Are You a Night Time Eater?
Posted by Rebecca Game | 2nd Jul 2019
Struggling in the evenings? Read our tips to help keep you on track!
You’re making the right meal choices, hitting your step count and still struggling to see the benefits. Feeling deflated after your January total overall? Sometimes diving two feet first can take its toll of us after the New Year, with New Year’s resolutions great for setting goals, you don’t want to feel like a prisoner in your own life. We are bombarded with this pressure to adopt a ‘detox’ lifestyle and shamed for our Christmas ‘sins’. When all we’re trying to do is live our best lives! ‘Clean eating’ and ‘detoxes’ aside! Try our tips to support your healthy living in the evenings. Remember it’s a balance of all things nutrition, health, lifestyle and activity.
Sleep like a baby
We’ve all heard the ‘get 8 hours’ mantra repeated but often society glamorises getting little sleep. Staying up late mindlessly binging a Netflix show and then forcefully awakening at 5:30 am to deal with the Wednesday commute. Insufficient amount and quality of sleep is related to hormonal imbalances responsible for your metabolic system, stress level, hunger and satiety levels.
We know reduced sleep is strongly linked to obesity and diabetes, while also causing significant hormonal disruptions. So, all in all if you want to ‘live your best life’ getting enough sleep each night with consistent sleeping and awakening times, is the best move.
Put down the phone
With iPhone recently launching a ‘Downtime’ feature, it’s promising to see tech giants acknowledging a balance with device usage. Allowing you to set specific restriction to your phone usage is positive. But this also applies to television. Our melatonin levels (BODY CLOCK Hormones) are being reduced each night by our screen time.
This again reduces the amount and quality of our sleep exposing us to risks of obesity, diabetes and increased blood pressure. In addition, the monotonous scrolling or re-watching Netflix shows can lead to boredom, which is a precursor to mindless snacking and excess calorie intake. Keep your mind active and choose stimulating activities to avoid the lure of unnecessary munching.
Snacking on healthy foods
If you’re going to reach for snacks in the evening, grab a protein packed pick me up. Having a portion-controlled protein snack in the evening is linked to the promotion of protein synthesis, supporting growth and recovery, through the night.
Research supports the consumption of quality protein before bed as it effectively digests and absorbs, thereby stimulating muscle protein synthesis and improving whole-body protein balance during post exercise overnight recovery. Try a Protein Pot or a High Protein Snack to help diminish evening cravings and boost muscles growth and recovery.