Blog,  No Eating After Dinner Challenge

Years of Late Night Eating Created One Serious Bad Habit

No Eating After Dinner Challenge: Day 2

I DID IT!

It wasn’t that hard but it does make things simpler when the person you want to spend time with is no where near the kitchen. After we put the kids to bed, John actually retired for the night to take a bath and read in bed. I could have let him have some alone time but I hadn’t seen him all day so I wanted to be near him. I made myself some tea, grabbed my book and headed upstairs to read as well.

Total avoidance does the trick but this is not always going to be the case, but I’ll take for day 2! On top of everything else I did have two late afternoon snacks.

Yes, Oreos.

I knew this was going to happen. I’ve attempted the no snacking at night before but the junk food or seeing my hubby partake does me in. I want to have a stronger willpower but it doesn’t happen if I’m not intentional about it.

Looking back, I can see where the late night snacking has stemmed from. The galley (i.e. snack bar) in my Freshman dorm was open late and it had food that we rarely had at home, plus I was able to use my food card to pay for nachos, chips, candy, and pop.

Basically, FREE FOOD! Hello Freshman 20.

Then as I got older, we would go out after a night of partying or to a concert and all the restaurants on High Street (GO BUCKS) were still open. We were no strangers to late night, 3am Taco Bell runs.

When I was in my 20’s and in grad school, I worked as a bartender at PF Changs and would often close, taking dinner home to eat at 11pm or stop by McDonalds on the way home.

Let’s say these are not isolated situations and I’m sure I could come up with many more.

I also worked at Graeter’s Ice Cream in college…Free Ice Cream…More Bad Habits

Late night eating was ingrained into me because it wasn’t an occasional thing but years of a consistent bad habit.

At this point, mindfulness needs to step in and work it’s magic for the next month especially in situations where food is readily available and I become vulnerable to it’s temptress.

So while last night was a success, my husband’s non deliberate move to go to bed hindered my late night eating because I didn’t want to be alone and wanted to finish my book anyways. While I liked having a cup of tea to calm me down, we did have dinner at 7:45pm so that felt like cheating a bit.

We had gotten home late from skating lessons and it was either eat at 4:30pm (not hungry) or 7:45pm (ravenous). But technically, I didn’t eat after dinner because I was still full from dinner. But day one was a success, regardless of the justifications.

Tomorrow is movie night with the kids. This is willpower to the nth degree!


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