night snacking and other bad habits

so i'm trying to figure out some new ways to deal with my night eating. as in after dinner eating of crap. does anyone else have this problem? what do you about it? i've always been a big snacker and it never really interfered with my weight loss so all the professionals told me it was okay, but i feel like its getting a little out of hand. i'm definitely not hungry and i try to delay dinner as much as possible since it happens after that. i have only "good" food in my house which almost makes it worse. if i just went and bought a krispy kreme when i felt the urge, i'd probably eat less calories than i do by avoiding it - its so not worth it to be bingeing on pria bars, cheerios, cool whip free and 100 calorie packs. i know that this is part of the problem with having only low fat/sugar free/low carb stuff available. anyway, does anyone have any suggestions? i've tried brushing my teeth, chewing gum etc etc but i just end up doing it anyway and brushing my teeth again. i don't do it when others are around as i always have been a secret eater, however, i now live alone so i'm always in secret! any thoughts?

wow 6:30! i'm completely impressed!!! i know setting a time though would really help me. if i could only stick to it....

Because of my late schedule, sometimes I don't eat dinner until after 9:30 at night. I usually don't eat dessert after, because I'm not hungry for it. I go to bed after 11:00 at night. If I do have dessert, it is either no sugar, low fat ice cream or Slim-A-Bear ice cream sandwiches. These are planned snacking, not spontaneous. Because of Overeaters Anonymous, I only (usually) eat what is on my written food plan. When I deviate, I usually write it down, crossing out the original. I do not eat in between meals. Nor do I buy things like cookies, or chips, etc. I didn't use to be able to do this, until I started working my program seriously. For some reason, working the 12 Steps keeps me abstinent (refraining from compulsive overeating). This is my suggestion - join Overeaters Anonymous! Denise Phares

Andrea, Interestingly enough, you didn't mention wanting to stop because of potential weight gain, which I don't see as the problem. It's more a matter of stopping bad habits before they get out of control. Sometimes -- mostly when I am bored -- I find myself eating just because. But again, like you, the stuff I eat is "good". I take a small teaspoon of peanut butter, an apple, sometimes part of a low carb protein bar. But yet the feeling of "grazing" is there, and it's frustrating. I know that for myself I plan a snack for the night. I don't obsess about when I eat it, I just have one rule and that is I have to be hungry before I eat it. I guess perhaps I am inviting you into my obsessive compulsive thought processes. So maybe you should just thank me and not listen. LOL Sorry, before I got to the end I thought it might help. Food issues suck. Donna

hi donna - yes you're right. every time i would go back to my diet program and say my problem was night snacking, the professionals (and other people in the program) would not take me seriously since i was still managing to lose weight. it really has been a problem for me since the beginning of all of this. basically i weigh myself obsessively (like we're talking multiple times a day) to make sure i am "getting away with it." in the past year or so, its been harder to continually get away with it. oh the games we play with ourselves. last time i was at my diet place and talked to the nutritionist, we made a plan to have a protein + carb snack for nightime. i bought individual peanut butters (70 cals) and put it on a piece of double fiber lite bread (40 cals). this worked really well - i think i actually did it up until my surgery. its like i had something to look forward to after dinner. i just need to get back in the habit and eat authetic real food instead of all these convenient snacky 100 calorie things. yes, food issues suck. these are the times for me when i wonder if things would be different if i had had WLS and been forced to not eat crap in the beginning and be unable to overeat in the way that i do. then maybe i would have been forced out of the habit. i don't know.... andrea