Where it all went sideways: The real reason you lose control around food at night

The other week, my client Melissa and I were having a good laugh about the times we’ve found ourselves standing in front of the fridge, spooning our way uncontrollably through various containers.

It’s happened more than once and we both agreed that in the instances that it does, it’s almost like we’re having an out-of-body experience. The logical part of us is standing back, questioning why we’re doing what we’re doing. It’s reminding us that it’s not something that we want to be doing.

But at the same time, the primitive part of our brain is going for it—taking advantage of a full fridge to satisfy what ails us.

And we’re not the only ones. I have countless stories of other clients confiding in me about something similar. They opened a container of ice cream, a sleeve of cookies, or a bag of chips intending to only have a few bites. Ten minutes later, they’re staring at an empty package, wondering how it got that way so fast.

One of the things I do as a coach is to help each person backtrack through their day to figure out what led to said moment. Because there is always a trigger—something that happened hours earlier that set the stage for overeating.

Let’s use Melissa as an example to start. When she’s busy and feeling overwhelmed, she doesn’t take the time to pack a mid-afternoon snack to take to work. When she neglects this, she recognizes that she’s more likely to find herself standing in front of the fridge armed with a spoon within minutes of getting home.

Another client explained a few weeks ago that she’d eaten a pint of ice cream one evening. When she searched back through her day, she realized that she’d opted for just a side-salad during a work lunch because she was trying to make a “healthy” choice. Unfortunately, the lack of calories and protein left her unsatisfied and even after an adequate dinner, she found herself ruthlessly snacky.

A third client recently told me how she often cooks on an empty stomach. As a result, she picks away as she’s preparing her evening meal. By the time she’s done cooking, she’s no longer hungry. Yet, she feels compelled to eat the meal because she took the time to make it. If she had a time machine, she’d go back and avoid cooking while she’s starving.

Though each of these scenarios are slightly different, the pattern is the same. There’s a trigger point—a choice earlier in the day that set the stage for reactive eating later on.

Have you ever experienced something similar? You can’t quite put your finger on it, but something is compelling you to eat in a way that goes against your goals. In that moment, you might be angrily demanding, “What the heck is wrong with me? Where is my willpower?”

Of course, the answer is: There’s nothing wrong with you. Once again, you’ve proved that you’re 100% normal. And it’s not a case of having too little willpower. It’s about making sure your body has what it needs so that willpower isn’t required.

The lesson here is that you need to eat enough in the first two thirds of your day, so that you don’t set yourself up to fail in the evening.

This might go against what seems logical—many people believe it’s a better strategy to short their food intake during the first part of the day, so they have the “freedom” to eat as much as they want at night.

The problem? Doing this leads to uncontrollable hunger and cravings for calorie dense foods (think chips, cookies, chocolate, ice cream). So, while you think you’re doing yourself a favour, in truth what you’re doing is sabotaging yourself. Deprivation early in the day sets you up to over-consume your energy needs as the evening rolls around.

You might argue that you just don’t feel hungry in the first part of your day, so it makes sense not to eat. But just because you might not feel hungry, that doesn’t mean your body isn’t registering a shortage of nourishment. It’s quietly keeping track in the background and when it senses that starvation might be on the horizon, it goes into panic mode.

Herman Pontzer, author of Burn, which is a book all about how the metabolism works, outlines the reality of this so well. He writes, “Our metabolic engines were not crafted by millions of years of evolution to guarantee a beach-ready bikini body.”

What they are instead crafted to do is ensure our survival. And tens of thousands of years ago, survival came down to avoiding starvation. Our brains are still wired to prevent this so after the better part of a day of inadequate energy intake, the drive to eat becomes uncontrollable.

And if you’re someone who is focused on staying aligned with your nutrition goals, it’s important to be able to regulate your appetite so that you can make the choices you want to make. Recognize that choosing too little food early in the day is likely going to be a trigger to overeat as the end of the day rolls around.

Think of your eating window as three, four-hour segments. For example, you could plan to eat about one-third of your food between 7am and 11am, one-third between 11am and 3pm, and one-third between 4pm and 7pm.

Set yourself up for success by planning out your meals. By being proactive with your food intake, you’re less likely to be reacting to extreme hunger or deprivation that is sure to cause overeating and a misalignment with your goals.

Stop asking the question, “What’s wrong with me?” and start taking back control.