The Evening Eating Battle -anybody have ideas that help?

Interesting idea! may try that too!

Great Idea! I may try that myself as the evening hunger demons get me too!

Eat spinach. A whole bag of baby spinach is 40 calories. Sprinkle it with salt and pepper and enjoy. If you really want to just eat that will more than satisfy you.

I eat my last meal of the day about 7:45 PM and I don't eat after 8. I drink water non-stop until bed time. If i want something warm and comforting, I have hot tea or coffee.

You didn't say what you are eating, what you eating is more problematic than the fact you eating.

Allow yourself a sugar free Jello or pudding. Very low cal and gives you a snack after dinner. Keep your hands occupied, drink lots of sugar free liquids. You can do this!

If meditating worked instead of eating, being a Buddhist, I'd be a size -6 by now :)

I know my habit is to eat at night, so why not just eat dinner instead of snacking? If my body is genuinely hungry, and it's real and physical hunger, I will always eat. This is something I learned from eating disorder treatment, however it's applicable to others too. The other thing I learned is that we almost never eat when we are hungry in Western culture. We eat for pleasure, boredom, or habit. We eat instead of feeling. If we genuinely followed hunger cues, few of us would be morbidly obese, most likely. I also avoid keeping highly palatable and overly-processed foods at home because these 1) are non-nutritive and do not contribute to health and 2) encourage me to eat passively by their presence. Again, this doesn't work for everyone, which I totally get. We all have to work with our habits and our environment.

One thing that is key for all of us, is to determine why you are snacking. Is it physical hunger or emotional hunger, or just habit? Evening eating is associated with weight gain when it's mindless, and not necessarily if it's meal time. It is probably for many different reasons, which is why you have success sometimes and not others. You are not at fault; you just must uncover the cause beneath the behavior.

Habits can be changed. It isn't easy and requires diligent practice and reinforcement. The first step is to start by working with your habits. It's after we become accustomed to small changes that we can slowly shift them elsewhere.

Using myself as an example: I do best if I eat my first meal after 12p-2p and then eat for the last time by 10pm. While it horrifies many a nutritionist, it means I never basically eat between meals, and I only usually eat 2x a day. At work I will eat 3-4x, smaller meals, because I stress eat at work. Rather than eating Other Food, I just divide my normal meals or bring an extra yogurt, or something. Again, this is not generic advice...it's what works for me and my hunger, and when I revise to a malabsorption procedure I'll have to add an extra meal or two to hit my protein and fat goals. For now this is the sweet spot, though, and it works. Lots of conversations with people, Hala especially, helped me eliminate some foods that were triggering horrible reflux - which also waaaay cut down how many times I eat a day.

Can I ask - what specific foods triggered your and Hala's reflux?

I can't speak for Hala, but in my case, it's all dairy. Only ghee, heavy cream (or fattier), and full-fat yogurt do not cause reflux. Butter i**** or miss, however ghee generally is what I eat anyway. Almost all grains also cause reflux. Also, whenever my carbs get too high, bam, reflux.

There's actually a lot of correlates between GERD and higher carb diets in the obese, but unsure of any causation science-y stuff.

Probiotics help dramatically as well.

Forgot to add, that sometimes we use what are called compensatory behaviors to help us reduce overstimulation that's distressing, so we don't notice the stimulus triggering it.

This is a fancy way of saying, for example, that we eat when we are anxious and then don't feel anxiety because we are eating. The brain, which is both clever and infuriating, goes, "hey, body, pssst. if we do this, we won't be anxious!" Much of behavior actually runs on autopilot to save precious cognitive real estate for more importing things - watching Dr. Who, for instance, and arguing on Reddit about the next companion. Ahem. At any rate, this can apply to frustration, annoyance, irritability, etc. It could be any number of non-emotional things, too.

Your urge to snack is trying to tell you something. The question, is what does it want you to know?

Thank you Donna for this amazing response to the OP's question. I really needed to see this today! I am going to read it again:-)

I can't like your responses enough!