My Eating is Out of Control at Night. I'm So Good All Day!

Does your eating ever feel out of control at night?

If yes, you’re not alone.

Many people have shared with me that they feel like they eat “good” all day, yet come nighttime, their eating often feels “out of control.”

There are many valid reasons why this might be. Here are a few:

1/ Undereating
Most often, feeling out of control with food at night is due to not eating enough throughout the day. 

When your nourishment needs aren’t met, perhaps because you’re dieting, restricting certain foods or too busy to eat, your very wise body will do everything it can to make up for this deprivation.

You may find yourself experiencing intense cravings, feeling preoccupied with food, eating faster than usual, overriding your fullness cues or eating in a way that feels binge-like.

None of this is due to a lack of willpower or self-discipline. It’s a normal compensatory reaction; your body’s natural response to physical and psychological deprivation.

2/ Dissatisfaction
Satisfaction is an essential component of the eating experience. If you don’t experience much satisfaction from your meals and snacks, you will naturally seek more food, even if you’re not hungry.

There are many reasons why your eating may be unsatisfying, such as denying yourself what you truly want, a lack of access to the foods you desire, not eating a variety of foods, not having time to enjoy your meals and being distracted while eating.

3/ Pleasure Deficiency
One of the gifts of food is the pleasure it can provide.

As humans, we’re wired to seek pleasure thus if you don’t experience much pleasure during your daytime hours, you may find yourself turning to food at night to fill this void.

This is completely understandable, especially considering how easily accessible and instantly rewarding food can be compared to many other forms of pleasure. 

4/ Revved-Up Nervous System
If your life is very busy or chaotic, you may often feel overextended and overwhelmed. The rhythmic act of eating can be very soothing, grounding and regulating. It’s a helpful way to calm your revved-up nervous system and center yourself when you feel anxious, stressed or scattered.

5/ Me Time Shortage
Whether it's with your job or your family—or both, if you spend most of your day taking care of other people’s needs, you’re likely short on me time. Enjoying some yummy food, once everyone else is tucked in or logged off, is a way to do something special just for yourself.

Very Valid Reasons
There are always very valid reasons why you do what you do with food and these are just a few of the many factors that might be at play.

By viewing your eating through the lenses of compassion and curiosity, instead of judgment and criticism, you will gain a better understanding of what needs you’re trying to take care of when your eating feels out of control at night.

It's important to also keep in mind that there is absolutely nothing wrong with eating at any time of day or night.

And, despite what our diet culture wants you to believe, it’s totally okay to eat when you’re not hungry, including eating for emotional reasons or for just pure pleasure.

My Front Tooth Broke Off. It Meant Restricting Food Again.

About a year ago, I broke my front tooth off—the entire thing!—when biting into the hard crust on a piece of toast. 

Naturally, I was quite alarmed when I felt a big gap in the front row of my teeth. Thankfully, it didn’t hurt, but it did really freak me out.

Turns out, a root canal I had decades earlier after a car accident had weakened my tooth. I had no idea it could potentially break off and didn’t have any indication that it was on the verge of doing so.

An emergency visit to my dentist resulted in a temporary tooth until I could have dental implant surgery. 

The fragility of the temporary tooth meant I had to limit what and how I ate to avoid breaking or pulling it off.

New Food Rules
For the first time since I gave up dieting, I had to restrict my eating.

After years spent overcoming all my food rules, I now had a new set of rules to follow.

Hard, tough, chewy, crunchy and sticky foods were pretty much off-limits. 

As I could no longer use my front teeth, biting into a sandwich, slice of pizza, bagel, apple and the like was a big no-no.

I had to cut my food into very small pieces which made eating a very slow and tedious process. 

Dental surgery, which happened about a month later, hurt like heck and cost a gazillion dollars, also came with another set of food rules. While recovering, I was instructed to only eat soft, cold, mild foods for a few weeks.

And, since I once again had a temporary tooth until the dental implant was ready for the final tooth, I also had to continue the initial eating restrictions for about another four months.

Restriction Resistance
If you’ve ever had dental surgery, you know all too well how painful it can be.

And, if you’ve reclaimed your ability to eat intuitively after a history of dieting and disordered eating, being told you need to restrict your eating again can bring up all sorts of complicated feelings and challenges.

For some, it can be a slippery slope back into past disordered eating behaviors; this was something I was conscientious of and careful about.

For many, like me, it can trigger a lot of resistance, frustration and anger.

Once you’ve had a taste of food freedom, it’s really hard to put limits on your eating again.

Even though I knew the restrictions were necessary and temporary, I was not a happy camper. 

It was the cold, rainy season when I had my dental surgery and I longed for a forbidden cup of hot tea and a bowl of warm soup. Cold food did not sound appealing at all.

Not being able to eat what I wanted made me feel deprived, unsatisfied and cranky.

Freedom and Ease
Throughout the entire ordeal, my eating was riddled with anxiety. 

While I once felt anxious about how every bite would impact my weight, I now felt anxious about how every bite might impact my tooth.

Just like when I was dieting, eating decisions felt complicated and stressful. There were times I didn’t even want to deal with food as it just felt too hard. 

Thankfully, I made it through that distressing period and was eventually able to resume my usual eating with one minor exception. To be on the safe side, my dentist advised me to avoid biting into anything hard with my front teeth going forward.

While there are times I long for the satisfaction of biting into a crisp apple rather than cutting it into small pieces, I’m totally on board with this minor limitation as I absolutely don’t want to repeat that painful, stressful and costly nightmare.

The entire experience reminded me of why I gave up dieting, and it gave me an even greater appreciation for the ability to eat with freedom and ease. 

When Lunch is a Bag of Chips. The Power of Zooming Out.

Well, it happened again!

The other day, I once again didn’t have time to eat lunch. When I did, I grabbed a bag of chips.

They were fast, easy and tasty. 

It wasn't a big deal. I just ate them and moved on.

When I was entrenched in diet and wellness cultures, my internal Food Police would have been screaming at me.

It would have been shouting things like, “What’s wrong with you? I can’t believe you ate such a bad lunch! You’re so unhealthy. You really need to get it together! And you better make up for it!”

My chip lunch would have been a BIG DEAL, one loaded with guilt, shame, punitive thoughts and compensatory behaviors.

Different Perspective
Thankfully, after years of challenging my inner Food Police voice and all the rules it tries to enforce, it’s much quieter these days and rarely pipes up. 

Plus, I’ve learned to take a different perspective.

Both diet and wellness culture condition us to hyper-focus on every single morsel we eat. 

They make us feel like one episode of eating will make or break our health, heal us or kill us, turn a “good” eating day into a “bad” one. 

They cause us to fear “messing up” and convince us we have to eat perfectly to be a healthy, in control, good person.

This rigid, black-and-white, perfectionistic approach is unrealistic and harmful. 

It causes a lot of unnecessary guilt, stress and anxiety and can drive a disordered relationship with food.

Zooming Out
One of the most helpful practices I’ve learned is to change my perspective by zooming out. 

Zooming out means widening your lens and viewing your eating patterns over time instead of hyper-focusing on one bite, snack, meal, day or week of eating. 

Unless you have a health condition that requires full adherence to a specific way of eating, what you eat over a longer period of time matters much more than what you eat for an afternoon snack or weeknight dinner, at a business lunch or birthday party, or on a weekend getaway, weeklong work trip or two-week vacation. 

Most and Sometimes
It’s also helpful to think in terms of “most of the time” and “sometimes.”

Take my chip lunch, for example:

Most of the time, I eat a balanced, substantial and satiating lunch. Sometimes, I just eat a bag of chips. 

(If you have kiddos in your life, this is an incredibly useful way to navigate their eating, too.)

Please note, I’m not demonizing chips! If most of the time your lunch consists of just chips and they satisfy your needs, this is totally okay. Intuitive Eating is all about doing what works best for you.

Flexible and Peaceful
I encourage you to cling less tightly to diet and wellness cultures’ narrow ideas about the right way to eat and to instead practice widening your lens.

Zooming out enables you to take a much more flexible, gentle, satisfying and sustainable approach to your eating. 

And, it makes for a much more peaceful and pleasurable relationship with food