234 – Why You Eat At Night

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Elizabeth: Ever wonder why you can have so much resolve at seven o’clock in the morning and then absolutely none left by 8:00 PM You swear that this is the night that you won’t snack after dinner, you’re not even hungry. You just want something and before you know it, you are knee deep in the peanut butter jar promising yourself that tomorrow will be different.

Now, if that sounds familiar, listen up, I see you. And it’s not because there’s something wrong with you. You’re weak, you’re undisciplined or hopeless around food. It’s because you are trying to solve an emotional human problem with a food rule and it’s not working. In today’s episode, I am gonna show you what’s actually going on in those late night moments and what your brain is really craving and why fixing it has nothing to do with throwing out the snacks or brushing your teeth after dinner because the truth [00:01:00] is you don’t need another diet.

You just need to ask a different question. So let’s talk about it.

Welcome to the Total Health and Midlife Podcast, the podcast for women over 40 who want peace with food, ease in their habits, and a body that they don’t have to fight with. Hey everyone. Welcome to the Total Health and Midlife Podcast. I am your host, Elizabeth Sherman, and today we are talking about something that so many women struggle with, but almost never talk about it or. Talk about it out loud to their friends, and it’s nighttime, not the glamorous kind of nighttime either, not the candlelight and the silk pajamas.

I’m talking about the hours between dinner and bed. When the house finally gets quiet, your brain is buzzing and the pantry starts whispering. Sweet. Nothings to you. You know the [00:02:00] scene, you’ve been good all day, right? You’ve made the healthy choice. At lunch, you maybe even went for a walk and you’ve white knuckled your way through the sugar cravings and passed on the wine with dinner, and then 8:00 PM hits and it’s like this switch flips.

You’re standing in front of the fridge again. Eating shredded cheese straight from the bag, like a raccoon. You don’t even know what it is that you’re looking for or what it is that you want. You just need something now. And so you go for a handful of crackers, then maybe that square of chocolate and then another, and then a spoonful of peanut butter and then another.

You’re not physically hungry and you know that, but it’s like your body is moving faster than your brain can really catch up, and you’re still just not satisfied. And when it’s over, [00:03:00] when you finally close that kitchen cabinet, you’re still not satisfied, but you’ve eaten all of this stuff and you’re uncomfortable physically and maybe also emotionally.

You feel full, but at the same time, hollow, regretful mad at yourself, and you’re wondering, why does this keep happening? Now, if this is you, I want you to know first of all that This is so super common. You’re not broken. There’s nothing wrong with you, and it is fixable. You’re not lazy. You don’t lack willpower, and you’re definitely not alone.

The pattern is really super common, and I’ve been there and there’s a reason that it keeps happening to you. Today we are gonna talk about what that reason actually is and why it has nothing to do with discipline rules or [00:04:00] even other diets and food because solving this isn’t actually about trying harder, it’s about understanding what’s really going on underneath the snack.

When women come to me about nighttime eating, almost every single one of them starts in the same place. I just need more discipline, they say. They think the problem is the peanut butter or the granola, or the fact that their husband keeps buying Oreos, so they go into problem solving mode, which really just means restriction.

They throw out the snacks. They brush their teeth after dinner, like it’s gonna hypnotize them into forgetting that. Cookies exist and they download another diet plan, or they start resenting their partner for eating chips on the couch because if he didn’t do that, I wouldn’t be tempted. Side note, I have so many thoughts about this one, but let’s just say it’s not about him.

And it feels like they’re doing [00:05:00] something, like they’re taking control, but every single one of those strategies is aimed at the wrong target. It’s like trying to fix a leaky pipe with a paper towel. Sure, you might soak up the mess for a little bit, but you haven’t done anything about the leak. Trying to manage nighttime eating by changing your food is just more of the same diet culture conditioning.

If I can control what goes in my mouth, then I’m doing it right. If I fail, it’s my fault. I didn’t try hard enough. But here’s the thing. This is not a food problem, which means a food solution will never fix it. And the more you double down on food rules, the more out of control you’ll feel when those rules inevitably stop working at 8:00 PM at [00:06:00] night.

So if it’s not about food, then what is it about? In my experience, it’s about disconnection. Not from others necessarily, but possibly, but from yourself. Now, I went through a stretch recently where I found myself slipping into those nighttime eating patterns. Again, it wasn’t anything dramatic. I just wasn’t really paying attention or had the energy to police myself.

I was eating more at night, eating past fullness. I knew it. But I didn’t really care. I had that little invoice in my head saying, screw it. I want this. I deserve it. I’ve had a long day. I don’t wanna think about it. And being honest, it felt good right up until a point where I saw a picture of myself and I realized, oh yeah, something’s [00:07:00] off.

And that was the moment that I started to get curious because here’s what I know when I’m connected, when I’m grounded in what I want and how I feel, I don’t eat to numb out, but. When I’m disconnected, I do, and I think a lot of women can relate to that. There’s actually sometimes even a name for it. It’s called revenge bedtime procrastination, although that’s a little bit different.

It’s this thing where after a long day of being needed and responsible and quote unquote on you, reclaim your time at night. Nobody is asking you to do anything. Nobody needs a snack or a ride or a report or an answer. You finally get to do what you want and you want some peace. and for a lot of us that looks like [00:08:00] scrolling on our phones or binging Netflix or, yep, overeating.

It’s not that we’re hungry, it’s that we are starved, starved for pleasure, starved for quiet, for a moment that we don’t have to be useful or productive or perfect, or even think food becomes the easiest way to give ourselves something, anything a treat. A break, a tiny rebellion. But here’s the problem with that.

It doesn’t actually meet the need, and that’s why it never feels like enough. So we keep going back for more, more chocolate, more popcorn, more peanut butter, more anything to fill the void that isn’t physical hunger. And by the end of the night, we are left with a full belly and an unmet need. [00:09:00] So the real problem isn’t that you can’t stop eating at night.

It’s that the rest of your day is so packed with pressure and obligations and noise that by the time night comes, food is the only thing left that feels like yours. So let me tell you about my client, Emma. Okay. Emma is a doctor. She’s super smart. She’s direct. She’s totally no nonsense, and she came to me because she couldn’t figure out why she kept sabotaging herself at night.

Every single evening after the kids went in bed, she would go into the kitchen and she would make herself a bowl of granola. Yogurt and a big heaping spoonful of peanut butter. Not a cute little drizzle, but like generous, and it was her ritual, her reward, but also something that she really, ugh, she [00:10:00] hated herself for this.

She’d lie in bed afterwards too. Full and uncomfortable thinking. Why did I do that again? I wasn’t even hungry. We talked through the usual suspects. Stress. Sure. Exhaustion, yes. But it wasn’t until she took a trip to visit her sister that everything clicked for her that week. She stayed up late talking and chatting and connecting with her sister.

They were laughing, drinking wine, and for the first time in months, she didn’t even think about the peanut butter. It just didn’t occur to her, and when she told me that, I could see it hit her in real time. Oh, it wasn’t even about the peanut butter. It was about feeling connected, feeling seen, feeling safe.

And that bowl of yogurt and granola and peanut butter, it wasn’t a treat. It was a [00:11:00] bandaid, a comfort that she had been giving herself because there was no one else at the end of the day saying, Hey. I see you. You’ve done enough and you are allowed to rest, and that’s the moment I wish for every woman that I work with, not the one where she stops eating the snack, but the one where she realizes.

She doesn’t even need it because when the real need is met, when you can feel cared for, heard connected food becomes irrelevant. It fades into the background, not because you forced it, not because you white knuckled your way past it, but because it just, it doesn’t hold the same power anymore. So what if the problem isn’t the eight o’clock snack?

What if it’s the other 20 hours [00:12:00] in your day? See, we’ve been trained to think that health is about behavior, what we eat, how much we exercise, whether we follow the plan, and if we mess up the solution must be more control, more rules, take more things away, work harder. But what if that’s all backwards?

What if that moment at night where you find yourself wandering into the kitchen, not even hungry, just searching isn’t a failure, but it’s a signal, a little red flag. What if it’s your body saying, Hey, I’m not okay. I’m worn out and I need something that. Changes everything because now instead of trying to punish yourself into being quote unquote better, you can start to ask a different question, what’s this [00:13:00] snack trying to do for me?

Why am I looking for it? What am I actually needing right now? Is it rest? Is it comfort? Is it connection something that’s mine after a day of being on for everyone else, because if you can answer that question, now we’re getting somewhere now.

You are not managing behavior, you’re getting curious about what’s underneath it, and that’s a completely different way to approach health. It’s not sexy and it’s not fast, but it is real. And more importantly, it works because once you start meeting the real needs, once you stop stuffing your frustration or loneliness or resentment down with peanut butter, you start to feel less drawn to food.

It doesn’t have the same grip over you. [00:14:00] You are not walking around in a constant tug of war with your appetite. And let me be clear, this is a skill. You weren’t born missing the discipline gene. You just haven’t been taught how to listen to your body and respond with care instead of control. And that’s what I teach my clients.

And once you learn how to do it. It totally changes everything because when you stop treating nighttime eating like a willpower problem, and instead start treating it like the red flag that it is, you stop needing a diet, you start solving the right problem. Because if you’re overeating after dinner, even when you’re not hungry, there’s a reason and no amount of rules brushing your teeth

Or swearing off. Chocolate is going to fix it if you’re solving for the wrong problem. So here’s what I [00:15:00] want you to do next. Download the free guide, the 82 Reasons You Overeat that have nothing to do with food. You can find it at elizabethsherman.com/82-reasons. I’ll also put it in the show notes so you can find it there.

So print it out, grab a pen, and then start circling everything that shows up after dark for you, and let it show you the truth, not the shame version, but the real version. The one that says You’ve had a long day. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re not broken, you just need something different because you don’t need more discipline.

You need more support. So let’s start there. Alright everyone, That’s all I have for you today. Have an amazing day. I will talk to you next week. Bye-bye. I.

Now before you go, if today’s episode hit a little too close for [00:16:00] home, or if you’ve ever wondered why did I eat that, I have something for you. It’s called The 82 Reasons You Overeat that have nothing to do with food Now, it’s not a guilt trip, and it’s definitely not another diet plan. It’s a free guide that will help you to finally understand why you keep eating, even though you swore you wouldn’t.

Here’s a secret. It’s not about willpower, it’s about everything else. You can grab your copy right now@elizabethsherman.com slash 82 reasons. Seriously, go download it. You’ll feel seen, and it might just be the start of something different.