Jonathan Steedman (00:01.742)
Alright team, we're gonna talk about nighttime eating. I predominantly mean what you eat after dinner. But I guess I could also mean what you eat before dinner around that kind of you know, five, six o'clock window, maybe when you get home from work or when you're prepping dinner and you're starving. I'm talking about this because this is one of the main areas that comes up when I'm talking to people who have a goal of weight loss but aren't achieving that goal, and you know, I ask them why do you feel

Why do you think that's happening? What do you think's getting in the way of that? And almost always this time of day comes up, right? and because you feel like you're overeating, well, and I say you feel like you're overeating, you you because you are overeating after dinner, it's really tempting to spend all of your time and energy focused on what you're eating after dinner and you try and fix that. You try and keep that food out of the house, or you try and keep it to only on the weekend, or I don't know, you

replace it with some horrible Franken food version of it. You know, like you get the high protein, low carb, zero joy ice cream instead. You know, you do all of these things to try and fix your nighttime eating. But that's not gonna work because all you're doing is trying to like fix the symptom. You're just putting a band-aid on it rather than actually attacking the problem. and the problem is occurring earlier in the day. The problem is not a nighttime problem. It's not a willpower problem or a discipline problem. It is a

structural plan that you are not following. And because you're doing that, you're making the night times really, really impossibly hard for you to stick to. So the first big idea I want you to take away from this is nighttime eating is actually just a debt from your daytime eating. You've under-eaten during the day too significantly, right? You've well, well, well undereaten.

During the day, and now your body is calling in that debt at night plus interest. And because you are no longer heavily caffeinated, and because you have made decisions all day, you've spoken to idiots at work or idiots in your family all day, you are worn down, you are tired, and that discipline and willpower that you did have earlier in the day is now waning. And so all of a sudden saying no to that delicious food becomes impossibly hard. Okay?

Jonathan Steedman (02:29.046)
The way, the main way we're gonna fix that is by eating more during the day. And so we're gonna eat a balanced breakfast and a balanced lunch. So two things about that. The first thing, when I say breakfast, I don't mean eating as soon as you get up. Breakfast could be at midday for all I care. Breakfast is your first meal of the day. When it happens, there's a there's so much flexibility and personal variation that we could go into. personally, my main meal, my first meal of the day, sorry, is typically between 10 and 11 a.m.

That's just what works for me. but I make it balanced, I make it big. And then I have my lunch at about two to three p.m. and I make it balanced and I make it big. and that is more important than when you're eating. Now I would say if you're someone who has tried to hold off to their breakfast at 11 to 12 in the day and is struggling to make to moderate your eating after dinner, maybe it is worth trying an earlier breakfast. Push it back to like nine, nine thirty.

but I would say for most most people it's more about what you're eating and how much you're eating than when you're eating that meal. So what we want to do is we want to make sure our breakfast and our lunch has a good mix of protein, non-starchy colour. So basically non starchy veggies and maybe some yeah, non starchy veggies. And then a good big mix of starchy carbohydrates. and so we want about a fist of

I always chuckle when use this as a measurement. It's helpful because it's easy and you don't have to weigh anything and you've always got your fist on you. but it just sounds funny or slightly grown up. Anyway, so you want a fist size of high protein f foods. you can Google that. You don't need me for that. and you then want one t no, you want like two fists haha of veggies, any kind of veggies. I don't care, roast, stir fry, fresh, it g doesn't it does not matter. and then you want about it,

fist size of n sarchi, you know, rice, potato, bread, pasta, fruit, that sort of stuff, right? And you want that at breakfast and you want that at lunch. If your lunch is more than four to five hours away from your dinner, then you would also want to add a snack at that point. And we'd want that to be a good balance of protein and fiber. Because again, they do a really good job of filling you up. So if you are missing those three things, a balanced breakfast, a balanced lunch, and a balanced snack, you absolutely need to start there. Nothing else is going to work.

Jonathan Steedman (04:57.452)
until you sort that out, right? Because that is the fundamental thing driving that nighttime eating. So start there.

Another more subtle thing that could be going on is a mental mistake that you might have been making. Now we talk about mental mistakes inside the group all the time. There's seven that I have seen over the years people regularly make when it comes to nutrition, and one of them is called labeling. And so if you keep talking about yourself, probably predominantly to yourself, and saying things like, you know, I just can't stop eating after dinner, I've just got no discipline, I'm addicted to sugar.

That is a label that you have given yourself. And the more you kind of say that and believe that, the more it's gonna happen. Right. I'm I I don't want to get all woo on you, but it's actually not woo. It is science. They are called, well, they're actually called cognitive distortions. they're kind of yeah, I call them mental mistakes because I'm a simple man and I like simple words, but that is absolutely something that can set you up to continue that loop.

Right. So we want to be we use something called the three C's inside the group to catch that thought, challenge that thought, and correct that thought. And that's what you want to be doing. Okay. You want to be identifying that that thought is happening. You want to be challenging it for fairness and validity. And then you want to be replacing it or correcting it with a more updated, more accurate, fairer version of events. The last thing that you want to make sure that you're not doing is spiraling after a big nine.

I don't mean a big night out. I mean, you know, eating more chocolate than you're comfortable eating after dinner. Because it's very easy to spiral after that. Now there's the first spiral around, you know, well, I've already ruined this week. I might as well keep going and you overeat. And that, like for the rest of the week, and you kind of throw caution to the wind. And that might be happening. But I actually think that's less common than the second spiral, which is the opposite. Because you ate too much, quote unquote, last night, you need to compensate today. You were bad last night.

Jonathan Steedman (06:59.17)
But if you're good this morning, then you'll be okay. You will make up for it. You will you'll pay, you'll do penance. Is that but you do your penance? What's the I don't know, say three Hay Mallorys or something. unfortunately what that is going to do is set that cycle up to begin again. You will undereat earlier in the morning because you can, because you've got a bit more energy and you're caffeinated. but that's just gonna set you up to fall apart in the evening.

And then you wake up the next day, you'll feel guilty, and so you will overly restrict and you will compensate and you will eat nowhere near enough to, you know, once again to make up for what you did last night, and that will set you up again. And that cycle will repeat and repeat and repeat. I've seen it more times than I care to count. And so really, really important to

break that and the it's uncomfortable and it's hard to do. But the what you need to do is you need to get up and you need to eat that balanced breakfast that I spoke about. And I do not care what you ate last night or how much you ate. You get up and you eat your balanced breakfast and you might feel like it because you're probably not hungry and you're gonna feel uncomfortable, but I don't care. Because we gotta start. We've got to start pushing back on that and breaking that cycle. And that's how we start. We start with that meal.

So I'm gonna get off my soapbox now. I've actually been standing on my walking pad. So it's kind of like a soapbox. Now obviously it's not going or you would have heard it, but it sits on my desk. Anyway, maybe I should do I'll do a podcast on my walking pad. I get so many questions about it. Great idea, Johnny. Anyhow, what I want you to do, if you are someone who has struggled with nighttime eating, is to forget about the nighttime eating. I want you to focus on your breakfast and your lunch and the balancing of those meals.

I want you to add a snack if you need it. I want you to stop telling yourself that you're someone who can't control what they eat after dinner or that you have no discipline or willpower. And then I also want you to get up and eat that breakfast and eat that lunch regardless of what happened the night before. If we can start doing that and we can start getting that rhythm happening, you're going to be in business. If you're still struggling with this and you want more support, you know where to find me. Otherwise, I'll chat to you guys next week.