Although I’ve been fairly fit and healthy throughout my life I’ve always had a major drawback: late night cravings, resulting in unhealthy choices (processed stuff, with way too much sugar involved). I’ve been researching this over the years but have yet to find a solid solution. What do you eat guilt free 2/3 hours after dinner, that successfully deals with the cravings and doesn’t make a lot of damage to your overall regimen?
My go to delicious “healthy” food is tacos. Protein on a corn tortilla topped with fruits and veggies aka avocado, pico, and hot sauce. Actually just had some for my drunk muchies 🤪
Smoothies are good too if you’re craving something sweet.
I freeze dough balls of my favorite chocolate chip cookie, bon appetit’s “best chocolate chip cookie”. I bake exactly 2 (one each for me and my boyfriend) many nights right after dinner. It’s a small desert, I know exactly what’s in it because I made it from scratch, and if I let myself have one every night, I don’t have other cravings for sweets.
Not about late night particularly, but drinking water can potentially help with reducing cravings. Especially if it’s has a very little sugar with electrolytes - that helps hydrate faster. Maybe worth a shot if that helps you too.
Otherwise, nuts and seeds make a very accessible snack that does more good than bad.
What time are you talking? And how close is it to your bedtime? Is the craving preceded by feeling sleepy or tired? If yes to the latter, then it may be your body requesting carbs for quick fuel since you’re not sleeping. Usually, I deal with this by drinking a glass of water and going to bed.
This actually started happening to me recently and I tried to just ignore it. After two weeks, I gave up and tried eating things like nuts, rice cakes, dried fruit and lots of water. But I had to eat a lot to be satisfied enough to go back to sleep.
I added more red meat and eggs into my diet and it’s stopped now so I guess I just needed more protein.
I also tried splitting my dinner into two meals (one at 6pm and one at 9pm) which helped but I’d still wake up hungry (at 5am instead of at midnight).
I just read a hilarious but tempting thread last night about cottage cheese..apparently you can add soop many things from sweet (fruit etc) to savory..but it has a lot of protein and seems filling..if you can find the thread on here I recommend it ..hilarious and informative..
I still eat sweets. I make sure that I leave my calorie count in a way where I can still get a dessert in. Either Halo top or if I had a bigger dinner than normal I’ll get some greek yogurt, put some chocolate chips in it and some cocoa powder and it’s like a low calorie chocolate mousse. Lesser Evil also makes really good small brownie type things that are awesome.
Ice blocks. Not sure what they are called in other countries, Ice pops maybe? I buy sugar free ones made for kids. I have two. Lioe them. About 10 calories and that’s it.
For earlier in the day, I make a vegan chocolate mousse with soaked nuts (cashews best) blended with white beans (yes really) chocolate, erythritol and coconut yoghurt. You could use peanut butter too. I also mix in hemp seeds but it make it grainy. Now it’s pretty high cal but it’s very healthy and quite satiating and gives me a nice snack. You could probably do it for dessert.
Yogurt. Usually have a couple on hand for ∆⁸ munchies, I really want to eat lots of unhealthy carb heavy foods but have found sticking to the protein satiates me without many calories. When I can resist buying Noosa I usually get https://www.chobani.com/products/less-sugar/multipack/monterey-strawberry/
I also keep a bunch of https://www.goodfoodmadesimple.com/our-food/breakfast-burritos/spinach-scramble-burrito/ in the freezer. Got them for emergency breakfast but more likely to use them for late night munchies.