Late Night Munchies 

Let’s talk about 5 reasons for your late night visits to the fridge. 

Reason #1: You don’t eat enough during the day. 

Either you skip meals just grabbing something on the go, or you seriously limit yourself, and don’t get enough nutrients and elements essential for your body. By nighttime, you are so tired that your willpower, self-discipline and aspirations for a healthy lifestyle aren’t able to restrain your urges.

Reason #2: You don’t know any other ways to distract yourself. 

You are bored, sad, lonely, anxious, you don’t like the place you are at, and you don’t have any alternative strategies to reduce the intensity of these feelings. 

You manage to go through the day because you are distracted by different tasks, people and concerns, but at night, it’s as if you’ve got only one option left.

Reason #3: Learned behavior. 

For example, in your family you always had something nice to eat at night, or used to sit down to have tea together, spoil yourself and your loved ones with something delicious after a hard day, talk and exchange news over dinner. And now in your adult life, you’re just replicating this script. 

Reason #4: You limit certain foods.

You crave something but don’t eat it because it’s “bad”, “forbidden”, or “unhealthy” food. 

Restrictions tend to accumulate, and then burst out in uncontrolled binge eating.

Reason #5: You feel physically uncomfortable.

If you are not in touch with your body, you don’t understand, don’t recognize its signals, then you can mix up your needs. For example, you’re actually thirsty, but you mistake your thirst for hunger. Or you are cold, uncomfortable, but you think you need to eat.

It is also possible that you lack energy from physical activity, and the body is trying to get more energy from food. 

Reason #6: You’re overloaded. 

With work, emotions and processes. Speaking metaphorically: you have too many tabs open. 

Your brain gets tired, your mind gets tired, the balance between input and output is broken, the nervous system is overloaded, and it is incredibly difficult to relax and fall asleep under such circumstances.  The fastest and easiest way to solve the problem is to eat.

Can you imagine how many things unrelated to actual hunger can hide behind your late night munchies!

And now imagine what will happen if you start dealing with this issue only using the iron fist method? The cause won’t go away; for some time you will manage it through discipline, but in the end you will find yourself slipping up time and time again. That’s why it is extremely important to work not on the symptom, but on the things that stand behind it.