In this day of health consciousness we sometimes dread the snack attack that seem to visit us all at one time or another. To just survive them is not good enough nor is it the correct answer. Our individual survival depends on something entirely more basic and complex; control. Controlling our lives (within reason) is paramount to not only our survival but also our happiness and well being physically. Instead of just surviving the urge to eat at midnight you must control your urges so they don’t control you. Easier said than done.
First you need to re-examine your daily pattern. Are these urges waking you up at midnight or are you already awake and just succumbing to them. If they are waking you up in the wee hours of the morning you should look into your sleep patterns. You are likely not sleeping well. Is your bed uncomfortable? Is it too noisy or too light where you sleep? Does your husband/wife snore? What is it that is keeping you from getting the deep restful sleep your body needs. Look at everything even remotely associated with where and how you sleep. For most of my life I have been unable to sleep more than 4-5 hours a night. I thought this was normal. News flash!…it is not. The human body can survive on 4-5 hours sleep but the healthy human body needs at least 7-9 hours of restful sleep. I recently bought a new mattress and lo and behold, I am sleeping at least seven hours at a time, undisturbed. Find out what is keeping you awake and change it.
Are you a night owl. Some people are. Unfortunately they are almost always the very same people that sleep little and snack a lot. It is a fact that people that stay up late at night and don’t sleep well make poor food choices. They eat a lot of snacks and that leads to eating a lot of the wrong kinds of foods. Most people snack because of the physical urge to, but they rationalize it by telling themselves that they only want to eat a little something to hold them over. After all if you eat a full meal again late at night you will never digest it and probably get fat, right? Probably, but if you eat high sugar, high fructose, high fat foods late at night you won’t digest them either and you definitely will put on weight. In order to change your eating habits you need to change your entire routine. Establish a sensible eating schedule and stick to it. Most animals only eat when they’re hungry, but people eat when they think about it. Ever heard the old saying, “an idle mind is the devil’s workshop”. Well it sort of is, a big fat, unhealthy devil. Keep your mind occupied during the hours prior to going to bed, and no, TV doesn’t count. Games are wonderful mind stimulators. Look into games, do some research on them. The important thing is that you change your routine so you are going to bed, un-hungry, going to sleep and sleeping, deeply, for 7-9 hours.
Third, you have to change what you eat. Snack foods are packaged death. Don’t believe it? Ask anyone that has had a heart attack what they typically ate in a day prior to the heart attack. 100% of the time it will include greasy, sugary, fructose laden foods, usually fried, no matter how they try to make it sound better or how they describe it you will see, that’s what they were eating. Top that all off with a large helping of stress and you will undoubtedly be helping to send some cardiologist’s kid to college or his wife on vacation.
Don’t get me wrong, snacks are a good thing, but they have to be the right kinds of snacks. It is well known that instead of eating three big meals a day to maintain weight and health the human body should eat five or six small meals or snacks. Your body assimilates the nutrients better and you have a better chance of utilizing the energy provided by the food rather than storing it. No you don’t have to live on carrots and broccoli. Although they are great snacks you must have other good foods. Humans are omnivores. We are designed to eat just about anything and this opens up so many more culinary doors for us. Unfortunately it also makes so many more poor dietary options available to us, so we must constantly be on the alert for what we eat. There is no reason you can’t still eat most any healthy food, but in moderation and much more often. Throw out the potato chips and buy some fruit. Dump half the red meat in your freezer and replace it with chicken, turkey and fish. When you eat healthy foods your body craves less because it doesn’t need so much of it to assimilate the nutrients it needs.
Finally, exercise, exercise, exercise. By nature the human body is not a sedentary machine. It absolutely requires exercise or it will break down, completely. It will also help you sleep, digest food better and lose weight. EXERCISE, EXERCISE, EXERCISE, and lots of it.
Good luck and sleep well.
