Is nighttime snacking a problem for you? If so, you’re not alone—it’s a concern for many fitness enthusiasts. In this video, Coach Ben shares a few tips to help reduce late-night cravings, as well as a few snack suggestions that might not be so bad if you find yourself hungry in the wee hours.
Transcript:
Ben:
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Vegan Proteins YouTube channel. My name is Coach Ben and today I’m going to talk to you about nighttime snacking. Now, before I get into the topic of this video, if you are not subscribed to the channel, I would ask you to please hit that subscribe button as the majority of you watching this video right now are not subscribed to this channel.
So if you’d like to see more of this kind of content from us, you know what to do. Now, today’s topic, nighttime snacking. This is one that is highly requested by clients of mine, by members of the Vegan Proteins community, which I will talk about at the end of the video. How to join if you are interested in doing so. And this is something that I think a lot of people who are into fitness generally struggle with.
So let’s run through a scenario. You’ve had a stressful day at work. Maybe you work a full nine to five job, you’ve got some kids at home, and you get to the end of the evening, you’re tired, you’re exhausted, maybe you hit the gym in the morning and there’s nothing that you would like to do more than to veg out on the couch with your favorite snack and relax and just eat.
Because eating feels good and we enjoy it and it makes us feel a certain kind of way. However, the kinds of foods that we gravitate towards and perhaps the amount of these foods tends to perhaps be out of alignment with our goals and where we would like to be with our health. So what I want to talk to you about today is some strategies that you can use to reduce the frequency of nighttime snacking or to make it congruent with your goals if that is something that you decide to engage in.
Now, the first thing that I want to talk about is just some general good habits and practices that you can implement throughout your day that are going to lead you to be less likely to engage in nighttime snacking. The first is going to be having regular meal intervals and times of eating throughout the day. So the most common scenario in which I see somebody who struggles with eating at night is somebody who skips breakfast or skips meals throughout the day, leading them to be very
hungry in the evenings, and perhaps they’ve had a very stressful day as well. And those two combination of factors can make it a lot less likely for us to eat foods that are in alignment with where we want to be. So I’m not saying that you have to eat the same meals at the same Times every day, far from it. However, having things like a regular breakfast, a regular lunch, maybe a couple snacks throughout the day as well, can make it so that by the time you get to the evening you are not
starving. Some general good practices, having some protein at every meal. Now, the overall protein intake for the day is going to be what’s most important. However, if you can kind of disperse that throughout the day as equally as possible, does not have to be perfect. The more you are likely to keep your energy and hunger levels pretty stable throughout the day and you don’t go through these ebbs and flows and these crashes in your energy.
So let’s say you are somebody like myself. Maybe you are a 200 pound male for your protein intake. I would say anywhere between 150 to 200 grams of protein is going to be a good place to start. So let’s say that you are having four meals throughout the day. A breakfast, a lunch, a dinner and a snack. Perhaps you might try to get, let’s just say 40 grams of protein at each of those meals.
1 60. Perfect. There you go. And you can scale this to whatever weight that you are. So somewhere in kind of that 0.7 to 1 grams per pound of body weight, the leaner you are, the more that you want to go on the higher end of that scale and the more body fat you have, then you probably can be fine going to the bottom end of that scale, maybe even a little bit lower.
So whatever your ideal body weight is probably closer to that. Now, having fiber at these meals is going to be another thing that is again going to produce a satiety effect. It’s going to slow down the digestion rate and it’s going to give you a lot of micronutrients that are going to ensure that you are covered for your overall health. These foods are usually fruits, vegetables, and you could think of some whole grains in there as well.
Now, I’m not saying that you necessarily need to do something like eat breakfast if you find that you’re just generally not too hungry that time of day. However, I find that our bodies are pretty adaptable. And if you get used to a certain style of eating, then it can be difficult to kind of break that cycle. But once you do, you adjust and adapt to that new style of eating.
So if you’ve always skipped breakfast and you’ve always eaten a lot in the evenings, that’s probably what you’re used to. So it might feel a little strange or uncomfortable at first to eat a breakfast and eat a sizable breakfast. But you might find that your hunger and energy levels are more stable throughout the rest of the day, even if it’s difficult to change that way at first.
I think that if you engage in some sort of intermittent fasting practice. So let’s say you have an eating window where you’re eating your meals from 12pm to 8pm it can work out for a lot of folks because it condenses the amount of time that you’re eating throughout the day. So it’s harder to get in the same amount of calories. However, again, if that makes it so that you are eating a large amount right before you go to bed, and maybe you haven’t eaten that much throughout the day, then
that can set yourself up for it being more difficult to regulate the amount of food that you’re having at that last meal and perhaps overeat. And I think it’s just more uncommon that we make poor choices first thing in the morning, then later in the evening. I think part of that has to do with just us getting more mentally tired, our ability to regulate our emotions and our feelings and make an appropriate choice.
It gets worse as the day goes on and we have to make more of those decisions, that decision, decision fatigue. So you’re less likely to, let’s say, eat a bag of chips and have a couple donuts first thing in the morning upon waking up before going to work than it is maybe at night, in the evening. Another thing to keep in mind is if you are finding that you are more tempted to eat more in the evenings, it might be worth considering how that impacts your sleep and therefore how you feel the
next day. So this is a very individual thing. However, some folks will find that if they have too much of, of a certain food or a certain macronutrient, maybe that’s fats, maybe that’s a certain kind of carbohydrate, a simple carbohydrate right before bed. It makes it so that their sleep quality is impaired. So perhaps having your last meal two to three hours before bed could be something that improves your sleep quality.
Everyone’s a little bit different with this. If you find it difficult to go to bed hungry, then that might not be something that you want to do, especially in a fat loss phase. Maybe you want to have your last meal closer to bedtime. These are all considerations with eating in the evenings. Now, let’s say that you employ a lot of these behaviors.
You’re eating at similar times throughout the day. You’re getting your protein in, you’re getting your Fruits and vegetables in all that good stuff, and you still find yourself tempted or wanting to engage in nighttime eating or nighttime snacking. The next thing I’m going to talk about is more on the mindset side of things, specifically pertaining to mindfulness.
So when we sit down to eat a meal, often we are distracted by other things, whether that be something we’re doing on our phone, we’re talking to people, which is a great thing. We are looking at the TV, we’re watching a show, we post something up on YouTube. It’s very rare that we sit down with just the meal itself and focus on that meal experience.
Of course, it’s wonderful if you are eating with other individuals as well. I think you want to just make sure that you are regulating the speed at which you are eating. You are focusing on the sensation of the food, the tastes of the food. You’re slowing down. You’re taking your time to chew the food thoroughly and really focus on that meal experience.
Because I think we all had that experience of, you know, you get sucked into a show or thing and you’re just kind of like going back whatever it is that you’re eating, and before you know it, the thing is gone. And maybe you’ve eaten it quite fast and you haven’t actually given yourself time to digest that meal, and before you know it, you’re reaching for the next thing.
So distracted versus mindful meals. I think that is something that you can consider for yourself. If this is something that you really struggle with and you struggled with for a long time, I think journaling can actually have a very powerful impact here. So before you stop and sit down to a meal, this applies to nighttime meals, but it could apply to any meal, really.
Journal about why are you eating this meal? What is the meal that you’re eating? Why are you eating it? Is it because you’re hungry? Is it because you’re stressed and you feel as though food is going to give you some sort of emotional response that is going to comfort and soothe you? I think just bringing some awareness to these feelings around food and the food decisions, just giving you a second to pause and stop before you reach for whatever it is that you’re about to reach for.
The cookies, the chips, et cetera, just pausing and slowing down and thinking about it for a sec can be all you need to maybe rewire and make a different decision. So you might realize that, wow, I’m really stressed out by this thing that happened at work today. Is there something else that I can do to regulate this way that I’m feeling that doesn’t involve food.
Can I call a friend or a family member? Can I read a book? Can I go for a walk with the dog? Can I watch a TV show that always makes me laugh? Something like this. Another way to address the way that you’re feeling that does not involve food and is not counterproductive to your goals. That can be a really helpful behavior to engage in. Now, let’s say after all of this you decide that, you know, I have, I’ve got some room in my nutrition plan to have something this evening.
I’m going to sit down and I’d like to just unwind and have a little bit of a snack. That’s totally fine. I’m going to present some options that may make it more likely for this to be congruent with nutrition and fitness goals. The first category of foods I’m going to talk about is foods that contain protein, because you’re probably going to be having some protein at this meal anyways, but are maybe a little bit more fun than your typical foods you might think of when you think of vegan
proteins like your tofu or your seitan. So things like protein bars, you can find some protein bars that are, we’ll say, 80 to 90% as good or as tasty as kinds of candy bars. And of course you don’t have to say that they’re as tasty. They’re protein bars, let’s be real. But if they get close to that, something like a Nougat Slim bar, I’m a big fan of those.
I really like those. Some people like the no cow dipped bars. Some of these bars that they’re, they’ve got a chocolatey coating. Of course they still got a little bit of that protein taste, but it’s close enough. That could be a good option. You’ve got protein cereals. So there’s a premier protein cereal, Catalina Crunch Three Wishes is a favorite.
One of mine. There’s a whole variety of protein cereals that you could look at. Wheaties makes one as well. And something like that with some unsweetened almond milk, maybe some frozen blueberries, that could be a great snack. You may have heard of the Ninja Creamy where you can make essentially your own protein ice cream with some protein powder, a plant milk, maybe some frozen fruit.
You could also do a nice cream. So this is essentially the same thing, but you could use a high speed blender like a Vitamix or a Ninja. Throw some frozen bananas in there, some plant milk, some protein powder. Essentially the Same thing. And that could be a really nice treat in the evening. Maybe you throw a little bit of toppings in there, Whatever those toppings might be, some pretzels or some rice cakes or something like that, which are another food that I think can serve your
health and fitness goals. Some people like rice cakes because they have a little bit more volume than traditional rice. They’re crispy. I think when we go for snacks we often go something that is crunchy. It’s crispy, it’s got a certain texture and mouthfeel to it. And pretzels and rice cakes are pretty much just carbohydrates. So I think that that can be a good thing to consider.
Of course it’s not as low calorie as something like your fruits, your berries, your melon. But if you want something a little bit more snackish, I think the foods that tend to really add up quickly are the foods that are really high in fat, oils, etc. Which brings me to my next food, Microwave Popcor. This can actually be a really great one if you find a low fat popcorn variety so you could pop your own in an air popper.
I really like the brand Jolly Time. They make a fat free kettle corn popcorn that is fantastic. That’s one that I often recommend to people. If you like that kind of sweet and salty thing. Popcorn is great because it’s high in fiber. It’s a high volume food. It’s mostly carbohydrates, but it’s a whole grain. It’s got a little bit of protein as well.
So that can be a really wonderful one. You’ve got dry roasted edamame. So again, more of kind of a protein food, protein chips. There’s a brand I believe that’s called Natural Endurance and they make these plant based protein chips which are really great. You can take something like a Joseph’s Lavash bread or one of these high protein tortillas and you can cut it up into strips and you can toast it, have that with some salsa, which is a low calorie food.
So that can be another great snack. Something that I used to do is I would take smoked tofu and I would cut it up into little cubes or little strips and I would have that with some fruit and maybe some pretzels. Almost like a little like charcuterie board sort of thing. It’s like the vegan bodybuilder bro version of a charcuterie board. But I liked it.
The smoked tofu almost had this kind of like smoked cheese flavor to it. Very mild and that was tasty. So that was something that I used to do a lot. If you like cookies but you want something that’s maybe a little bit, quote unquote, more macro friendly, you can find lower fat cookie varieties. Now that doesn’t mean that they’re going to be low calorie, but oftentimes we are trying to have a moderate protein.
Higher carbohydrate may be moderate to lower fat diet just because fat has more calories per gram and it’s a lot easier to get from general food sources if you’re going out to eat, the food is going to be higher in fat. So oftentimes people are looking for maybe higher carbohydrate options. And of course who doesn’t love things like Oreos? However, maybe something like a Fig Newton or an animal cracker is something that is a little bit higher in carbohydrates.
Carbohydrates fuel our training performance and so that’s something that could be an option. Again, it’s not necessarily low calorie, but it’s just an alternative if you are looking to hit certain macronutrient targets for your goals. So those are just some foods that come to mind when I think of nighttime snacking and maybe making it a little bit more productive or that fits into whatever goals that you’re working towards.
If you do find that you are struggling to work towards whatever goals you have with maybe it’s nutrition, maybe it’s training, body composition. That’s what we do here at Vegan Proteins Online Coaching, our one on one coaching service is kind of our bread and butter premium service. So if you’re interested in learning more about that, you can head over to veganproteins.com and click the contact button and one of the coaches will get back to you ASAP, usually within 24 hours.
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And if you’re kind of interested in getting involved with that, I highly recommend looking into it. So that is going to do it for this video. If you enjoyed this topic, please be sure to give it a thumbs up and I look forward to seeing all of you you in the next one.
