If you find yourself snacking late at night on the couch while you are watching TV, you are certainly not alone. Late-night snacking is a struggle for many people and, although there is nothing wrong with eating at night if you are hungry, more often than not, late-night snacking is done out of ritual, boredom, and stress, as opposed to actual hunger. So, if this is you, here are some simple ways to curb late-night snacking and help get you back in control.

How to Stop Snacking at Night

Here are 9 different strategies to help curb those late-night cravings.

1. Eat a larger dinner.

If you are the type of person who opts for light meals all day long thinking that you are doing yourself a favor, you may want to re-think your strategy. Eating well is not about avoiding calories or minimizing your food intake, it is about eating to the point of satiety and then stopping.

So, if you tend to eat a light breakfast, a light lunch, and a light dinner, only to find yourself starving in the evening, it’s time to flip the script. Instead of opting for a tiny portion at your meals, eat until you are full because you are more likely to make healthy choices at mealtime than at midnight when you’re looking for a treat.

2. Don’t skip meals.

The key to curbing your cravings is not only to change your choices at that moment but to consider all of the other choices that lead to your cravings throughout the day. If you regularly skip breakfast, skip lunch, or don’t eat until dinner time, it is no wonder you find yourself snacking at night – you’re simply hungry!

The issue with this is not the fact that you are hungry; there is nothing wrong with that, but rather it is the type of choices that we make late at night when we do feel hungry. It’s rare that people are reaching for scrambled eggs and salads in the evening; instead, it’s convenience packaged goods that can be eaten on the couch.

3. Eat Balanced Meals

Not only is eating enough food important, but ensuring that you eat a good balance of carbohydrates, protein, and fat in your meals can also help to curb cravings. Generally speaking, protein is the most forgotten macronutrient and it also happens to be the most satiating, so by undereating it you can leave yourself looking for an extra treat later on.

So, to help mitigate this, ensure that you eat well-balanced meals throughout the day, complete with protein and fat, to help balance your blood sugar and minimize mindless late-night snacking.

4. Go to bed.

Although this suggestion may seem silly, it’s really important. Not only is prioritizing sleep important for general health and well-being, but the number of hours we sleep greatly affects our hunger cues. The first and most obvious reason why sleep matters is that the amount of sleep you get directly affects how much food you put in your mouth.

However, the second and more influential reason is that lack of sleep contributes to hormone imbalances in insulin, leptin, and cortisol which have a profound on our cravings and hunger signals. When you deprive yourself of sleep, ghrelin, the hormone that drives hunger goes up, and PYY, the hormone that makes you feel full, goes down. So, by staying up late at night not only are you giving yourself more hours to eat during the date, but you are setting yourself up for more cravings the following day as well.

5. Break associations.

So many of our eating habits and hunger cues are triggered by routines. If you have a routine of changing into loose, comfortable clothing after dinner and vegging out in front of the TV for hours only to zone out while you mindlessly snack, you may want to reconsider your routine. In fact, if you can’t imagine TV time without a snack in hand, you may want to reconsider your post-dinner activity altogether.

6. Step away from the screens.

Screen time, everything from watching TV to browsing on your iPad has been linked to mindless eating and increased food intake. Eating in front of the TV, while playing video games, or surfing the Internet can distract attention from what and how much you eat, reduce satiety signals sent to the brain and lessen memory of snacking. It is for this reason that when you’re watching a movie your hand is hitting the bottom of the popcorn bowl before you even realize it’s empty.

7. Only eat while sitting at the table.

Eating directly out of the bag in the kitchen? Eating on the couch? Eating in bed? If you notice your food intake occurring all over the house, I would recommend implementing a simple rule: only eat while sitting at the dinner table.

This small adjustment can make a world of difference and make you more mindful of your food intake as you force yourself to sit down, slow down, and chew, as opposed to just cramming food into your mouth while looking for more food in the pantry.

8. Transition your snacks.

Cutting back on late-night snacking is a lot easier said than done, especially if it is a habit you have built over a number of years. If you’ve been eating cookies and chips on the couch every night for the past 20 years just telling yourself to cut it out cold turkey tomorrow is probably not that realistic. Instead, start by focusing on what you are eating.

For instance, if you always have a bowl of ice cream, try swapping it for flavored yogurt, then try swapping that for plain yogurt with berries, then try swapping it for a cup of tea. This transition period may take a month, even years, but if you simply focus on making a better food choice it will help make the transition a whole lot easier than simply stopping the habit altogether.

9. Ask yourself why.

Although there are many strategies that you can implement in order to help curb late-night snacking, the real solution is to find the root cause and ask yourself why. Why am I snacking? Am I hungry? Stressed? Sad? Tired? Bored? We often use food to deal with our emotions since it gives us a moment of temporary relief and pleasure, especially processed food.

Our bodies are equipped with natural built-in systems that tell us when we are hungry, when we are not hungry, when to eat more, and when to stop eating, however, junk food is designed in a way that overrides all of those built-in systems. To no surprise, eating junk food can bring a great deal of pleasure, and it can stimulate your body’s reward system.

This system was designed to “reward” you when you do things that encourage survival, including eating, and when this happens your brain releases feel-good chemicals, including dopamine. In fact, a recent study published in the International Journal of Obesity found that participants who felt stressed saw their levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin rise in the evening, which can cause them to eat more whether they are hungry or not.

The first step to curbing your late-night snacking is not just cutting it out, it’s figuring out what is triggering it in the first place. Simple tools like not skipping meals, tracking your meals, and stepping away from screens can help, but what is most important is thinking about why you are reaching for snacks in the first place. If the answer is that you are hungry, perfect, go ahead and eat, but if the answer is that you are bored, stressed, or tired, you may want to consider other lifestyle factors that can help to minimize the impact that these issues have on your hunger cues.

Salt is arguably one of the most important cooking ingredients and one of the hottest debated topics in the nutrition community. Over the years, salt has been blamed for numerous health conditions, but is all salt really as dangerous as we have been led to believe? The reality is, not all salt is created equal and understanding the different types is imperative to optimizing health. With so many different varieties available it can be confusing to know which to choose and why, so let’s discuss salt, its functions, its benefits, and the different types in order to determine the best types of salt to use in your diet.

 

Why We Need Salt

Salt is a crystalline substance made of sodium and chloride and is one of several dozen minerals we need to survive. The human body can’t store much salt on its own so we need to consume it through our diet in order for it to carry out many vital functions in the body. Salt is important for balancing the fluid level of the blood, regulating extracellular fluid, managing the body’s acid-alkaline balance, functions of the nervous system, adrenal system, stomach acid production, and proper nutrient absorption in the intestinal tract. In fact, we are hard-wired to crave salt to ensure that we consume adequate amounts.

Part of the confusion surrounding salt lies in the lack of differentiation in the format in which it is consumed. Although salt is necessary for optimal health, even too much of a good thing can be a bad thing, and not all forms of salt are the same. The reality is, most sodium in the standard North American diet now comes from processed foods, not the salt shaker, as roughly 70% of salt is consumed through food products off the grocery store shelf. By eating a diet rich in processed food, we are no longer able to control our salt intake and the format in which we consume it. On the contrary, when consuming a diet rich in whole foods, salt is not present in the food, and it must, therefore, be added during the cooking process. In fact, it has been shown that both high and very low intakes of salt can contribute to health concerns. So, when consuming whole foods and cooking from scratch it is important to understand the best types of salt to use in order to avoid refined versions of it.

The Best Salt to Use

Sea Salt

As the name suggests, sea salt comes from seawater, which is evaporated to make sea salt. The term sea salt is actually a broad term that incorporates various types as it can include Black, Celtic, French, or Hawaiian sea salt. Due to the different sources and production processes, sea salts are found in varying colors and textures including grey, black, fine, flaky, and coarse. For instance, fleur de sel, grey salt, and Maldon salt are the less refined result of the gradual evaporation of seawater and can take up to 5 years to make, while granular sea salt is produced by rapidly boiling ocean water in a closed vacuum. Both forms can be used in a healthy diet, although granular sea salt is best used for everyday cooking, while fleur de sel and Maldon salt provide a pleasant texture making them ideal for garnishing or finishing dishes.

Rock Salt

Rock salt comes from salt mines, from ancient lakes and seas which now lie far underground, and rock salt can come under many names. Popular forms of rock salt include Himalayan salt, pink salt, and ancient salt. The pink color of some rock salt comes from their rich iron content, and some sources have been shown to include over 84 minerals and trace elements, including calcium, magnesium, potassium, and copper. Rock salt can be made into many different formats, including fine grain, kosher, coarse, and powder salt.

Kosher Salt

Kosher salt is a coarse grain salt made from land salt mines but is less processed than table salt. Contrary to popular belief, not all kosher salt is actually certified kosher, rather it is named after the koshering process when larger-grained versions of salt were used to remove the blood from the meat. Although most kosher salt does not contain added iodine or anti-caking agents, some brands may so it is best to read the ingredients to be sure. Given it is slightly less expensive than some sea salts, kosher salt is a great option for everyday cooking.

What About Table Salt?

Regular table salt, also known as iodized salt, is the salt that you find in processed foods and on most restaurant tables. Iodized salt came to light in the 1920s when iodine deficiency was a common health problem, however, these days you can get sufficient amounts of iodine from natural sources as long as you are eating a diverse diet of whole foods. Table salt is heat processed and stripped of its natural trace minerals, and commonly contains anti-caking agents to help prevent clumping and sugar or dextrose to help stabilize the iodine. Although neither is overly harmful, there is no value in adding them to your food when you can add natural salt by itself, so avoiding table salt as much as possible is recommended.

The Bottom Line

Salt does not deserve the bad reputation it has received, and adding natural salt to whole foods can help to make dishes more palatable while supporting health at the same time. There is no need to avoid salt entirely unless otherwise specified by a health practitioner, rather, it is best to avoid table salt and processed foods that contain refined salt. As with all food, when opting for salt be sure to read the ingredients and choose options that contain 100% salt and nothing else.