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Eating late at night is a bad habit to get into as there is not enough time to digest the food properly. Eating a little more before bed can lead to snacking on junk food and can also promote poor sleep. If you are looking for ways to get rid of this habit, try the following pointers as well.

To step

1. Eat well during the day so that you are not too hungry when you get home. Have a good breakfast and lunch, and eat healthy snacks. This should be enough to keep you from thinking about food when you get home. It is best to prepare a moderate, healthy evening meal with enough protein to keep you feeling full for the rest of the evening. You shouldn't really eat anything after that.
2. Limit the amount of junk food you have at home or rather throw it all in the trash immediately. If your favorite snacks are waiting for you in the kitchen cupboard, you will continue to focus on them. Even if you are not hungry, you will find that your thoughts are always drawn to it. When you remove junk food, you also remove the craving for it.
3. Start with a hobby so that you engage in something other than food when you are home at night. This could be something you can do while watching TV, such as writing, knitting, or assembling an airplane model. If you are busy with your hands, you will be less likely to reach for your beloved snacks that you consume in large quantities, often unnoticed.
4. Replace emotional eating with something more constructive. When people are depressed or when they feel lonely, these feelings mainly surface at night. In response, they begin to eat as a way of comforting themselves. The more a person is down, angry or sad, the more people eat. This habit can be replaced with something less destructive. Replace food with exercise, reading, studying, or writing. These are positive ways in which you can let go and process those feelings of loneliness and emptiness.
5. Go to bed at a reasonable time. If you stay up too long, you are more likely to feel the need for a snack. This is certainly a problem if you are watching TV, playing video games or using the internet. If these habits are also triggers to eat, then it is all the more difficult not to snack. And the longer you stay up, the weaker your willpower becomes.
6. Drink water when you need an evening snack. When you get up and go to the kitchen to get food, have a glass of water first. Of course, this is not what you wanted, but you will be amazed at how well this works against cravings, as it fills your stomach and thus fades the previous cravings.
   • Add lemon juice or strawberry pieces for flavor.
7. Be disciplined in your attempts to quit your evening snacks. If it has become a habit to eat late at night, don't expect to unlearn it easily. It will certainly be challenging at first, but if you persevere and remember why you took on this challenge in the first place, then you will surely succeed in your endeavor.
8. Brush your teeth at least an hour before going to bed. If your teeth have been brushed and you have that clean feeling in your mouth, it is more likely that you will be less likely to reach for something to eat. This is an example of counteracting something that has become a bad habit with a good habit.

Tips

• A soothing drink such as warm herbal tea can become a good substitute for late night snacks when you feel the need to treat yourself to unwind after a day of stress and tension.
• Understand why you want to eat late at night and identify the emotional and physical need that you are trying to satisfy. Bad habits are often a stopgap for other problems.
• Prepare healthy snacks, such as fruits and vegetables, at the beginning of the evening. An uncut melon can be put aside for an unhealthy snack as the fruit has yet to be prepped.
• Seek support. Also, don't ask the other members of your household to eat snacks, because if other people are snacking in front of you, it's nearly impossible to avoid this yourself.
• Trade quantity for quality. Fruit is more expensive, but a better solution than cheap sweets and savory snacks. Especially if you also want to watch your weight.
• If you have low blood sugar by the time you go to bed, it may be an easier solution to prepare healthier foods for yourself instead of completely eliminating food later in the evening. Fruit or juice can help rebalance your blood sugar levels, unlike your body's response to sweets and junk foods.
• Eating chewing gum is not a solution, because your brain will think that you are eating and the hunger feeling will only get worse.