How to Stop Overeating at Night (or when bored…)

We’ve all fallen victim to it… It’s 9 p.m., you’ve had a long day, dinner was a few hours ago, and those Thin Mints in the freezer are calling your name. You think, “I’ll just have 1 or 2, and then get back to reading my book. 😌” Yeah, we all know how that goes… 2 Thin Mints turns into 4, turns into 6, turns into the whole sleeve. Then the chips are calling your name to balance out the sweetness with some salty goodness. It’s a vicious cycle. Honestly, I haven’t met anyone who hasn’t experienced this at one point or another. But if you want to avoid it, here are my best tips on how to stop overeating at night (or when you’re bored!)

How to Stop Overeating at Night

Disclaimer: This blog post is not meant to be used in place of health advice from a doctor. Although time & care has been taken in preparing this content for you, I am not a medical professional, and my advice should not be taken as such.

I want to preface this with a few things:

1. It’s completely normal to snack at night. I’m not one of those people (at all) who believes you need to cut off eating at a certain time of night, otherwise the world’s gonna end. Eat when you’re hungry — simple as that (even if that means eating at night, every night.)
2. Overeating at times is human nature and nothing to be ashamed of. But if you’re reading this article, I’m assuming it’s something that’s hindering your life and not just an every-once-in-a-while thing. Regardless, give yourself grace, and keep in mind that this happens to everyone.
3. Most importantly: If you’re struggling with binge eating or an actual eating disorder/disordered eating, please see a doctor and/or Licensed Eating Disorder Therapist. I’m just sharing tips based on my own personal experience and research on overeating.

That being said, if you want to know how to stop overeating at night, you’ve come to the right place!

I’m going to break up this blog into 4 sections:

• Why overeating might happen
• Deeper causes of it
• How to stop feeling guilty
• Tips to overcome overeating

Why Overeating Might Happen

I’m sure we’ve all heard of boredom eating, or fallen victim to it ourselves. It happens to the best of us.

For me, it doesn’t matter if I’m genuinely bored (have nothing to do) or if I’m just losing focus on whatever I’m doing, and want a new stimulus to spike my dopamine. I.e. when the TV is already on, I’m scrolling Instagram on my phone, I have music playing in the background, and still somehow feel “bored”.

It’s not a lack of stimuli at that point — it’s that I’m not actually paying attention or enjoying any of what I’m doing. My focus is divided and that’ll inevitably lead to not feeling satisfied with any of it.

Another potential cause of overeating is emotional eating. If you’re feeling down, anxious, stressed, or any other range of emotions… An easy distraction for the moment is snacking.

But unfortunately, snacking is a temporary bandaid that doesn’t actually address the root cause. So while it might ease your stress for the few minutes it takes you to down an entire bag of Hot Cheetos — it’s not actually fixing anything.

In addition to boredom eating and emotional eating, overeating can also be caused by a lack of adequate calorie intake throughout the day.

This often happens when someone is dieting or trying to limit their calories, carbs, or any other form of restriction. You get through the entire day, eating minuscule meals and salads, and feel like you did so “good”. But, deep down, your body knows better. It will try to make up for the lack of calories throughout the day by overeating at night.

I’ve experienced all three of these, plenty of times. They’re all challenging to overcome in their own way. So let’s get to the bottom of why these might happen…

Deep Rooted Causes of Overeating

When eating less than your maintenance calories (the amount of calories you need to maintain your weight), your body can’t tell the difference between self-imposed calorie restriction vs. a true food shortage. This causes your body to go into “starvation mode”, slows down metabolism, and causes feelings of deprivation. Hunger and appetite are also increased.

This lowers your inhibitions and makes you more likely to eat out of emotion, boredom, etc. (source)

To put it in Layman’s terms: If you’re getting proper nutrition throughout the day (enough calories and satisfying meals) — you’re less likely to eat an entire box of cookies at night.

How to Stop Feeling Guilty for Overeating

The first step to overcome overeating is to stop feeling guilty about it. In order to do this, you need to acknowledge the feelings of guilt and accept that you feel that way.

After you overeat, pay attention to the negative thoughts that are going through your head. Accept that they’re there, but remind yourself that they’re not true. That you’re a human, who’s not perfect, and it’s completely normal to overeat at times.

Remind yourself that it’s okay that this happened, and that your body is just trying to protect you. Whether it be from lack of calories throughout the day, or difficult emotions that are hard to cope with… Your body has your back and only wants what’s best for you.

Importantly, keep in mind that there is no such thing as “good” or “bad” foods. Just because you ate a bunch of cookies, or chocolate, or chips, or whatever it is — does not make you a bad person.

All of those foods aren’t “bad” either. Food is there to fuel us, give us energy, and is also there for our enjoyment. Every food you love is welcome in a healthy and sustainable diet. So if you’re labeling yourself, or the foods you eat, as “bad” — cut that shit out, because it’s simply not true.

Also, do not try to punish yourself the next day by undereating or over-exercising. This just adds to the vicious cycle of being under-fueled and then overeating. It will keep the same cycle happening for longer.

The next day: eat and exercise as you normally would. Fuel your body and do enjoyable workouts. It’s okay, I promise.

Accept the feelings of guilt, give yourself grace, and move on.

Ways to Overcome Overeating

Once you’ve determined your triggers for overeating (boredom, stress, etc.) we can talk about how to overcome it. I’ve compiled a list of some of the best tips to overcome overeating below.

If you’re dealing with emotional eating:

• Determine the specific emotion(s) that trigger your overeating and come up with a healthier response to those emotions 👇
• Depending on the emotion you’re experiencing, some healthy coping mechanisms might include: talking to a friend or family member, meditating, journaling, going on a walk, stretching/doing yoga, exercising, finding a hobby you love and doing that instead (reading, drawing, writing, knitting…)
• Build a mindfulness practice. You can do this by seeing a therapist who specializes in mindfulness, or by trial and error with different mindfulness practices 👇
• Options for mindfulness practices: breathwork, meditation, nature walks, journaling, gratitude
• If you’re dealing with more difficult emotions that general coping mechanisms or mindfulness practices can’t help, seeing a therapist could help. They’ll be able to talk you through the emotions you’re experiencing and get to the bottom of it, in an individualized way.

If you’re dealing with boredom eating:

• Find a hobby you love, that genuinely fills up your cup! (Not mindlessly scrolling social media or watching a TV show that you don’t even really like…)
• When you’re starting to feel bored or want to eat out of boredom, focus on that hobby (and only that hobby) for the next 30 minutes. Chances are, you’ll get so invested in your hobby, that you won’t feel bored or want to mindlessly snack anymore. You’ll want to keep ____ (reading, painting, playing video games, etc.)
• If you need to chew on or drink something, try chewing gum, drinking a cup of hot herbal tea, or sparkling water
• If you’re able to, go on a walk around your neighborhood
• Ever heard of habit stacking? It’s when you try to build better habits by stacking them on top of a habit you’re already doing. (Ex: Instead of just watching TV for an hour in the evening, you’d walk on the treadmill while watching TV.) Okay, got it? Now, let’s reverse habit stacking. If you have a habit of eating a bag of candy every night when you watch your favorite show, swap that candy out with fruit, yogurt, or another healthy option! Or, if you really want the candy, just bring a small handful of it over instead of the entire bag. It’s way easier to avoid overeating when you have to get up and walk all the way to the kitchen every time you want another piece of candy…

If your overeating is triggered by not eating enough throughout the day:

• Start working towards mindful/intuitive eating. Intuitive eating is the best thing that’s ever happened to my health, and I don’t say that lightly. If you haven’t heard of intuitive eating: in short, you re-learn to eat based on your hunger/fullness cues, and your own feelings of satiety, instead of focusing on external factors like calories, macros, and diets. I wrote a full post going much deeper into how to start intuitive eating here if you’re interested in learning more in-depth about the topic. 🙂
• If you’re on a diet of some sort and find yourself overeating every night, this is a bad sign about your diet. You’re probably not getting enough calories or adequate nutrition throughout the day. Talk to a registered dietitian to come up with a diet specific to you and your personal needs. Please don’t trust diets you see on social media or random websites on the internet. Remember that everyone’s different and has individualized nutritional needs. What works for some rando on the internet more than likely won’t work for you.
• Work towards eating satisfying, healthy meals throughout the day (that give you enough calories, and are a solid balance of carbohydrates, protein, and healthy fats). If you feel satisfied throughout the day and are eating full meals (and snacking when you need to) you are much less likely to overeat at night.

& that’s it!

I hope these tips will be helpful to someone struggling with overeating. Remember to give yourself grace, and accept where you’re at, even when working towards any sort of self-improvement. It’s perfectly okay to be where you’re at in life. We’re all human and nobody’s perfect. 🙂

If you have any questions or any tips you’d like to add, leave a comment below! I’d love to hear about your experience with overeating (if you’re comfortable sharing), if any of these tips helped, or if you have other tips that have worked for you.

Otherwise, talk soon! 😉