Snacking, munching, and nibbling from dinner to bed time is an easy way to derail your efforts to lose fat. Here are my favorite ways to avoid the mental battle with the pantry (especially this time of year!):
- Close the kitchen after dinner. In other words, once dinner is done, there is no more access to the kitchen. Hang a closed sign on the fridge and/or pantry if you need to. Chances are, others in your household don’t need late-night snacking either.
- Brush your teeth. Once you’ve brushed your teeth, you’ve removed the taste of the last meal, so you aren’t reminded of food. Plus, we all hate the nighttime ritual of flossing and brushing, so you probably won’t do it twice just so you can have a snack. And do you really want to brush your teeth and then eat your favorite snack? GROSS!
- Go for a walk. Remove yourself from the house altogether. Get some fresh air and a change of scenery. You can’t hear the pantry or those snowman cookies calling your name from outside.
- Read a book. Once you are sucked in to the story line, you aren’t as likely to be thinking of food.
- Watch less TV. We tend to associate TV with snacking. If you can’t seem to break the cycle for now, then simply limit your TV exposure until you can do so without needing to eat. Choose another activity.
- Work out. Once you’ve gotten your sweat on, you are far less likely to turn around and eat a bowl of ice cream.
- Get intimate. Head to the bedroom, folks. Need I say more?
- Find a different reward. If you tend to eat sweets or drink a glass of wine because you’ve had a long day and you feel you’ve earned it, find a different reward. Indulge in a long bath, call someone you haven’t talked to in a while, get your nails done, etc. Come up with several options so when that rough day happens, you are armed with choices other than food.
- Pay yourself. Each night you don’t raid the kitchen, give yourself a dollar. At the end of the month, treat yourself to getting your nails done, or a fat-loss friendly meal out, or whatever you’ve been wanting to do that doesn’t involve snacking.
Those are my top tips to avoid the late-night kitchen raid and to keep those holiday pounds AWAY. What are some of your tips? I’d love to hear them!
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