Has anything been proven to prevent hunger overnight?
Eat heavy protein at all meals. I find that if I don’t eat breakfast, I want to eat after dinner. I’m missing the calories and especially the protein.
Any time you are eating at a significant deficit, your body will do everything it can to get you to find extra calories. You will wake up from hunger in the night.
Night hunger, like any time of the day when the urge to eat is independent of insufficient calories, is nothing more than your insulin crashing, causing that urge to eat.
You should prioritize protein in your meals, as a macronutrient it’s significantly more satiating with complex carbs and/or fiber (which also signals satiety). Refined carbs should be excluded, they are proven to increase hunger and overeating several hours after consumption.
Eating later at night is particularly unhealthy and perpetuates the cycle of unfavorable biomarkers for metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance.
I eat the “sweet kale chopped salad” that a lot of stores sell. 6.50 at Costco for 2 bags with two big servings each. Top that with rotisserie chicken, apple and blue cheese dressing.
I have this every day for lunch and I’ll say I’ve never found a meal that abates hunger quite like this one does.
Crackers and either cheese or peanut butter. Doesn’t take much, just a snack size, you’ll be full and stay full. Drink with it, helps the full also protects in case your hunger is more dehydration than actual hunger. A huge number of us are actually water deficient and that almost always rears its head disguised as hunger. (I have a big Gass of Milk, too, no more night hunger, and it was a nightly problem for me.✌️
Eat a small amount of COMPLEX carbs a few hours before bedtime. Pair it with good amount of fat, protein, fiber. This will keep you satiated.
Eating simple carbs or liquid carbs like apple juice at night will give you unstable blood sugar and cause cravings shortly after the spike.
Also, your early ancestors evolved under circumstances where they did not have access to food 24/7, and they were not eating around the clock while they were awake. The body is adapted to fast for a majority of the 24 hour cycle, it affects your circadian rhythm and other hormones to eat all day long.
It also negatively impacts sleep quality to eat within 2-3 hours before bed.
Learn to tolerate being slightly hungry at bedtime.
This is more of a habit than food question. Habits have triggers, behaviors, and feedback loops. If you want to change a habit, like night munching, find the trigger for it and create a new answer for the trigger, adding a reward system every time that you do the right thing.