Why You Struggle with Nighttime Eating Even After a Great Day | TMOHP Episode 184

Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Too Much On Her Plate podcast. I'm glad you're here, and if this is a podcast that is helpful to you, I'm really glad about that too.

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Life is too short to spend it struggling with food.

Today I am continuing a series where I am taking your questions and doing my best to answer them and share my thoughts about how to get beyond some of the struggles that I'm hearing from you on repeat. And today's episode is a very common one. I want to talk about why you lose control with food at night. Even if you've had a great or a seamless day of eating exactly the way that you want.

It's so common, right? So here's the question that I'm going to tackle today from our listener.

 She says, Hey Melissa. I make good choices all day. I eat what I planned. I say no to the cravings. I even avoid the break room snacks. But when evening hits and I sit down with Netflix, it's like all bets are off. I start eating and before I know it, I have eaten lots. And I've undone everything I felt good about during the day.

Why does nighttime feel so impossible?

If you are a regular listener of this podcast, you are noticing a theme with end of day overeating. And I told you in an earlier episode, this is not a one-episode issue.

This is a pattern that is so common and is so frustrating for people. I mean, you've worked hard all day, right? So it's frustrating. It is confusing. Sometimes it feels defeating. But the thing I want you to hear is that it is incredibly common.

Because there's so much self-blame that follows along with overeating patterns, there's so much guilt that we attach to it. And also these stories that we are the only ones, or you should have figured this out. But you're not the only one. I mean, let's paint a picture. You've spent the entire day making decisions that line up with your goals and maybe everybody else's goals. You have eaten with intention. You have said no to the things you told yourself you didn't need. You followed your morning routine. And you might be feeling pretty proud of how things were going.

And then evening comes. Right. You take off your shoes. You put on your comfy clothes. You finally let down. Maybe the house gets quiet, the TV goes on, and then the chips come out, or maybe the chocolate that you forgot about in the pantry. Or you'll just have a handful and then it becomes two, and then it becomes three, and then it becomes, well, I already blew it.

This is not about a lack of discipline. This is not about self-sabotage or not caring enough, messing up.

The way to get to the root of this pattern, and it's a pattern, right, is to pay attention to what is going on inside you. And to start paying attention to things that you may not have even been taught to recognize. And you certainly haven't been taught to pay attention to when you're trying to change your eating.

When you get to the end of the day and you finally get a chance to take a breath or even be present. Your brain and your body might finally have one of their first opportunities to start processing everything that they have been holding. Everything that they have been gathering. All the weight of the day.

And here's what most food plans and most advice about food plans misses entirely. They tell you what to eat. But they don't tell you why nighttime is when it all unravels. They don't address the emotional load, the mental load that you've been carrying.

And they don't talk about the cost that you are paying for pushing through all day without taking a pause. In fact, we live in a world that glorifies pushing through and multitasking and not taking a pause and being super-efficient and super productive and all those things. Right.

So try this on for what might be happening at the end of the day. It might be that you have been in go, go, go mode all day, and now after a day of you pushing everything you need down, you're finally saying, it's my turn. It is my turn. Maybe you have spent all day managing and showing up and holding it together. And now your brain or your body or your spirit wants something back. It is tired of restriction. Your rebel is saying, hold on. What about me?

Maybe at the end of the day, you are just tapped out. Your bandwidth is gone. You're emotionally done. Maybe the food isn't about hunger, but about comfort. Or decompression. Or a reward.

If you are somebody who struggles with this end of the day blowing it as we usually think about it, right? I want you to try to picture what it looks like. See yourself. Maybe you're sitting on the couch and the day is done and you've finally stopped moving. You've done the last load of laundry, or you've actually closed your laptop. Or you're trying to ignore it, where you've set it on the coffee table, right?

The TV is on. You're in your comfy chair in your comfy socks, and your hand is reaching for whatever that thing is that you eat at the end of the day. You're not hungry, but it's doing something for you. What is it? Maybe it feels like relief or like silence or space. Right? Space that belongs just to you.

So many clients say this to me when we start working together. They say, you know what? That food at the end of the day, sometimes it feels like the only part of the day that feels like it is for me.

The thing is when we push things down all day, in order to power through, in order to be present for everybody else's agenda. That stuff is still there. And when things get quiet. Which sometimes happens at the end of the day, oh, and by the way, you're also tired, so you don't have a lot of capacity to manage things.

But if you've been pushing things down all day, when you get a little space without distractions or demands, that stuff that you have been pushing down, it wants to be felt, it wants to be paid attention to.

And so it becomes really easy if you're already exhausted to just push it down with something to eat. And ignore it for the evening. Give yourself, instead of real pleasure. Give yourself the experience of numbing out and not having to deal with it.

So here's the shift that can make a difference. I want you to consider the possibility of not seeing that urge to eat at night as a flaw or a problem or something's that's wrong with you. What if you can get curious about it instead? What if instead of this is a bad thing I'm doing. It is a symptom.

What if it is a symptom that you need something. And what if you start trying to listen to it? What if in that moment. You are saying, where's my reward? Or I need a break, or Maybe I'm exhausted, I need to stop. Maybe sometimes eating at night is a way to keep going instead of stopping.

Maybe that bowl of ice cream at the end of the day is, hey, somebody, something has to notice how hard today was.

If the nighttime eating is a symptom and you seek to understand it, you can learn some things. Maybe that nighttime eating is pointing to a need to decompress or let go of some things. And maybe what would really hit the spot is five minutes listening to some soothing music or music that shifts your mood in some way.

Or just sitting in the dark and allowing yourself to think of, you know, what am I proud of today? What went well? Maybe the nighttime eating is a symptom of a desire for pleasure or reward after a really long, hard day. Maybe you crave fluff. Maybe you want to watch a silly show or read a fluffy cotton candy kind of novel. Or just put on your pajamas and call it done for the day.

Maybe nighttime eating is a symptom of emotions that you had or needs that you had that didn't get any space all day long.

And guess what? Like I said, they're still there. Maybe you need a hug. Maybe you need to talk to somebody. Maybe you need advice, or maybe you need just to vent. Maybe you need permission from yourself to yourself simply to say today was really hard.

And you know, the second part that I think people skip a lot when they have a really hard day is, today was really hard and I am proud of myself. I made it. I did this thing.

One of the places that people overlook when they have an issue with nighttime eating or even binging at the end of the day. Is the reality of physical exhaustion. Physical exhaustion, and sleep deprivation. There's so much pressure to keep going, and if you're a high achiever with a to-do list and you have items on it that you haven't crossed off yet, there's so much internal pressure sometimes to cross off those things. Do one more thing before you stop.

The world is not going to stop calling to you. But if you can stop blaming yourself and start getting curious, okay, what's going on here? It becomes easier to see that, wait, wait a minute. I'm exhausted. I am so exhausted. And probably at that point, nothing productive is really going to happen. Maybe what I really need is a hot shower and to just go to bed.

So really break this down. Take a moment to picture your pattern.

What does nighttime overeating look like for you? And I know if this is a pattern that you've tried to break in the past, it, it sometimes can feel so big or so powerful that it is impossible. So what can you do to begin to do something different?

The first thing is listening to this podcast, starting with awareness. Noticing the pattern from a different vantage point than just being mad at yourself and guilting yourself. And, okay, now I've blown it. So I guess we just need to start over tomorrow morning. Noticing the pattern is step one.

Beginning to consider what else, what small thing that requires very little energy might feel nourishing right now. That can be a step. And I'm talking small and low energy because remember, it's the end of the day. You're probably done. So examples of something small but nourishing are things like just simply pausing. Just pausing and asking, what am I needing right now? What am I feeling right now?

Another thing you might play with is mixing it up a little bit. Playing with, creating some different super short, super easy rituals that feel indulgent. Or if that feels like too strong a word for you that help you feel cared for. Maybe having some warm tea before bed. Maybe there's something that smells really good, a candle or some lotion. Getting out your comfy stuff.

How can you take care of yourself in the evening? Because remember, if you have this pattern of overeating and you get in this push pull thing of trying to not do it. It's very easy to get in a, into a pattern where you're frustrated with yourself or you're being strict with yourself, but you're not being kind to yourself.

Most of us at the end of the day could probably use a little kindness. So how can you bake that into your evenings?

And here's the last piece that I want to leave you with, and it is so important. Because breaking patterns with overeating and emotional eating, especially something that can be as deeply entrenched as this end of day thing that is happening sometimes, almost automatically, right before I even know it, I've eaten all the things.

It's not a one and done fix. It's going to be a process. And the fact that it didn't go well this evening. Does not mean you've ruined it or you've blown it. Because one of the most amazing things you can do in this situation is ask yourself, okay, wait a minute. What did I not get enough of today? What did I not get enough of earlier in the day that led me to this place in the evening?

And then use what you come up with to start thinking about how you can set yourself up differently tomorrow. Are there ways you could build in little pieces of comfort or connection or pausing earlier in the day? Are there small doable ways that you could start experimenting with not saving your needs for last when you don't have anything left to give?

Because here's the thing, it is so much easier to take care of yourself when you're not burnt out or when you're not already done. Or when you're not completely depleted. And when you tend to those needs earlier, first of all, sometimes the tending you need to do can be smaller because you're not as depleted.

But also when you tend to these needs earlier, you can start to shift the pattern so that you don't end up in the same place at the end of the day. So you don't, at the end of the day, have such a strong need to turn to food as your easy go-to band aid for all these important things that you are really trying to take care of.

Stop telling yourself you're bad at discipline. It's not helping you. And it's not true. Probably you're running on empty. Probably you're trying to solve the problem at the hardest time of day to solve a problem because you're running on empty. So the solution is not asking yourself to impose more control and more willpower and more discipline at exactly the time that you are out of it.

It's about more compassion and more curiosity. Start asking yourself a couple of questions. In the moment or after the moment, you know, what am I really needing right now? Because by the way, just because you started a moment of eating doesn't mean it's all ruined. You can, you can end it earlier than you used to. You can shift gears in the middle.

But start playing with that question, what am I really needing right now? And then add on that second question. How could I give myself some of this earlier tomorrow? How can I take today and use it to give myself more of what I want tomorrow?

This is where change begins. This is how you start to build a peaceful relationship with food. And a better relationship with yourself.

I'll talk to you soon.