Welcome back to Rebuilding Trust With Your Body, I’m Katy Harvey your host. Today on the show we are going to talk about nighttime overeating.

This is one of those things that comes up allllll the time in my work with clients. It’s the most common time of day that people will struggle – for many reasons. Part of it is that it’s usually the time of day when the stress and exhaustion of the day has caught up with us, we’ve used up all of our frustration tolerance, we want to relax and unwind, and things get quieter and we’re left with our own thoughts and feelings. Food often becomes a way to cope with or avoid those thoughts and feelings (even subconsciously), and it can become a highly habituated routine that your brain then starts to expect that this is what happens at this time of day. Almost like it’s an automated protocol. A lot of us associate food with “me time” and relaxing in the evening. Or sometimes it becomes your companion if you feel lonely at that time of day. 

There are so many reasons this happens, and today I’m going to share 3 super simple strategies with you that is going to interrupt this cycle and address the underlying reasons it’s happening, rather than just telling you to white knuckle it and not eat or to eat an apple instead. We both know that bandaid approach doesn’t work because it doesn’t address the WHY behind the eating. 

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Before we dive into our main topic for today, you know what time it is…We’ve got some Wellness Woo to talk about. 

Wellness Woo is the stuff that diet and wellness culture tells us we should do in the name of health, but it’s really based on pseudoscience, exaggerated claims, or just nonsense. 

Today’s Wellness Woo is: Primal Queen drink – s/o to Tamara on IG

Primal Queen is a “female-focused beef organ supplement.”

On their website it says: Our belief – organ superfoods are a VITAL part of any female diet and need to be consumed at EVERY meal. But unfortunately they don’t taste good, so you need to buy their supplement. 

The whole website and marketing language mimics the Heart And Soil website (ep 190) from Paul Saladino, the carnivore diet guy who doesn’t even follow the carnivore diet anymore.

They talk about “the wisdom of our ancestors” who ate animal organs. 

They also talk about how we’ve turned over our trust to big corporations more than our own bodies…but you should definitely trust her (whose credentials are nonexistent) other than she’s a chronic dieter. 

There is risk with organ consumption for heavy metal poisoning, as well as overdose on vitamin A and iron which accumulate in organs. It’s safe to eat actual organ meats in moderation – but I wouldn’t recommend it on a frequent basis and I certainly wouldn’t recommend taking a supplement of this stuff. 

This product in any of its forms is not going to do what it’s promising you. If you want energy, health and vitality you need to eat enough food, a wide variety of food, move your body, and get enough sleep. An organ pill isn’t t going to do that for you.

If you have an example of Wellness Woo that you want to share, send it to me at rebuildingtrustwithyourbody@gmail.com. 

Ok, that’s enough of that. Moving on to today’s main topic…How to Stop Overeating At Night With These 3 Simple Strategies

1. Fix the Day First, So the Night Stops Falling Apart

This is the one everyone wants to skip because it’s less sexy than “evening hacks” like telling yourself to brush your teeth or just not eat after 8pm.

Night eating is usually a delayed biological response, not a willpower issue between you and that bag of chips.

What’s actually happening:

• You under-ate earlier (even subtly)
• You “were good” all day
• You ignored hunger cues because life happened or you were busy with work or kids
• You’re getting a dopamine hit from the thrill of your nighttime eating, so you’re subconsciously gearing up for it all day.

You need to stop focusing your energy on trying to control the nighttime behavior and start supporting your body’s daytime physiology.

For this strategy:

• Eat enough during the day (not diet-enough, or enough to not feel hungry, or kind-of-sort-of honor your hunger but not all the way….actual enough food to satisfy and fully fuel your body)
• Include carbs + protein + fat at meals (not sad desk salads at work that trick you into feeling full but have no carbs and you crash by 3pm)
• Build in satisfaction, not just “healthiness” – this leads to mental restriction even if you’re eating enough

If your body doesn’t trust that food is coming consistently, it will make sure you don’t forget about it at night. I call this “back door hunger” – a phrase I heard from my buddy and colleague Becca McConville.

2. Close the “Restriction Loop” (Even the Sneaky Mental Kind)

Let me give you some examples of sneaky restriction and you’ll know what I mean…

Sneaky restriction examples:

• “I can have it… but I shouldn’t”
• Saving calories for later
• Avoiding certain foods all day, then eating them at night
• Trying to “be balanced” in a way that feels controlled

That tension builds all day. Nighttime is when the pendulum swings the other direction. It’s simple physics – every action has an equal but opposite reaction.

Here’s what I want you to work on to fix this:

• Normalize your desire for foods instead of pathologizing it. Own your truth!! Work these foods in.
• Bring “forbidden” foods into the daylight hours. You might prefer your ice cream at 9pm, but we need to prove to your brain that it’s morally acceptable to eat it at 9am or 1pm as well.
• Practice neutral permission before the urge builds up and you “give in” which psychologically feels worse 

What you need to remember:
Night eating usually isn’t lack of discipline, and it doesn’t mean you’re addicted to those foods. It’s the backlash of being too controlled or too judgmental with food. 

I had a client who came to me swearing she was addicted to chocolate. She wholeheartedly believed this…

3. Create a ConsciousNight Routine (Instead of White-Knuckling It)

Once you’ve fixed #1 and #2, this is where the nighttime eating behavior actually shifts and stops happening.

Right now your nighttime pattern is: trigger (whether it just be the time of day, or an emotion, or a craving) >> then you eat >> it gives you a dopamine hit >> you keep eating >> then the food guilt kicks in and you promise to do better tomorrow >> tomorrow comes and the whole thing repeats itself. 

The goal here isn’t for you to remove food or tell yourself you can’t eat at night. You need to insert awareness and intentionality.

What to do – create a simple structure that raises your conscious awareness:

Shake things up with your evening routine to signal your brain to be more aware and mindful.

• Doing a different activity than you usually do
• Sitting in a different spot in the living room
• Eating your snack in the dining room
• Pausing the TV while you eat your snack
• Committing to journaling BEFORE you eat (not telling yourself you can’t have it)
• “What do I actually need right now?”
  • Physical hunger?
  • Mental decompression?
  • Comfort?
  • Stimulation?
  • Honor the need directly

Important nuance:
We are not trying to eliminate nighttime eating. We’re shifting it from impulsive to intentional eating. The goal isn’t to stop eating at night. It’s to stop feeling out of control when you do.

Summary:

1. Eat enough earlier in the day
2. Challenge sneaky restriction – including mental restriction
3. Creating a new evening routine to bring awareness and intentionality

Wrapping Up:

If you do all 3 of these things and you’re STILL struggling with overeating at night, that’s when we need to get curious and dig deeper into what’s going on – and this is exactly what I do with my clients inside Non-Dieter’s Club, which is currently open for spring enrollment.

And when you enroll before April 30 you get a bonus 1:1 Body Confidence Breakthrough session with me, where we’re going to meet on zoom and address your weight fear and body image struggles head-on. Here’s what will happen:

• You’ll tell me what thoughts you have about your body
• We’ll dig into where those thoughts are coming from, and how they’re impacting your behaviors with food
• We’ll come up with an action plan for how you’re going to start responding to the thoughts differently
• You’ll leave step-by-step tools you can apply immediately to heal your body image from deep within, and to help find your body’s set point weight where you can stabilize without having to micromanage it or think about it 24/7. 

This call alone is worth more than your entire investment in NDC. And you get it for free with your enrollment through April 30, so hurry if you want it!! 

I’ve got all the details about NDC linked for you in the episode description and show notes, or you can go to katyharvey.net/club for all the info about how this program works. Let’s just say that for about $20/week you can completely change your relationship with food and your body, and this program will save you so much time, money, energy, decision fatigue, uncertainty and frustration. You deserve peace with food and your body, without sacrificing your health – and I’ve got you covered!! DM me if you have any questions.

In case nobody has told you today – you are worthy just as you are. We’ll talk again soon.

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