How to Stop Eating at Night

You should be sleeping at night, not eating. Doing so could result in weight gain and other unpleasant consequences. Sometimes there is a cause behind a person’s tendency to eat at night.

Night Eating Syndrome (NES) — you wake up in the middle of the night with the need to eat or drink.

Signs:

  • Problems falling asleep
  • Not hungry and not able to eat breakfast

What you need to do:

  • Schedule regular meal times and stick to the schedule.
  • Increase the size of your breakfast. (You are training your body to know that this is the time when you will fill up.   Not when you should be sleeping.)
  • Your last meal should be 3 hours prior to bedtime.
  • Leave water only by your bed. For a quick nighttime drink.

 

Sleep-Related Eating Disorder (SRED) — this is like sleepwalking.   You get up and eat and don’t even remember doing it.   You may not realize you’ve done this until you get up and see a messy kitchen and food missing with no explanation.   This can be dangerous if the person starts cutting something or cooking something when not fully conscious.

Nighttime eating can also be caused by diabetes, depression or stress.   You may be able to make some changes on your own or you may need to seek out the help of a health care professional.

Key Points:

  • 1Do you find yourself often eating at night? You may have a condition called Night Eating Syndrome.
  • 2The problem with night eating is that it leads to weight gain. Aim to finish eating 3 hours before you fall asleep for the night.
  • 3Night eating can also be the result of stress in your life. It’s important to find other ways of coping.


People consciously eating at night can do it because of a disorder, stress or bad eating habits.
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Written by HealthStatus
Medical Writer & Editor

HealthStatus has been operating since 1998 providing the best interactive health tools on the Internet, millions of visitors have used our health risk assessment, body fat and calories burned calculators. The HealthStatus editorial team has continued that commitment to excellence by providing our visitors with easy to understand high quality health content for many years.

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