How to Stop Snacking at Night: An Easy Trick That Works

Do you have a resolution to stop snacking late at night? What a worthy goal! You’re not alone in wanting to quit munching after dinner ends.

Luckily, here is an easy 3-minute trick (illustrated with my hand-drawn cartoons about life hacks) that will help make the change. Your guide for this method will be a color-changing, furry monster. Let’s meet it now, as it longs for a slice of chocolate cake at 9:17pm…

WHY Stop Snacking at Night?

Before we get to the trick that could fix the problem, let’s establish WHY it’s so useful to stop snacking at night. Every person is truly different, but reasons why people might want to curb late-evening food intake include…

A.) Solving tummy troubles.

Eating too close to bed time can cause heartburn, acid reflux, and indigestion, because the horizontal sleeping position robs the body of gravity’s power to help push food downward. Blech.

B.) Combatting weight gain.

Let’s face it: Most late-night snacks are not the healthiest choices (chips and midnight cake dessert, anyone?), and are often not mindfully consumed (in front of the TV, perhaps?). Pair this with the sheer increase in calories from an extra meal, and that’s a recipe for weight gain.

C.) Exploring intermittent fasting.

The health benefits of intermittent fasting — using a specific pattern of eating and not eating each day — are increasingly well-documented. Pausing food intake right after dinner is a great start to this framework, because it provides a longer stretch for digesting and resetting during the night.

Intrigued now about how stopping late-night snacking could help your life, but not sure how to make the change happen? Let’s let the colorful, fuzzy monster introduce the trick to help it stick!

The Trick to Stop Eating in the Evening:

STEP 1: Brush your teeth as soon after dinner as possible!

This trick is shockingly simple, yet effective. Most of us as adults wait until right before bed to brush our teeth, leaving several hours of tempting time between dinner and toothbrush time to snack, snack, and snack. However, if you clean your mouth completely as close to the culmination of dinner as possible…

STEP 2: You can let laziness work its power.

Yes, that’s correct: The strength of laziness often trumps the siren call of hunger (or mouth boredom), and you can use this fact to your advantage! Though brushing and flossing teeth takes just three minutes, once you’ve done it, you’re unlikely to want to do it all over again until morning… which may well be the deterrent needed to walk away from that bag of chips.

VIDEO: How to Stop Snacking at Night

https://youtu.be/AAnH9E2rHwE

Stopping Snacking at Night, in Sum

So what’s your take on this trick to quit munching late-night snacks? If you tried it, how did it work? For me, since I have young kids, the tactic that is ideal is to brush my teeth at the same time as their early bed routine.

Now here’s a bonus level: If you’re still tempted to eat that slice of cake despite the brushed teeth, try to actually get in bed, even if the hour seems to early. Not only will this add the helpful laziness of now having further to walk to get to the fridge, but it also introduces the possible health benefits of getting more sleep.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this colorful, fuzzy monster’s lesson on how to potentially live happier and healthier. Want more life lessons? Check out “How to Quit Coffee” and “8 Benefits of Drawing!”