Why Am I Craving Sweets At Night?

Ariane, 

here’s yesterday’s food diary. I was eating clean until the evening.  Then I was just so hungry and craving sweets that I had a Weight Watcher ice cream bar and some grapes in my salad.  I have been hungry and craving things like potato chips. Although I have refrained from that, I still want it here and there.

Please let me know your feedback and if I’m on the right track to a fat burning diet.

Thanks, Deborah

Breakfast: Jay Robb Whey Protein Shake – 1 scoop with water

Lunch: 6 oz cooked shrimp with tuscan vegetable medley, 1 box

Dinner: Grilled, skinless chicken breast, 4 oz, with honey mustard dressing, 1 tbsp chopped walnuts
Dessert: 100 grams grapes, 1 Weight Watchers ice cream bar

Deborah, 

the reason you’re caving in in the evenings is because you didn’t eat enough. Not enough breakfast and not enough good carbs to balance your blood sugar. 

You start your day with a shake, which doesn’t have any carbs, so your blood sugar is still low by the time lunch rolls around. A shake is a good snack, but for breakfast you need something that stabilizes your blood sugar after an overnight fast. Either add some carbs (cup of Greek yogurt) or eat 3 eggs or 6 egg-whites with veggies (omelette, egg sandwich, fritatta). The shake would be ideal between breakfast and lunch.



Another big contributor to your hunger is that you barely eat veggies. A few for lunch and none for dinner. Not surprisingly your blood sugar isn’t balanced and you’re hungry for sweets. You have to make sure to eat your fiber or you’ll stay hungry. Even though it’s Weight Watchers, that ice cream isn’t good. It’s loaded with ingredients that don’t fill you up. You shouldn’t even have that in your freezer. Please set yourself up for success and get rid of that junk in your house, so when a craving strikes, it’s not readily accessible. 



Look at your food intake this way. I’ve estimated your nutrients:
Breakfast: 25g protein. 0 carbs
Lunch: 34g protein, 14g carbs
Dinner: 24g protein, 4g carbs
Dessert: 3g protein, 33g carbs

Totals: 86g protein, 51g carbs

Based on your lean mass (muscle) and body fat percentage, you need about 100 grams of protein per day and at least 100-120g of carbs per day. Can you see why you are hungry? You’re not eating enough all day and the majority of your carbs are eaten in the evening in the form of sugar. The lack of good carbs during the day catches up with you at night because your body is lacking nutrients. Your sugar cravings are a sign of low blood sugar and low carb and protein intake. 

You’re getting the right idea, but let’s get you to the next level where you see the difference in your body. 
The key take-aways for you are

·      eat 5 meals a day (add 2 snacks)

·      each meal contains protein about the size and thickness of your palm.  

·      Eat as many veggies as you can to feel full and balance your blood sugar.

·      Stay away from artificial foods, which don’t satiate or signal your body that you ate something sweet. They only increase cravings. 



I totally lost it! Please help!

Ariane, 
i’m writing this email because I’m feeling pretty desperate. I know you have a lot of people emailing you and have helped a lot of people with food issues. And as embarrassing as this is I’m hoping you have a few words of wisdom for me. I’ve been a yo-yo dieter since the age of 16, if not younger, and developed a lot of bad habits. When I was 18 I went on a diet where I ate anything I wanted before 6pm and no food at all after 6pm.  

After a couple of months I was starving by the time 11pm hit and I would make myself go to sleep. At some point I started waking up in the middle of the night from being so hungry. I didn’t eat but just waited until 7am so I could have breakfast.  This “habit” (I honestly don’t know what to call it anymore) developed into something I can’t control and it’s been following me ever since.

Even if I eat enough good food and I don’t go to bed hungry, I wake up in the middle of the night and start eating (I’m awake and I’m aware of myself, but not aware enough to stop myself from eating). I always binge on foods I would never touch during the day. It can be a 3-week old bagel or some cake, which I don’t even crave during days. By the time I know I shouldn’t have done this it’s too late.  I just feel I’m not in control of myself. It hasn’t happened to me in a few months. It comes periodically and it can last a week or can happen once a week or once a month every 6 months. 

And for some reason this week I did get my period but I’m not hungry. I increased my veggies for dinner because that’s usually the time I’m really hungry.  I have not been going to bed hungry. For some reason I woke up at 3 am starving and  I grabbed a 3-week old bagel and an apple and blueberries. I just feel so out of control with this because for the past half a week I’ve been so good and actually happy with the way I’ve been eating and exercising on my own in addition to slim and strong classes. 

I know you are not a psychiatrist but I’m hoping maybe you heard of something like this. I just don’t know what to do. I’m not letting it stop me from what I want to accomplish. I’m just staying low carb today and I signed up for your 90 min class to hopefully burn it off. 

V. 
source: http://www.scenicreflections.com/media/239834/Devil_and_Angel_in_Love_Wallpaper/

Dear V. 

Alright. Deep breath. 
First of all: what is a 3-week old bagel doing in your house?

I’m not sure whether what you’re experiencing is night-time-eating syndrome or whether you’re just depriving yourself so much that you are waking up hungry and then binge eat to make up for the perceived deprivation. 

Regardless of what we want to call this, here’s how you want to go about dealing with it:

First,  throw out old food and anything that sabotages you. Why keep it around if you know you’re going to eat it? Don’t pretend it won’t be touched. If it’s around the next weak moment you’ll cave in. 

Secondly, eat 5 regular meals and eat every 3-4 hours. Make sure you have protein at every meal to feel full. If you’re hungry at dinner time then chances are you didn’t eat enough breakfast and lunch. Your dinner should be the lightest meal of the day. Drink a lot of water all day long. Don’t confuse hunger with thirst.

Most importantly: stop feeling guilty about it. So what – you ate a bagel!
Move on and stop beating yourself up over it. It’s just a bagel and not the end of the world but you make it sound like you ate the devil. You are giving food so much power over you that it’s no surprise that you feel out of control. The goal is also not to control food, but to enjoy it. Food is nourishment. It’s not there to be controlled. It’s supposed to make you feel good, healthy and energized and not guilty and terrible. The more you demonize certain foods, the more you’ll want them. You know the power of the closed door with the “Do Not Enter” sign, right? 

Try this for the next couple days: say to yourself the following (and revise or add as you please): “I am now perfectly happy with eating my protein and vegetables. I no longer have a need for any food that is making me feel bad. I sleep through the night and wake up relaxed and refreshed. I am calm, relaxed and quiet. I take good care of my body and eat only foods that nourish and energize me. I have absolutely no desire for junk or foods that make me feel lethargic and unhealthy….”

Speaking yourself in a positive and calming way will make you feel more relaxed about your food choices and about having made some not so ideal choices. Everyone falls off the wagon sometimes. What matters is how quickly you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and move on. As long as you beat yourself up over not being perfect (who is anyways…?), the more you’ll continue this crazy cycle of deprivation and bingeing. 

Your brain is simply responding to the deprivation you’re putting yourself through and is trying to create some balance. It’s like having the angel (wanting veggies and protein) sitting on your left shoulder and the devil on the right (asking for that old bagel) and they’re both telling you what to do. You have to be the one who finds the balance between the extremes and knows when to eat clean and when to enjoy a cheat meal indulgence so neither of the extremes will ever get the upper hand. 

Calm yourself down and talk to yourself nicely. The part of you that eats like a starving dinosaur at night is the part that’s afraid of you ending up a starved skeleton. The intention behind the night-time binge is a good one, but the execution isn’t a poor. Make that part of you that feels restricted aware of the fact that you are living a balanced lifestyle and not a restricted lifestyle or it will kick back in and make you binge eat.

Take it easy, girl, and be nice to yourself. If your best friend talked to you the way you speak to yourself I bet she wouldn’t be your friend much longer…

ariane