I Get Hungry At Night

[terrychris]

im currently on a diet,have only lost 2 kg in 6 weeks despite heavy exercising with a personal trainer.

he goes thru my diet and tells me its my late evening eating that is the problem.

i have my dinner about 6pm/7pm

but by 9pm i start eating and craving cheese and tomato on toast and end up eating 4 or so.

the personal trainer told me if i get hungry go to bed and sleep,all easy said.

he then tells me nearly everyday i must eat at least 4 hours before having sleeptime so the energy can be used up not sleeping after eating.

acc.ording to him.

is there any food i can maybe eat at night after my dinner,my personal trainer says its all in my mind and im not really hungry just greedy.

he says if i get really hungry to eat some cauliflower or broccoli but who wants to eat that as a snack

I s thre re any truth in eating before bed can put weight on.

the funy thing is that i starved myself all day last wednesday so i cold eat 2 pizzas garlic bread and coca cola,i ordered this about 9pm,had nothing to eat all day so ate this AND the next day at the gym i weighed nearly a kilo more.im ready to give up dieting.

Edited July 1, 2011 by terrychris

[Sheryl]

"...my personal trainer says its all in my mind and im not really hungry just greedy."

Your personal trainer may know something about fitness, but he is extremely uninformed about eating disorders.

Night Eating Syndrome (NES) is a very common factor in obesity and is certainly not a matter of simple "greed". It is a genuine physiological craving for food late at night which has been linked to hormonal imbalances (melatonin and leptin)and may also have a genetic component; it also often co-exists with various sleep disturbances and may be linked to them.

NES is closey linked to weight problems, but as you have already discovered, will power alone is often not enough to address this problem. If you Google it, you'll find tons of "tips" online but I have to say that none of them worked for me. What has helped in my case is low dose metformin, a drug which regulates insulin levels; I started on it when I developed "pre-diabetes". Whether or not it would be appropriate for you is something you should discuss with your physician. If you haven't recently had tests of your fasting blood glucose and lipids, you should, as this would inform that decision.

[sbk]

Interesting, my dad has always gotten hungry in the middle of the night, ever since I can remember and has had difficulty sleeping for about 15 years now. Is there a link between the two Sheryl?

[Sheryl]

Yes. NES is considered a hybrid eating/ sleep disorder. People with it can't go to sleep without eating immediately before hand (irregardless of how large a dinner they may have had), suffer food cravings at bedtime, and some also get up during the night to eat. It often coexists with various sleep disturbances.

[Tolley]

Maybe you are not eating enough protein in your evening meal especially if you are exercising a lot.

Also there is nothing wrong with having a snack at 9 but there is something wrong if you have to eat heaps.

There are a host of reasons why you might be hungry including digestive disorders and emotional problems.

You need to see a nutritional expert first off and if that doesn't work you need to look at other options.

[AyG]

Firstly, starving yourself then binging on unhealthy food is not good for you. The reason in simple terms you put on 1 kg is that when you diet you first burn up the glycogen (a kind of carbohydrate) stored in your liver and muscles. After that you can start burning fat. As soon as you start eating excess carbohydrate the glycogen builds up again in your liver. Glycogen itself stores a lot of water, and this accounts for your weight increase. You are sabotaging your diet.

You're getting hungry in the evening is either psychological as others have suggested, or it's because your blood sugar level is dropping. Make sure that your evening meal includes lots of slow release carbohydrates such as brown rice, lentils and other beans, oats, whole grain bread etc.. For more about this have a look at http://www.glycemic-index.org/slow-carbs.html

Keep a bag of carrot batons, cucumber sticks and celery sticks in the fridge. If you need to snack after dinner (or at any time during the day) eat these to fill you up. Some people find that drinking a couple of glasses of water helps because it fills the stomach.

And yes, it's true that eating before bed tends to put on weight because the food which hasn't been fully digested will tend to be put down as fat because your body thinks you don't need the energy right now if you're asleep. That said, if you're not eating a meal with too much fat in it eating 2 1/2 hours before bed is probably fine. (Fat slows down digestion.)

[JuliaThazinMayerhofer]

Congratulations on your weight loss. <br><br>Have you ever thought that the problem might be connected to what you are eating during the day? Also I might be that you are having the "wrong" food for dinner which makes you crave for more - you need to differ between psychological hunger and physical hunger? I have a lot of experience with dieting and working out - made a lot of mistakes in the past and learned my lessons. I had a very similar problem in the past, I actually got it completely under control by sticking to a strict low-carb diet which loads of protein (which also helps me to stay full). If I still go hungry at night I would have cottage cheese, a protein shake or low-fat yogurt - all of those options are good for recovery and cottage cheese for example contains casein which is a slow-digesting protein and the body can use it during the night.<br><br>Hope this helps <br>