Well, how not to eat at night. Proper nutrition to eliminate food at night

Night binge - serious problem which keeps many girls awake at night. Experts say that a raid on the refrigerator at night is psychological problem buried deep in the subconscious. And since this is a problem, it must be dealt with.

In addition, such nightly snacks do not carry anything useful - not only does the activity of the stomach and intestines decrease at night, and the food remains poorly digested, the food eaten is also deposited in excess fat and cellulite. Today we decided to understand the question - "How to stop eating at night?".

In 1955, doctors studied in detail such a phenomenon as "night gluttony" and came to the conclusion that it is characteristic of people who suffer from a disorder. eating behavior, indecisiveness, weakness of will, frequent stress And hormonal failure. The problem was even given scientific name- night eating syndrome and developed a whole "rescue plan".

Protein diet. Experts advise eating foods with great content protein - milk and dairy products, meat, fish, poultry, eggs, plants, legume families, seeds and nuts. Thanks to the protein, the body produces serotonin and endorphins, which align hormonal balance and you will beat the stress of the night without overeating.

Mandatory breakfast. Experts say that breakfast is one of the most important tricks food, so it should be dense. Make sure your morning meal is up to 30% daily rate calories. Ideally, for breakfast you need to eat porridge with nuts and dried fruits, scrambled eggs with vegetables or sandwiches.

Work out the mode. Try to eat dinner no later than four hours before bedtime and do not do it in the evening physical exercise. The fact is that the body warmed up by physical education requires reinforcement, which is why you run to the refrigerator at night instead of fully sleeping. Drink plenty of water throughout the day, and put a glass of water by your bed before bed to prevent the temptation to get up at night and head to the kitchen for another meal. Spend as much time as possible fresh air and do yoga. It is yoga that helps to find a balance between you and the world around you, as well as to find peace and balance.

Fractional nutrition. Nutritionists advise eating little, but often - this is not only good for the body, but also prevents night snacks. You will develop a healthy eating habit that you will follow without being reminded. It is recommended to eat every 3 hours for 200 g. Try it, and you will definitely notice that you are not drawn to eat at night.

Sweets for joy. After dinner, you can enjoy some light dessert. It could be anything: natural yogurt with fruit, fruit salad, jelly, cocktails, fruit, ice cream, cottage cheese, meringue, marmalade, marshmallow, marshmallow, sorbet, creme brulee, cottage cheese casserole. In general, do not deny yourself a treat, then after midnight you will not want to eat.

Keep yourself busy with something interesting. Don't feel like you have to put something in your mouth before going to sleep to fall asleep. Better get the most out of your evening pastime - read a book, watch a good movie, meet friends and enjoy your vacation. Psychologists believe that pleasant memories of the evening will kill the desire to eat at night. You can also often imagine in detail the harm that a night snack brings.

Fraudulent maneuver. If you really want to eat before bed or at night, use the blende. Before going to bed, you can drink a glass of kefir, carrot juice or tea with lemon and lemon balm. These drinks help reduce appetite and have a beneficial effect on the health of the body.

Say no to the smell of food in the apartment in the evenings! The smell of food has been proven to stimulate appetite. If you even cooked in the evening, ventilate the kitchen well and use the hood. You can use an air freshener or spritz yourself with perfume to cover up the smell of cooking.

But sometimes at night you find yourself near the refrigerator with a sausage sandwich in your hand? Nutritionists urge you to stay calm - you are not alone.

Very often, restrictive eating patterns lead to episodes of compulsive overeating, which happens about twice as often at night as during the day. And not to mention the fact that such a behavior pattern prevents you from getting rid of extra pounds, it can have serious consequences for good health.

Study American Association heart rate (American Heart Association), published in the journal Circulation, shows that adult working people most often skip full meals. At the same time, 20-30% of them refuse breakfast, the energy potential of which is difficult to overestimate. Instead, they snack on the run, eat dry food and eat food almost around the clock, forgetting about such a thing as diet.

The good news is that the bad habit of eating late at night can be overcome. Below are strategies that really work (you just have to gather willpower into a fist and start acting).

1. Eat Regularly

The habit of eating at night arises from the lack of food during the day, and you should think about it first of all. Prepare in advance not only meals for the office, but also homemade healthy snacks that will help you cope with cravings for chips and cookies (for example, fresh diced fruit and carrot slices). Train yourself to follow the schedule: the norm is 4-5 meals during the day. As soon as you stop eating once a day, increasing the number of meals to at least three, the result will not be long in coming.

2. Decide on the final line

In fact, the habit of "not eating after 6 pm" can be helpful. Of course, only if you set realistic boundaries. In particular, you should refuse food 1.5-2 hours before bedtime, so if you know for sure that today you will go to bed no earlier than 2.00, in light dinner at 00.00 there will be nothing to worry about. Why just two hours? Nutrition experts point out that this is exactly the time our intestines need to fully digest food (provided, of course, that you did not dine on a burger with two patties and fries). And this, in turn, ensures that your sleep will be sound and restful.

3. Give yourself time

If you always feel hungry at night, and it's not about impulsive "raid on the refrigerator", then always give yourself 10-15 minutes before starting a late dinner. Ask yourself if you are really hungry, or if something is bothering you right now and you are using food as a way to deal with stress.

If the second option seems appropriate, type hot bath with foam and turn on your favorite music - this should help. By the way, thirst often disguises itself as hunger, so be sure to drink a glass of water before eating. Did not help? Obviously, you are really hungry. However, all the same 15 minutes will help to make an informed decision. So now your plate will be fish and vegetables, not fried potatoes.

4. Plan your evening snack

If you tend to get up early and, as a result, have dinner early too, it's no surprise that you want to eat in the middle of the night. The solution here is this: plan a healthy late dinner in advance: for example, an omelet with vegetables or oatmeal co fresh fruit. good option if it's cold outside, there will be a plate chicken broth with a piece of bread. The main thing is that it should be a product that gives you pleasure, but is easy to digest.

5. Follow the rules

Eating something from a bag or box while sitting in front of the TV is a classic situation. Meanwhile, the same scene illustrates ideal conditions for mindless eating. To cope with a bad habit, set your own rules for eating behavior. So, when you're thinking about what to bring to the TV as part of a "movie night", put only a small portion of the snack on your plate, and don't even touch the rest. Well, and, of course, gradually wean yourself from breakfast, lunch and dinner in front of the TV or in the company of gadgets. This will help you get real pleasure from eating, and at the same time provide a prolonged feeling of fullness, which will reduce the number of nightly "attacks" on the refrigerator to a minimum.

Night snacks or late plentiful dinners but the health and well-being of a person are negatively affected, they threaten an increase in body weight, sleep disturbances and other failures. Subject to the regime of the day and nutrition, following simple rules, you can gradually unlearn eating at night, switch to more healthy lifestyle life.

Causes of night hunger

The habit of night and evening snacks, as a rule, is developed and fixed in a person against the background of violation of the rules. balanced nutrition during the day, hormonal disruptions. Emotional factors, eating disorders also influence. The desire to eat before bed is provoked by:

• stress, the desire to relax, to enjoy after a hard day at work with an intense rhythm of life (with eating disorders associated with "emotional hunger", the habit of "jamming");
• malnutrition during the day (malnutrition, lack of calories in the diet, long breaks between meals, causing you to overeat and get fat);
• hormonal imbalance or other physiological disorders metabolism (failures in the metabolism of sex hormones, the production of melatonin, leptin, insulin, affecting the appearance of hunger and body fat).

How to stop eating at night

Starting not to overeat in the evening and at night should follow the principles of a balanced diet. healthy eating during the day, correction of the regime of the day, behavioral habits. If the measures do not help, you can use psychological tricks and techniques. Nuances:

1. You won't get instant results. The process of correcting any established habit takes three weeks (21 days) or more, subject to regular adherence to new nutritional rules.
2. Nutritionists recommend that the final meal be in the form of a small snack (a glass of kefir, an apple) no later than an hour and a half before going to bed.
3. The time of the main dinner is until 19.00-19.30 (depending on the daily routine, work schedule).

Diet Tricks

You can stop eating at night by following the recommendations of nutritionists and endocrinologists regarding general regime nutrition, rules for compiling daily diet. So you get rid of snacks at night, plus stop gaining weight, improve the functioning of the digestive system. Effective:

• A complete and varied diet throughout the day enough calories, no long breaks.
• Compliance with the water regime. Lack of fluid is sometimes perceived as hunger. The recommended minimum is from 1.5 liters of plain water (depending on weight).
• Make a menu for dinner in advance and from low-cost products. glycemic index(to avoid spikes in blood glucose that trigger hunger pangs).
• Plan a light, low-calorie snack an hour or two before bedtime.
• Give up sweet soda, fast food, others harmful products during the day (to avoid spikes in sugar levels).
• Eliminate spices, reduce the amount of salt in the diet, give up tea with sweets, and other harmful snacks.

Behavioral Methods

Changes in behavior and occupation help control and prevent the urge to eat before bed. evening time. There are such methods:

• Replacing evening TV viewing with a walk before bedtime, playing with children, caring for animals, and other active and distracting activities.
• Taking a relaxing bath at night (no more than 20 minutes in time).
• Going to bed 2.5-3 hours after dinner. With a longer break, the feeling of hunger is guaranteed.
• Brush your teeth not only at night, before going to bed, but also after dinner and the last snack.

Psychological tricks

To control eating behavior, it is important not to follow stereotypes. Learning not to eat after 6 p.m. is not the smartest goal. It is necessary to eat in the evening and at other times of the day so that at night you are not drawn to the refrigerator. Warn or stop sudden attacks night hunger will help psychological techniques:

• self-hypnosis, auto-training, self-hypnosis (light trance);
• relaxing meditations;
• motivating photos on the fridge (if you are on a diet);
• aromatherapy with essential oils.

Exceptions to the rules

One and a half to two hours before going to bed, you can have a light snack if you know that for some reason you will have to go to bed late, and more than 5-6 hours will pass between the main dinner and going to bed. Plan his menu in advance - it can be a glass of kefir with whole grain bread, fruit, a little vegetable salad or low-fat cottage cheese.

But what if food constantly…interrupts all sleep? with permanent or periodic attacks starvation, worsening at night, faced many of us. As a rule, they end in "remissions", but resume when various problems. Violation of the diet, overwork, lack of physical activity - and as a result, it is not possible to fall asleep due to an acute feeling of hunger. Some wake up in the middle of the night with a wolf appetite, but in truth, this happens less often.

How to stop eating at night: a bad habit

The Habit of Raiding the Refrigerator late at night you can't really call it normal. But appetite arises suddenly and pursues us inevitably. He almost never backs down on his own and almost always defeats common sense. Its short-term effects - insomnia, guilt and deep remorse for what they have done, long-term - overweight And chronic disorders digestive functions.

In addition, if you want to lose weight, you need to monitor not only the number of calories and quality of food, but also the timing of meals. Allow yourself to eat only during daylight hours - then you will achieve great success. And if you have a habit of eating at night, first of all, you need to establish the cause of these “attacks”, and then learn how to cope with them.

How to stop eating at night: in search of the cause of appetite

If nightly raids on the refrigerator have become a habit, it is necessary to determine the cause of their occurrence - this will help to quickly cope with nightly bouts of hunger and allow you to stop eating at night. Physiological processes The mechanisms underlying this phenomenon are not yet fully understood, but most likely, substances that regulate reward mechanisms in the brain, such as “hunger” hormones and some other hormone-like substances, take part in it. Often we get up to eat at night, not because we are hungry, but because of stress or jet lag. And what else can make us eat at night?

How to stop eating at night: adjust biorhythms

As it has already become clear, in most cases of night overeating, disruptions in biorhythms are to blame. Numerous studies have shown that most people find themselves most productive either early in the day or late in the evening - a preference that is known in science as the "chronotype". Indeed, many studies have studied the effects of chronotypes, but up to now, no one has been looking for the reasons for these differences. And only recently it became clear what distinguishes "larks" and "owls". New research shows that night owls are not to blame for not being able to wake up in the morning because they have been awake all night: they are simply genetically predisposed to be more productive at night.

Melatonin supplements, which are already widely used, and new drugs could also help people "get over" their chronotype. Although it sounds a bit intimidating, it could prevent whole line diseases such as obesity and depression - these have repeatedly been associated with "malfunctions" in our internal clock.

How to stop eating at night: take into account the seasonal factor

However, failures occur not only in circadian rhythms - seasonal rhythms are also often violated: the need to reduce activity and gain more calories during the cold period is caused both historically and physiologically. After all, for many centuries our ancestors considered their life not in years - in years. From plowing to harvest lasted active life, the winters seem to have been waiting out, spilling over. In our case, everything turns out exactly the opposite. In the summer, we are eager to go on vacation to the gentle sea, and we earn money for this luxury just in autumn and winter. But in nature, this is a period of hibernation. Our body, in step with all nature, falls into light suspended animation - the metabolism slows down, work begins in an energy-saving mode. The shortened daylight hours seem to dictate: "Eat and rest!"

Indeed, from increased sleepiness and attacks of nocturnal hunger in winter period suffer where more people. Moreover, men endure this condition more severely, while women have higher adaptive abilities of the body. There is even such a diagnosis: seasonal affective disorder. It is associated with a lack white light is the spectrum characteristic of sun rays, ordinary electric light does not replace it. Our eyes are directly connected to the brain. And if there is not enough white light, then there is a state of drowsiness, weakness, depression.

Lack of light is not the only cause of this phenomenal syndrome. Becomes fewer vitamins. This is also fraught with weakness, lethargy, and a decrease in pressure. One more important factor winter sleepiness: we sleep longer, but... we don't get enough sleep. Sleep experts call this problem poor-quality night sleep. Trying to keep warm, many tightly close windows until spring. As a result, the air in the bedroom stagnates - stuffy, and during sleep we do not get enough oxygen. Another unpleasant factor: hot radiators and heaters dry out the air, which creates very uncomfortable conditions for sleeping. There should be enough air and light in the room: open the windows, part the curtains or turn on the electricity. Moreover, if you are particularly acutely suffering from a lack of sun, purchase special lamps that give light of the solar spectrum, and your health will quickly and noticeably improve, and the regime will improve, and you will stop robbing the refrigerator at night.

How to stop eating at night: a turn-based strategy

So, with the reasons, everything more or less became clear, and, of course, we tried to eliminate them, or at least correct them. But what to do when hunger still wakes up at night with (un)enviable regularity?

1. First of all, you need to establish a clear daily routine and eat at the same hours. Use the 10-minute rule to train yourself to wake up normally in the morning. It's very simple: set your alarm clock 10 minutes earlier every day. As a result, in a week you will be able to get up an hour earlier without straining your body. It is also worth trying to follow the basic principle fractional nutrition- eat small portions 4-5 times a day: as a rule, this quickly rearranges the body so that it stops waking you up at night with a feeling of hunger.

2. At the same time, you need to increase physical activity(especially if you work in an office). In the morning and during the day, do a light workout, as well as exercise daily or several times a week.

3. You should not immediately go to the table after coming home from work: a sandwich intercepted at such moments saturates for a while, but after that it only provokes nightly bouts of hunger. Arriving home, you need to relax in silence for 15-20 minutes or take a shower - and only then start preparing and eating a full dinner.

4. folk wisdom advises to give dinner to the enemy. Don't listen! Don't deprive yourself of dinner. The popular principle of “no eating after six” leads to the fact that the feeling of hunger does not allow you to fall asleep or wakes you up in the middle of the night. In order not to risk your figure and health, you should eat 3-4 hours before going to bed. Dinner should include a combination of protein, vegetables and complex carbohydrates(nuts, legumes, berries, fruits). Light dinner you can eat 2-3 hours before bedtime, but be sure to exclude sweets and soda from it. Just try to eat more vegetables for dinner - they are rich in fiber, which helps slow down digestion, which means a feeling of satiety.

5. After dinner, arrange a walk in the fresh air for 20-30 minutes, and after it, just before going to bed, it will be useful to drink a cup of fragrant herbal tea with soothing herbs(for example, such a combination has proven itself well: chamomile, linden, lemon balm, valerian). Improves the quality of sleep and contrast showers.

6. You should try to go to bed early: if you fall asleep before midnight, night hunger attacks will not have time to occur after dinner, and your sleep will be stronger. It takes the average person about 6-8 hours to fully control their appetite. good sleep every night.

7. If the feeling of hunger is so acute that it does not allow you to fall asleep, willpower will not help here - in this case, you should not torture yourself. It is better to drink half a glass of water and wait 10-15 minutes. If hunger persists, you can eat some low-fat yogurt or cottage cheese, or drink a glass of milk with honey.

And one more thing: if you can’t cope with nighttime bouts of hunger in one evening, you can’t reproach yourself and limit food all the next day. This contributes to the development of feelings of guilt and dissatisfaction and returns to the problem of stress eating.

In his youth, when an ardent young man sits in front of a computer until five in the morning, nibbling pizza with horse doses of Coca-Cola, obesity often bypasses him. This usually happens because a young, growing organism, moreover, weakened by insomnia and the same computer, is not ready to turn into a ruddy fat man. For this reason, many people cease to be afraid of late meals, and in vain: by the age of thirty, it will be a serious source of concern for a sports figure, even among former skinny young men.

We will show you how to fight this horror that awaits us in the darkness of the night. But I want to immediately dispel the popular myth that eating after six is ​​harmful: this is very, very wrong! In reality, you need to calculate the time of dinner in such a way that you have time to digest it just before bedtime. That is two or three hours before bedtime you have full right have a good meal with something easy to digest. And it’s better to do just that so that an attack of hunger does not twist you when you have already buried your nose in the pillow.

So, if you are used to going to bed at one in the morning, you can safely transfer dinner to 11 p.m., just make sure that it contains no more than 30% of your daily calories.

If you are still drawn to the refrigerator in the middle of the night, then you need to understand whether you want to eat from real hunger, or simply from nothing to do, out of habit. This is easy to check with a regular apple. Take it in your hand and think, do you want to eat it? If the answer is “Yes!”, then you are really hungry, if the answer is “No, some tasty sandwich is better”, you really don’t want to eat. In the second case, we observe a psychological, emotional hunger. That is, contrived.

Psychological hunger usually comes on suddenly, like a revelation, like an irresistible desire to eat something tasty, spicy or salty. It can come even if you had a hearty dinner not so long ago.

Many try to extinguish this stimulus with some activity or surrogate action (usually smoking, but it is not sporting to do so). It is allowed to fill the stomach with something low-calorie - for example, drink a tablespoon of polyphepam. Some rescues the usual chewing gum. But the main thing is discipline and a strict diet schedule.

The banal absence of mouth-watering temptations in the refrigerator helps a lot. Indeed, if you keep a minimum living wage there, so that at three in the morning you could find only two lonely carrots there, then the problem will disappear by itself. Destroy all the most delicious and satisfying breakfast and lunch! Many nutritionists especially focus on, since it is a competent morning start that determines your appetite for the whole day.

Except unbalanced diet(too much sugar flour products), the basis of night hunger can be stress. How to beat stress repeatedly.

Purely psychologically, an elementary trick works well - brush your teeth at night. Then every thought about food will be accompanied by torment that you will have to clean them again.

We have already mentioned above a surrogate action - something that can distract or occupy you. After all, most people do things at night that do not interfere with the consumption of food - they watch TV shows, read, sit out time on forums and chats. Both hands and mouth all this time, as luck would have it, are free, and therefore there is an incentive to take up a nightly meal. Now imagine what will happen if you hold an expander in your fist. If you pull the strings of the guitar. Paint. Collect puzzle. It is quite another thing - gradually new habits will replace the old ones, and the night will not bring obesity and nicotine cough, but useless but pleasant skills.

And finally, about the unpleasant - it happens that an unhealthy nighttime appetite is caused by body disorders: gastritis, ulcers, diabetes. In this case, you yourself understand that advice should not be sought on the Internet and not even in the MAXIM magazine, but at the pathologist ... but wait, you made a mistake in the office. To the therapist!