How to Stop Food Cravings at Night

Food cravings can be made worse by actual hunger, in which case providing yourself with healthy snacks or a filling, healthy dinner can help you resist. Other times, we just want to eat for the pleasure of eating. In these cases, focus on helping yourself sleep, distracting yourself, or training yourself to resist triggers that cause this desire. In many cases, both of these factors are involved, and you can take steps to combat them on both fronts.

Steps

Changing Your Diet

1. Eat healthy protein for dinner. Protein gives you long-term energy and can keep you full for a long time. While not all cravings are caused directly by hunger, a full belly can make them easier to resist. Include a healthy protein in your evening meal, such as:
   
   
   
   • Lean poultry or fish
   • Nuts or seeds
   • Peas, lentils or beans.
2. Include fiber in your diet. Dietary fiber takes a long time to digest and has few calories by volume. Eating plenty of vegetables and fruit can keep you full for longer without compromising your healthy diet. High-fiber cereals low in sugar are also a good option.
   
   
   
3. Reduce sugar and simple carbohydrates. High-sugar foods cause a sudden rise in your blood sugar, followed by a sudden crash. This crash can leave you feeling tired and hungry, causing food cravings or making them more difficult to resist. Simple carbohydrates found in white rice, white bread, white pasta, and most pizza crusts quickly break down into sugar after they are eaten, and have a similar effect.
   
   
   
   • Replace these with complex carbohydrates, found in whole grain bread or pasta, brown rice, and green vegetables.
4. Consider eating small meals throughout the day. If you can't stop your cravings, plan around them. Reduce the size of your lunch and dinner, and add healthy snack times between meals and after dinner to make up for it. Some people eat as many as six small meals a day, making it difficult for hunger to take hold and lead to bad decisions.
   
   
   

Taking Other Steps to Prevent Night Cravings

1. Get to sleep earlier. The earlier you get to sleep, the less time you'll have to get hungry after dinner. Also, if you stay awake until you are exhausted, it can be difficult to make wise decisions. If you are having trouble adjusting to an earlier schedule, try these tips:
   
   
   
   • Purchase a red light bulb, since red light increases the production of sleep hormones.
   • Avoid evening caffeine, cigarettes, or blue light from computer or television screens.
   • Take melatonin pills nightly to help set your bedtime earlier.
2. Keep a cravings journal. When you have a craving, write down what you want to eat, and what caused it. If you're not sure what caused the craving, write down whether you smelled or saw a particular food, what your mood is, and whether you feel stressed or tired. After a few cravings, you might start to notice a pattern. This helps you recognize tempting situations and stay vigilant about preventing them and dealing with them.
   
   
   
3. Rehearse yourself through triggers. If you know what sets off your cravings, prepare yourself for the trigger in advance. Repeat to yourself what you'll do to avoid giving in, and picture yourself walking past the food without eating it, or going to bed without stopping by the kitchen. Imagining this process in advance can build up your willpower when it comes time to actually turning down the food.
   
   
   
4. Remove unhealthy foods from your reach. Make unhealthy foods, especially snacks you're drawn to at night, difficult to obtain. If you can't remove them from your house entirely, at least keep them out of the bedroom. Store them in a difficult to reach area, a room on the opposite side of the house as your bedroom, or in an unpleasantly cold location you wouldn't want to visit at night.
   
   
   

Responding to a Craving

1. Drink liquids instead. Drink a large glass of water, caffeine-free tea, or low-fat milk or milk substitute when you have a craving, instead of eating a snack. These relatively low-calorie liquids (don't sweeten the tea or milk too much) will fill up your stomach but not fatten you. Some people mistake dehydration or thirst for hunger; water is especially effective in these cases.
   
   
   
   • Keep a glass of water by your bed so you don't need to visit the kitchen at night.
2. Have healthy snacks available. If your food craving is caused by legitimate hunger, keep a small plate in your bedroom with a healthy option. A piece of whole wheat bread, a small apple, four or five unsalted nuts, a few cherry tomatoes, or a small square of dark chocolate are all examples of a small snack you could eat instead of visiting the kitchen.
   
   
   
   • If your cravings are more psychological than physical (which admittedly can be difficult to figure out), try reducing the size of this snack each night over the course of a week or two, until you no longer need it.
3. Chew sugar-free gum. Keep a pack of sugar-free gum, and chew it until the craving passes. This likely won't eliminate your cravings, but it may make them less intense than they would otherwise get.^[1]
   
   
   
   • A strong flavor such as peppermint may help satisfy some of your craving.
4. Use flavored toothpaste or mouthwash. When you're kept up by a late night craving, get out of bed and brush your teeth with a strongly flavored toothpaste, or rinse with mouthwash. The taste may help you deal with the craving, and the "clean teeth" feeling may make you less willing to eat directly afterward.
   
   
   
5. Think of something disgusting. If you're sensitive to unpleasant images or thoughts, disgust yourself too much to eat. This is not the most pleasant way to deal with a craving, but it works for some people.
   
   
   
6. Find a distracting activity. If the craving continues for more than 10 minutes and shows no sign of stopping, distract yourself. Any busy activity can accomplish this, from chores to dog walking to reading a book. Avoid activities that take you to the kitchen or near places you can buy food.
   
   
   

Tips

• Drinking a glass of water with each meal, and whenever you feel thirsty, can help keep you full without adding to your diet.

Warnings

• Extreme diet plans that involve skipping meals are more likely to backfire, since they can make you very hungry. When trying to lose weight, instead focus on eating healthier food in slightly smaller portions.

Related wikiHows

• How to Stop Sweet Cravings
• How to Stop Eating at Night
• How to Stop Your Craving for Soda
• How to Overcome Food Cravings

Sources and Citations

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