Avoid late-night dietary disasters that can ruin your physique and 
even your sleep. Here are the 5 worst offenders. While surfing through Colbert, Stewart, and Fallon, your stomach starts to rumble. But if you don't tread lightly, you could easily derail your fat loss and fitness efforts. That's because the wrong post-sunset snack choices can easily end up padding your midriff with flab and even jeopardize your night of restful sleep, which is essential for fat loss and fitness improvements alike. To avoid this pitfall, here are five of the worst snacks you can reach for when the late-night hunger pangs strike, and their smart alternatives to avoid a next-day food hangover.
1. Late-Night No-No: Dark Chocolate: Over the past several years, dark chocolate has become a snack hero of sorts. That's because this dark delight is laced with body-friendly antioxidants shown to help fend off a range of maladies. A word of caution, though: Luxuriating in a chunk of dark chocolate should be a daytime activity rather than one you do in the wee hours. Chocolate is a natural source of stimulants such as theobromine and caffeine that can keep you tossing and turning for hours by charging up your nervous system. A good night's rest is essential for building a glance-worthy physique. This is the time when a significant amount of muscle recovery occurs, and when the body releases anabolic hormones like testosterone and growth hormone. Snacking on foods that disrupt your shut-eye could very well sabotage your fitness gains.
2. Late-Night No-No: Boxed Cereal: Who hasn't dug into a bowl of comforting breakfast cereal when the late-night munchies strike? Make this a snack habit, though, and your midsection will definitely remain a few cans shy of a six-pack. The problem with most boxed cereals—and not just the ones adorned with cartoon characters—is that they're chock-full of sugar, which can spike your blood sugar.Late in the day, when your metabolism starts to become more sloth-like than Usain Bolt-like, this sudden rise in blood sugar can trigger fat storage and ruin your buff-to-blubber ratio.
3. Late-Night No-No Ice Cream: For the most part, ice cream contains a snacking double-whammy. For one, tubs of Chunky Monkey and other ice cream varieties are often packed with sugar that can contribute to fat gain. The high amount of fat in the icy treat can also force your digestive system to kick into overdrive, which can lead to disturbances in sleep and, therefore, less of a chance that your body will recover properly from the gym beat-down you put it through earlier. Also be leery of brands made with chocolate or caffeine that can rev you up when you should be mellowing out.
4. Late-Night No-No: Pretzel Sticks: It's hard not to get tempted by the appeal of ripping into a bag of crunchy pretzels when cruising the TV channels after a long day. And aren't they way better than greasy chips? Well, it turns out this baked snack food isn't so benign after all. The problem with pretzel snacks is that they're made with white processed flour, giving them a sky-high glycemic index. This can not only encourage fat storage late in the day when your metabolism is slowing, but the spike in blood sugar can also disrupt healthy sleep patterns. It's also very easy to lose track of just how much you're eating; before you know it, you've polished off a whole bag and put yourself into calorie overload.
5. Late-Night No-No: Fruit Yogurt: Drop your spoon into fruit-flavored yogurt and you could be getting an unwelcome surprise: plenty of sugar. And we have already established that sugar is not supportive of a chiselled physique when consumed during the post-dinner hours. The main point of contention with blueberry, strawberry, and other fruity yogurt is that refined sugar is often more prominent than real fruit.
1). Eat more nutritious food at dinner, particularly protein and dense veggies. These foods require more processing, thus will keep you full for a longer period of time. Going easy on the calories at dinner is a great idea, but going so light that it sets you up to eat junk later is outright self-sabotage. Very destructive, don’t do it!
2). Drink a nice big glass of icey cold water. We have crappy thirst signals wired in, and the research says we’re very inclined to mistaking thirst for hunger. In addition to not having any calories, water is a good pick because most of us are a bit dehydrated anyways (unless you’ve a very diligent purposeful water drinker throughout the day), so slam a generous round of good old H2O!
3). Distract yourself--go do something. As the greater percentage of night time eating is due to plain boredom or a silly habit, doing something playful or even useful is far more therapeutic and far less destructive. Play a game, do some light n’ easy exercises, stretch, call or text a friend, go for a walk (and take your pet(s) with you), dig in to a hobby or other favorite past-time, sit on your patio and watch the sun set or take in the evening breeze, toss in a load of laundry, howl at the moon. Anything BUT entertaining yourself via feeding!
4). Simply ignore your urge to munch and go on about your business. In the vast majority of cases, it’s just an urge in your head, so you don’t need to answer the call. Any craving will lose steam after about 20 min. or so, so put on your big girl or big boy pantaloons and be a disciplined adult about it already. You have many other urges you don’t indulge in due to negative consequences (like slapping the stuffing out of your boss or other annoying person who flips your switches) and this sort of urge is NO DIFFERENT. Move along, move along, nothing to see there, and nothing need be done about it!
5). Nosh on a small bit of LEAN protein If you absolutely MUST eat something (which seems highly unlikely if you’ve fed yourself properly throughout the day…), a small piece of any lean meat, or if you’re a veggie person, go for a serving of a plant-based protein, but NO CARBS, and keep the fat on the scarce to non-existent side. The protein will go a much greater distance in taking the edge off, and without jacking your blood-sugar all over the place or keeping (or adding) fluff to your midsection.
Every one of the above 5 alternatives can work, have worked, and have been used effectively by myself and clients, so select one or more that you think may work for you and implement them. Also note that different approaches can work at different times, so try ‘em all!
even your sleep. Here are the 5 worst offenders. While surfing through Colbert, Stewart, and Fallon, your stomach starts to rumble. But if you don't tread lightly, you could easily derail your fat loss and fitness efforts. That's because the wrong post-sunset snack choices can easily end up padding your midriff with flab and even jeopardize your night of restful sleep, which is essential for fat loss and fitness improvements alike. To avoid this pitfall, here are five of the worst snacks you can reach for when the late-night hunger pangs strike, and their smart alternatives to avoid a next-day food hangover.1. Late-Night No-No: Dark Chocolate: Over the past several years, dark chocolate has become a snack hero of sorts. That's because this dark delight is laced with body-friendly antioxidants shown to help fend off a range of maladies. A word of caution, though: Luxuriating in a chunk of dark chocolate should be a daytime activity rather than one you do in the wee hours. Chocolate is a natural source of stimulants such as theobromine and caffeine that can keep you tossing and turning for hours by charging up your nervous system. A good night's rest is essential for building a glance-worthy physique. This is the time when a significant amount of muscle recovery occurs, and when the body releases anabolic hormones like testosterone and growth hormone. Snacking on foods that disrupt your shut-eye could very well sabotage your fitness gains.
2. Late-Night No-No: Boxed Cereal: Who hasn't dug into a bowl of comforting breakfast cereal when the late-night munchies strike? Make this a snack habit, though, and your midsection will definitely remain a few cans shy of a six-pack. The problem with most boxed cereals—and not just the ones adorned with cartoon characters—is that they're chock-full of sugar, which can spike your blood sugar.Late in the day, when your metabolism starts to become more sloth-like than Usain Bolt-like, this sudden rise in blood sugar can trigger fat storage and ruin your buff-to-blubber ratio.
3. Late-Night No-No Ice Cream: For the most part, ice cream contains a snacking double-whammy. For one, tubs of Chunky Monkey and other ice cream varieties are often packed with sugar that can contribute to fat gain. The high amount of fat in the icy treat can also force your digestive system to kick into overdrive, which can lead to disturbances in sleep and, therefore, less of a chance that your body will recover properly from the gym beat-down you put it through earlier. Also be leery of brands made with chocolate or caffeine that can rev you up when you should be mellowing out.
4. Late-Night No-No: Pretzel Sticks: It's hard not to get tempted by the appeal of ripping into a bag of crunchy pretzels when cruising the TV channels after a long day. And aren't they way better than greasy chips? Well, it turns out this baked snack food isn't so benign after all. The problem with pretzel snacks is that they're made with white processed flour, giving them a sky-high glycemic index. This can not only encourage fat storage late in the day when your metabolism is slowing, but the spike in blood sugar can also disrupt healthy sleep patterns. It's also very easy to lose track of just how much you're eating; before you know it, you've polished off a whole bag and put yourself into calorie overload.
5. Late-Night No-No: Fruit Yogurt: Drop your spoon into fruit-flavored yogurt and you could be getting an unwelcome surprise: plenty of sugar. And we have already established that sugar is not supportive of a chiselled physique when consumed during the post-dinner hours. The main point of contention with blueberry, strawberry, and other fruity yogurt is that refined sugar is often more prominent than real fruit.
1). Eat more nutritious food at dinner, particularly protein and dense veggies. These foods require more processing, thus will keep you full for a longer period of time. Going easy on the calories at dinner is a great idea, but going so light that it sets you up to eat junk later is outright self-sabotage. Very destructive, don’t do it!
2). Drink a nice big glass of icey cold water. We have crappy thirst signals wired in, and the research says we’re very inclined to mistaking thirst for hunger. In addition to not having any calories, water is a good pick because most of us are a bit dehydrated anyways (unless you’ve a very diligent purposeful water drinker throughout the day), so slam a generous round of good old H2O!
3). Distract yourself--go do something. As the greater percentage of night time eating is due to plain boredom or a silly habit, doing something playful or even useful is far more therapeutic and far less destructive. Play a game, do some light n’ easy exercises, stretch, call or text a friend, go for a walk (and take your pet(s) with you), dig in to a hobby or other favorite past-time, sit on your patio and watch the sun set or take in the evening breeze, toss in a load of laundry, howl at the moon. Anything BUT entertaining yourself via feeding!
4). Simply ignore your urge to munch and go on about your business. In the vast majority of cases, it’s just an urge in your head, so you don’t need to answer the call. Any craving will lose steam after about 20 min. or so, so put on your big girl or big boy pantaloons and be a disciplined adult about it already. You have many other urges you don’t indulge in due to negative consequences (like slapping the stuffing out of your boss or other annoying person who flips your switches) and this sort of urge is NO DIFFERENT. Move along, move along, nothing to see there, and nothing need be done about it!
5). Nosh on a small bit of LEAN protein If you absolutely MUST eat something (which seems highly unlikely if you’ve fed yourself properly throughout the day…), a small piece of any lean meat, or if you’re a veggie person, go for a serving of a plant-based protein, but NO CARBS, and keep the fat on the scarce to non-existent side. The protein will go a much greater distance in taking the edge off, and without jacking your blood-sugar all over the place or keeping (or adding) fluff to your midsection.
Every one of the above 5 alternatives can work, have worked, and have been used effectively by myself and clients, so select one or more that you think may work for you and implement them. Also note that different approaches can work at different times, so try ‘em all!
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