Curb your craving

You eat well all day and then the evening comes and it all falls apart. Evening munchies are one of the most common ways to sabotage a good diet.

Curbing the evening munchies is all about changing behaviors. Changing behaviors means having some strategies in place to prevent this often sabotaging time. One issue might be that you might not have eaten enough calories for the day. When the evening comes, your body wants to make up the difference. If that is not true for you, here are some other ways to curb the munchies.

1. Drink a cup of decaffeinated tea.

Tea can help to fill the space in your stomach. Slowly sipping can curb cravings. Pick a flavor that you like that is not caffeinated so you don't have to worry about staying up all night. Do not add sugar or any milk. Just plain tea.

2. Eat chopped up veggies.

Some good options are cut up carrots, celery or cucumbers. Cherry tomatoes. These are filled with fiber and water. They also give you extra nutrients and vitamins.

3. Drink a big cup of water

Often when you think you are hungry, you are thirsty. Drink a large cup of water. Water helps to fill the gaps in the stomach. You can include a low calorie electrolyte or some cucumbers or lemon. You can blend some low calorie electrolytes, water and ice in the blender for an evening slushie.

4. Go to bed.

Sometimes, it is just time to go to bed. Going to bed early and getting a full night of sleep helps with cravings and weight loss research demonstrates. You should be getting 7-8 hours per sleep per night. Most people function sub-optimally on less than that.

5. Get busy working on a project.

You might be bored. Start working on a project and get busy to take your mind off of eating.

Close your kitchen and refrigerator after 8 pm. Develop a behavior of not eating after this time. It is all about developing different and better behaviors and that takes generally about 4-6 weeks. Seeing results over the weeks will help encourage you to stay the course. Stay strong!