metabolism and body rhythms are naturally slowing down. This happens in the afternoon around 3-4 pm and on into the evening.

Eating all food within that 7 hour window doesn't help your blood sugar either.  

You've been doing IF for quite some time but your post title says night time binging. That indicates that it's not working that well.  This will dig a further hole with the blood sugar and over time, give you diminishing returns.   

Follow the W30 as outlined through rules, recs and Melissa's guidelines.  It's the way to find healing with your hormones and establish  a good relationship with food. 

 

[AlainaNYC]

Thanks for the advice! I will definitely try to spread my meals out a bit more (this will be easier next year when I am working and not a struggling student!)

[SugarcubeOD]

Are you eating meals to the template?  It's already been posted that we do not encourage IF during the Whole30 so I would encourage you to follow the meal timing recommendations.

Wanting to eat at night or binging tells me that you're not eating enough.  Being busy isn't really an excuse, there are a lot of people that do the Whole30 who have very richly scheduled lives... it's a matter of making time to plan and prep so that you're getting the best out of these 30 days that you can.

[ArtFossil]

1 hour ago, SugarcubeOD said:

Being busy isn't really an excuse, there are a lot of people that do the Whole30 who have very richly scheduled lives... it's a matter of making time to plan and prep so that you're getting the best out of these 30 days that you can.

When people ask me if I'm busy, I'm now going to say that I have a very richly scheduled life. 

It takes very little time to eat three meals a day, at say a 7 AM /1 PM /7 PM schedule. Think of it as nonnegotiable—like breathing or going to the bathroom . . .

[KarenP]

18 hours ago, ArtFossil said:

When people ask me if I'm busy, I'm now going to say that I have a very richly scheduled life. 

Hahahaha  I love it!  I'm going to do the same. 

[AlainaNYC]

Thanks for all of the advice - I have been told again and again do not eat when you are not hungry. I usually do not feel hungry until late afternoon - well this is what I thought. However, I think that I just do not think about eating and am so busy thinking about other things that I do not listen to what my body is saying - probably that it is time for a meal. I am always scared that if I eat in the early afternoon I will still eat too much at night and will just gain weight. So far on the whole30 I am learning that this is wrong. I have been having meals at 11am 3pm and 7pm and distributing my food more evenly has helped me eat less at night. I am still not super hungry around 11 - but I have some veggies protein and fat so when 8pm arrives I am not still hangry after dinner. 

 

 

[MeadowLily]

No one can replace the wisdom that  Tom Denham gave this forum.  Without further ado....

 

"Most people lose weight during a Whole30. Eating only healthy foods tends to make that happen. However, the Whole30 is not a weight loss program, it is a health improvement program. It really works best if you focus on trying to improve your health and let the weight take care of itself.

Therefore, it takes some trust on your part that this program is good for you and will yield good results. Unfortunately, if you focus on weight loss, you can mess up your Whole30 and either slow weight loss or hurt your health.

The key to this program is eating as much as is recommended in the meal template. Eat breakfast within one hour of waking.

If you try to speed weight loss by eating less food or less fat, it interferes with your hormones achieving a normal, healthy balance and often backfires. Here is a link to the meal template... http://whole9life.com/book/ISWF-Meal-Planning-Template.pdf

Do not count points, track calories, or weigh your food. The replacement for that behavior is following the meal template and paying attention to your feelings. If you try to do both, you will fail at following the meal template and paying attention to your feelings. They may not seem your best choice now, but they really are what works for a lifetime of health and happiness.

I lost weight with this program starting in May of 2010. I lost 2 pounds per month for 15 months in a row. I ate lots of food and was never hungry. I made the mistake of trying to speed the process by skipping some meals.

Back in 2010, stepping on a scale was not forbidden. What I discovered is that I sometimes gained weight on days I skipped meals. I don't understand why. I also tried to speed weight loss by exercising more than usual.

I would add a 5K run to my ordinary workout. That did not make me lose weight faster either. Finally after a few months, I settled down and just followed the program. I kept losing weight until I was down 30 pounds. I went from 215 to 185. 185 was my goal weight. I wondered if I would keep losing weight when I reached it. Curiously enough, I got down to 184 one day, but never lost more. I kept eating exactly the same, but stopped losing weight.

Today, I weigh 195, but I am much more muscular than I was before. I have not had my body fat measured, but I suspect I remain as lean as ever, but when I started lifting heavy weights, my chest, arms, and legs got bigger. This program really works if you will let it.

Just give it time."

[MeadowLily]

Breakfast, lunch and dinner do the body good. But what about a late dinner, midnight snack and middle-of-the night munching?

Research consistently shows that people who eat late at night weigh more than those who eat all of their food earlier in the day. For example, people who eat most of their food at night have higher body mass indexes than people who eat earlier in the day, according to a 2007 study published in the International Journal of Obesity. 

But what is it about nighttime that makes the fat pack on?

Nothing Good Happens After 10 p.m.

“Over the years, I have reviewed research that says that only the total caloric intake ingested over the day matters,” says board-certified bariatric physician Dr. Caroline Cederquist. “I think this is the real crux of the issue. At midnight, people will rarely make chicken and salad. They will eat ice cream or chips, the high-fat or high-sugar foods that our bodies store so effectively as fat.”

In fact, in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition study, nighttime eaters ate 12 percent more calories than those who ate only throughout the day. And in the International Journal of Obesity study, nighttime eaters participated in more binge-eating behaviors than those who didn’t eat after dinner.

 

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/health-wellness/articles/2015/06/26/will-eating-at-night-really-make-you-gain-weight

[AlainaNYC]

Very interesting! Unfortunately a late dinner is often my only choice - evening  classes. But I plan on a snack before class and a light late dinner.