Night time Starvation

I am starving at night. Literally starving.  I end up having a bowl of cereal and 2 slices of cheese, which you can only imagine is ruining my day of calories.  Its always late at night like 10pm.  I am at a loss of what to do except to take a sleeping pill to get to sleep.  See i am a night owl and don't go to sleep until at least 12.

Anyone have any suggestions.

Are you eating enough during the day?

A late night snack can be good, but if you are doing it every night you need to plan it into you daily caloric allowance.

I am eating my calories during the day and then some.  It says to eat 1200 cal

I am 5'6 and CW is 189 my GW is 160 and I want to reach this by xmas. 

1200 is too low for you. Try www.phord.com/cc for a second opinion. I'm guessing you got the 1200 because you said that you are sedentary. Are you?

Do you do much exercise?  Assuming you are lightly active, I would suggest you increase your daily intake to about 1400-1500, eat regularly and plan your food choices carefully so that they are as filling & nutritious as possible.  If you need to have a late snack, maybe have a slice of toast or a banana with a hot drink rather than high-cal cereals and cheese (which can disturb your sleep)

A recent blog entry might be of interest to you

http://caloriecount.about.com/matter-eat-righ t-bed-q3029

Also, what kinds of calorie deficits are you seeing every day?  It should be between 500 and 1000.  If it's more than that, you're definitely not eating enough.  If you really are sedentary, it's probably best to change that.  Even just adding a little walking to your day can have huge benefits.  Plus, you'll be able to eat more while maintaining a calorie deficit.  If you already are getting excercise, you're definitely not eating enough.  You're hungry at night because your body needs more food.

my work is sedentary and yes that is what I put in.  I also work out about 4 times a week on my eliptical for 30 min about 400 cals.  i put that in too.

Last week I averaged about 1500 cals instead of the 1200 that it said i should. But I will look into the other sites with the calorie intake.

I only lost 1lbs this week.  Which i think is really low for the first week.

1lb/week is what you should be aiming for.

Also, if you use the calorie target tool, and say that you are sedentary, but you actually work out, it will give you a lower estimate than you should eat.

If you want to having your acct settings at sedentary, and log your exercise, that's fine - but take a look at the burn meter - where it says Total Estimate (after you've logged your workout) - take that number and subtract 500. That's how much you should eat.

End your night with a tablespoon of peanut butter. It will digest slowly and keep you feeling full until you fall asleep.

You shouldn't feel like you're starving though. If your appetite is really bad, you might want to up the cals for a little bit.

try drinking cold/room temp. water or tea (uncaffeinated if before bed). a lot of it.  drink until you feel full! pee. then repeat. haha, it works! i actually drink a lot of water and tea when i get the munchies. it really helps.

This might sound dumb but... what KIND of starving?  There's "starving" and then there's STARVING.  Hungry and bored often gets recycled as starving.  Low sugar often gets recycled as starving.  Dehydrated - the same.

IBEZ had a great suggestion - you might need a slow digestive for the evening - my personal favorite is 250mls of low fat cottage cheese.  Try that with 3 glasses of water.  The protein/calcium combination is a winner as well.

Also consider that your body is lying to you.  You indicate this is your first week on a weight loss progam.  The first weeks are the toughest.  Your body will demand more food because it is what it is used to getting.  Your body needs to catch up to your mind. 

Eating a bowl of cereal right before bed is not a great idea because of the classic carb craving cycle.  Work your carbs in earlier during the day and focus on the eveing meal consisting mainly of proteins and leafy vegetables.  The leafy veggies will help give your stomach more mass to digest without the high calories and the proteins will digest more slowly giving you the fuel you need overnight.  Like ibez and legaleli recommend a little peanut butter, cottage cheese or the bit of cheese you are eating should be enough. 

Good luck

You might be bored...or anxious, pre-menstural,  depressed,  lots of reasons. But you are NOT starving!  It really ticks me off when I hear that term...sorry.   Be sure you are getting the right amount of callories during the day and enough protein.  A late night snack of fat-free turkey slice is OK, as are other foods that won't sabotage your diet.    

Good luck.

eat more throughout the day and up the protein

eat things that'll make you gasy, that'll keep you from eating later...

1 pound a week is good.  And you said you wanted to lose 29 lbs by Christmas.  Christmas is in 28 weeks, so you're right on track.  I honestly think one of the biggest mistakes people make when trying to lose weight is feeling like they need to lose it all really quickly.  The people who are the most successful at keeping the weight off are the ones who lost in through methods that they can sustain for the rest of their lives.

When people have a lot of weight to lose, yes, they do tend to lose quite a bit in the 1st week, especially if they've been eating high calorie, high sodium, sugar laden diets prior to that.  Most of it is water weight.  If you don't have all that water weight, the weight you lost is fat, and 1 lb is great.  I only lost 3 or 4 pounds in my 1st 2 months doing this.  It's only been in the last couple of months that my weight loss has sped up to about a pound a week.  I started excercising a lot in January, and I think my body needed to add a little muscle before it would give up the weight.  The cool thing was that the 3 lbs I lost looked like 10.  People noticed.

Eat a piece of cheese.  Not only will it help with hunger pangs, it also makes you dream.

I was hungry all the time for the first couple of weeks....... (that's where the will power bit is needed). After that I learnt to eat bulky low cal foods (I must eat 5 whole lettuces a week) at every meal so where I would have had grilled chicken and a small amount of carbs i had grilled chicken and masses of salad. Once I changed what I ate I stopped being hungry

Your starting stats are exactly the same as mine were and I have a completely sedentry job (I'm a computer programmer). 

I also started with 1200 cals to begin with, and was starving at first, but after a month I wasn't starving anymore.  After 2 months I stopped getting a period (which is a bad thing) so I upped my cals to 1400-1500 and started steadily loosing 1 - 2 lbs a week with no adverse side effects. 

Most people lose more weight in the first month then afterwards but it's just water weight from drinking the mass amounts of water a healthy lifestyle demands. 

I would increase your calories and your water intake for better results.

I am a 23yr old male and as you can imagine used to have to same problem. I talked to my dad who is a physician and he told me to look into a protein shake before bed. After some research and some self experimenting I found that GNC makes an 8 hour protein complex I mix 1.5 scoops of that with 8 ounces of water and am great for the rest of the night.

The best thing about the 8 hour complex is that it is just as it seems. It breaks down in your system over 8 hours. So, it should last you the night.

** Be weary of mixing with Milk. I have done some reading and most things I have seen suggest that milk actually hinder your body's ability to take in the protein... this is why some people have really bad gas after drinking protein shakes. This is the non-metabolized protein.**

Let me know if I can be any more help