Buy Walking VideosLate Night Eating
Friday night, I was up late. Not just normal late, but LATE late. I had eaten dinner at 7pm, so by 2am I felt like I was STARVING. No wonder, since it had been SEVEN hours since I had last eaten. I was out of points for the day.
What should I have done?
What I did do was go to Del Taco, one of the few places still open at two in the morning, and had a four point taco. I counted it on my eating journal as breakfast for Saturday morning. I went to bed a half hour later, woke up so late that I missed breakfast and my next meal was lunch. I technically didn’t lie on my journal, but I felt like I cheated. I was out of points, so I counted those points toward the next day.
But it WAS the next day!
My watch said it was August 2nd. At midnight, Cinderella’s finery turns back into the bland and I can count that taco as breakfast, right?
Now before you go all “late night eating is BAD for you” on me, do a Google Search for “Diet Myth Eat After 7” and plenty of experts will tell you that your metabolism doesn’t just shut down at 7:01 pm. They say that in the end, what counts is energy in and energy out. I don’t know if I believe that, but I DON’T believe that eating after 7pm will make me fat, because I have lost a lot of weight not heeding that advice.
This is an issue of score-keeping. When I run out of points for one day, is it acceptable to start working on the points target for the next day? Why do I feel like I have to sleep eight hours before I am allowed to start eating for the next day? What if I didn’t sleep at all? Should I starve until I am allowed slumber?
In the case of last Friday night, it worked out because I was just having my breakfast before I slept, but if I run out of points at 3pm, I really don’t think counting the full meal at 7pm as breakfast for the next day is the way to go. Where do I draw the line? Is it really the midnight hour?
What about you? How do deal with situations like these?
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August 4th, 2008 at 6:03 am
Personally I am horrible about making up for indiscretions earlier in the week. If I indulge one day and promise that I’ll cut back the next, it just doesn’t happen. Since you slept through breakfast, I probably would have done the same thing.
August 4th, 2008 at 7:17 am
I generally don’t think it matters what you do, so long as – should the situation occur again – you do the same thing. Consistency is important.
Back when a friend of mine was pregnant (and she’d gained 70 pounds in the first 6 months of her pregnancy) her doctor told her she was only allowed to have one ice cream a week. (Why he thought this would HELP, I’ve no idea) Anyway, this friend’s “week” changed all the time. Sometimes her week started on Monday, sometimes on Friday, and sometimes on Wednesday, all so that she could (usually) claim that she’d only had ice cream “once” this “week.”
I have another friend who’s lost something like 90 pounds on Weight Watchers, but she pools her points for the week… (she has more self-discipline than I do) so if she’s more hungry on Tuesday, she eats more on Tuesday, and then eats very little, say, on Saturday, it all evens out.
This, however, would be one of the main reasons I switched to Core. My waking and sleeping times are not what one would consider “regular”. Sometimes I’m up at 6am and sometimes not until 10am (today was 10am, and only because my daughter wouldn’t let me sleep longer). So, when I’m hungry, I eat.
August 4th, 2008 at 11:44 am
A friend of mine who did WW and would count her points by the week. She had a very strange schedule and so if she stayed within her points for the week she considered it a success. She lost over 100 lbs so I guess it worked for her.
I had another friend who would start her day at 6pm. So dinner was her first meal of the ‘day’. She did that because dinner was her biggest meal (I believe she worked the graveyard shift) and instead of saving up points during the day, she found it easier to use most of her points first and then adjust the rest of the ‘day’.
I guess whatever works for you. I would have done what you did and counted it towards the next day.