Post-dinner snacks!

Hey, I've recently been eating loads of snacks after dinner-before bed. Sometimes it gets bad, into a mini-binge, snacking on a bunch of random stuff (crackers, chips, dry cereal, etc). I always hear though that it's bad to eat too close to bed time. How long before sleeping do you guys usually have your nighttime snacks by? And I'd be glad to hear some suggestions of what to have as well :)

(maybe this would control my uncontrolled snacking?)

thanks! xx

I usually have a huge bowl of ben and jerrys ice cream (legit a cup or so, about 500 cals) right after dinner with my brother for dessert. If I am hungry while doing my hw or just before bed, I make myself a protein smoothie with two scoops of chocolate protein powder. This makes me full before bed but not bloated! YUMMY

You're probably having loads of snacks before bed because you've not had enough during the day and your body is telling you that it's still hungry. Maybe you should try increasing during the day? Also having food before bed isn't bad at all as long as it isn't so sugary that it will keep you awake! It's normal for people to have something before bed and you're preparing your body for a long period of no food.

I normally have my bedtime snack an hour/ hour and a half before bed. Most people here tend to have some sort of cereal and milk at nighttime as it's quite comforting (especially with hot milk). Some other suggestions could be hot milky drink (like hot choc) and biscuits, toast, ice cream is popular..just make sure it's a substantial snack to settle you enough not to turn into a binge where you'll feel out of control.

My dietitian suggests eating 2-3 hours before bed to help digestion. She told me to have milky drinks and puddings if eating later, but to be honest, I need a 'dense' snack otherwise I don't sleep that well. I would say have a good dinner and then a milky pud or cereal like oatmeal a couple of hours before bed x 

I'm not gaining anymore(yay), but I have a feeling I'll probably have to soon! I would hate to eat at night, so I would plan out exactly what I was going to eat during the day, so I couldn't back out of it. It would also help you not binge, which is not a bad thing, though, since you're gaining. I would also try to make it fun, not boring!

Some of my fav's

• Soymilk with a chai tea bag seeped in-so delish paired with a sweet
• chocolate chip scones spread with nutella+soymilk on the side
• grilled banana+pb sanwich, or banana +chocolate sandwich
• banana soft serve (a frozen banana blended with yogurt+nut butter), with toppings
• bowl of hot strawberries with homemade granola and nutella
• hot chocolate
• oatmeal-sounds odd, but oatmeal with a banana whipped in is so delish!

also, maybe for extra cales, a supplement, like ensure?

I would eat right before bed, but that wasn't the smartest, it was just bc I would put it off, but good luck! Tell me what you decide on having!

Never heard of hot strawberries-sounds good. Is nutella any good? I have wanted to try it but wondered how it tastes-I hate regular pb.

I almost always have a snack after dinner of some sort.  BTW I love having yogurt/ ice cream (or oatmeal if its cold) with strawberries or blueberries and nutella, so yes it is very good stuff. 

Here's some of my faovrites:

Sweet potato with 2TBS of peanut butter and cinnamon

Yogurt with 2-3 of the following: melted frozen fruit, peanut butter, granola/cereal, nutella, chocolate chips, honey, chocolate syrup, nuts

Oatmeal with cocoa powder, melted berries and nutella

Smoothies made with soy/coconut milk, frozen fruit, spinach, chocolate or strawberry syrup, and peanut butter. Some times I add cocoa powder or nutella.

And when its really cold or I don't feel well, I make a cup of hot cocoa using a whole cup of milk mixed 1/4 cup dark cocoa powder, a dash of cinnamon and a splash of cream. its about 300 calories, and settles my stomach. 

it doesn't matter when you finish eating really. makes no difference as long as you're able to sleep.

good snacks: apple baked with cinnamon and sugar with a greek yogurt and 1/2 cup granola on top

banana rolled in dark chocolate and nuts, freeze in the freezer

graham crackers spread with pb, topped with extra nuts, chocolate chips, and bananas...melted in the microwave with a cup of ice cream

chocolate milk with a dollop of ice cream in it

melted peanut butter and chocolate chips to dip chopped fruit into

Original Post by iwikiba2:

Never heard of hot strawberries-sounds good. Is nutella any good? I have wanted to try it but wondered how it tastes-I hate regular pb.

OMG I love Nutella. If you like hazelnuts and chocolate you will like it too. I don't like pb either and nutella is a perfect sweet fix for me. :)

What i'd like to know is.....how is everyone hungry AFTER dinner?  Honestly...i never am.  I usually have a dessert with dinner and finish eating around 7 or 6.50pm.  AFter that ...i just don't feel like eating again which screws up my evening snack...i often can't get one in.  Any suggestions....should i try to eat a lighter dinner or what?  I also find that if i go to bed with a fullish stomach i can't sleep.  Help!!!

vicgirl: i wouldn't recommend cutting back at dinner but maybe just drinking an evening snack instead. so make hot chocolate with a boost shake, heated up and add in either cocoa powder or melted dark chocolate with whipped cream on top. 

you could also have cold chocolate milk the same way.

or just have 1/2 a bar of dark chocolate since it isn't filling at all. 

vicgirl:  I have the exact same issue.  What I've started to do is to make my *midday meal larger*, and have dinner be a tad lighter so that I have room for a post-dinner snack.  The same amount of calories is taken in during the day, but by shifting some of them to lunch, I can actually meet the post-dinner snack goal.  Something to try?

In terms of ideas for that post-dinner snack, I find that I like warm things.  Currently in the rotation:

--soft brown rice very well cooked in almond milk with a bit of sugar or honey on top

-- warmed fruit sauce (e.g. apple sauce, pear, peach, etc.) sprinkled some dense dry cereal like a granola

Vicgirl: I don't usually have time to eat dessert with dinner. Some days, I eat dinner at like 4PM, other times, I eat my dinner on a 15 min. break at work around 7. So for me, an extra snack or two throughout the night is necessary.

That being said - there have been times when I eat a big dinner at 6:30-7PM and end up not having the aforementioned nightly snack. I'll have a drink of some sort (often hot cocoa or something, but occasionally alcohol) and consider that to be just fine. So it all depends on your schedule and what works best for you on a particular day.

I tend to eat a lighter dinner at 5pm (I have a 3 yr old too so it works for his bedtime), then I am hungry 3 hrs later - about 8pm ready for a good snack. I go to bed about 10pm.

hi everyone! thanks, I'll definitely try some of the snack suggestions. But most of you who do have snacks seem to have dinner pretty early. I don't usually have dinner until about 7:30, sometimes after 8. I sleep at around midnight. I want to have the snack but I'm also afraid of waking up feeling bloated as it tends to affect the way I eat for the rest of the day :S I get up at around half past 6 am so it's not really that many hours in between...

I used to have trouble sleeping too. I was petrified of eating a snack of significant calories before bed. I'd have like a popsicle or something around 7:30 and I'd be up until midnight because I couldn't sleep, and I'd wake up around 6 and be starving.  I started having something more substantial before bed, around 8 or 9, and I found that I slept much, much better. You said you had dessert with your dinner, right? Well, perhaps you could try splitting the two up? Eat your regular dinner, and have the dessert an hour or two later?

Mandy I have dinner at around 8.00 - 8.30 every night - my family likes to eat late. I used to eat a six pm on my own but haven't done that for a good few years now - it just made food even more of a ritual and it got to a stage where I took an hour to finish a small-ish plate of food. (ED!) 

I eat a night snack every night between nine and ten o' clock - I usually make it a dessert-y type thing (yoghurt with loads of toppings like granola, dried fruit and choc chips etc) or ice cream with toppings, or a plate of dried fruit, cubes of cheese, crackers etc which aren't too dense and can kinda feel like just a pudding rather than a whole separate snack. 

Original Post by mandyloves:

hi everyone! thanks, I'll definitely try some of the snack suggestions. But most of you who do have snacks seem to have dinner pretty early. I don't usually have dinner until about 7:30, sometimes after 8. I sleep at around midnight. I want to have the snack but I'm also afraid of waking up feeling bloated as it tends to affect the way I eat for the rest of the day :S I get up at around half past 6 am so it's not really that many hours in between...

See my post above.  Because I get home from work late, I often can't have dinner until  8:00ish.  But again, making the midday meal larger by shifting some of the dinner calories up there helps because it allows me to get in something before going to bed at 10:00 to 10:30.  Much as mashed_tatties said, it becomes more like a pudding/dessert than a whole separate snack.  I wake at 5:30 or so, and have breakfast at around 6:30. 

If you have something dense in the evening snack, you'll likely be able to minimise the feared bloat.  And even if you do, just like the gaining process, your body will adjust to it soon enough and you'll likely feel better in the morning of the next day.

This might seem weird, but if you really don't want to eat too late, what about instead having a snack before breakfast? It may sound weird, but you wake up at 6:30, so maybe like a hot chocolate and a banana spread with pb as an "appetizer" to your breakfast? Just a thought.

Original Post by mashed_tatties:

Mandy I have dinner at around 8.00 - 8.30 every night - my family likes to eat late. I used to eat a six pm on my own but haven't done that for a good few years now - it just made food even more of a ritual and it got to a stage where I took an hour to finish a small-ish plate of food. (ED!) 

I eat a night snack every night between nine and ten o' clock - I usually make it a dessert-y type thing (yoghurt with loads of toppings like granola, dried fruit and choc chips etc) or ice cream with toppings, or a plate of dried fruit, cubes of cheese, crackers etc which aren't too dense and can kinda feel like just a pudding rather than a whole separate snack. 

Thanks! Jemima, right? (Sorry! I don't mean to sound creepy-stalkerish but I was lurking around on the weight meal plan thread for high cal ideas and I sorta picked up your name...is it okay if I call you that? I'll go with mashed_tatties if you prefer :P) Wow, nine or ten pm is pretty soon after your dinner. Do you ever actually get hungry by then or do you just have the snack anyway? Also, what time do you sleep usually? Do you ever find your night snack interfering with your sleeping?

Movingup4me - I don't think I can do what you do with shifting most of my dinner calories earlier because I always have dinner with my parents and it's just a little inconvenient, but I'll definitely follow your suggestion whenever I can! Thanks (:

Original Post by mandyloves:

Original Post by mashed_tatties:

Mandy I have dinner at around 8.00 - 8.30 every night - my family likes to eat late. I used to eat a six pm on my own but haven't done that for a good few years now - it just made food even more of a ritual and it got to a stage where I took an hour to finish a small-ish plate of food. (ED!) 

I eat a night snack every night between nine and ten o' clock - I usually make it a dessert-y type thing (yoghurt with loads of toppings like granola, dried fruit and choc chips etc) or ice cream with toppings, or a plate of dried fruit, cubes of cheese, crackers etc which aren't too dense and can kinda feel like just a pudding rather than a whole separate snack. 

Thanks! Jemima, right? (Sorry! I don't mean to sound creepy-stalkerish but I was lurking around on the weight meal plan thread for high cal ideas and I sorta picked up your name...is it okay if I call you that? I'll go with mashed_tatties if you prefer :P) Wow, nine or ten pm is pretty soon after your dinner. Do you ever actually get hungry by then or do you just have the snack anyway? Also, what time do you sleep usually? Do you ever find your night snack interfering with your sleeping?

Movingup4me - I don't think I can do what you do with shifting most of my dinner calories earlier because I always have dinner with my parents and it's just a little inconvenient, but I'll definitely follow your suggestion whenever I can! Thanks (:

Hehe of course you can call me Jemima :) Umm yeah it is soon after dinner - and no, I'm never usually particularly hungry but I suppose at the moment I can't really listen to my body the way a normal person can, y'know? Like if I waited until I was hungry after eating a 5-700kcal dinner, I'd be eating night snack at about 2AM! 

As for sleeping, I find I actually sleep better if I'm not hungry, but I usually actually go to sleep sleep any time after 11 - more often than not about 1AM, and by that time I'm not stuffed-stuffed but not hungry either, so it works out OK. I'm a bit of a night owl! But I've got messed up sleep patterns anyway - I never get enough.