280. Tips to Stop Overeating & Snacking at Night

Late-night snacking and overeating—this is my personal bad habit, and I know so many people struggle with it too. 

In this episode, we dive into why those cravings hit so hard at night and the hidden habits keeping you stuck. 

Discover how late-night eating impacts your metabolism, weight, and overall health—and what you can do to break the cycle. If you’re tired of waking up feeling frustrated and sluggish, this episode will give you the practical strategies you need to regain control. 

Tune in to learn how to stop mindless snacking, curb cravings, and finally build habits that support your health goals.

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Resources From This Episode

>> Insulin Resistance Diet Blueprint - https://www.zivli.com/blueprint?el=podcast

>> Free Low Insulin Food Guide - https://www.zivli.com/ultimatefoodguide?el=podcast

>> Join the Zivli Program Waitlist - https://www.zivli.com/join?el=podcast

>> Test Your Insulin at Home - https://www.zivli.com/testing?el=podcast

Have a question? Email us at: support@zivli.com

Transcript

I think one of the best things that you can do to find these hidden habits that might be sabotaging your weight loss or your blood sugar goals is to track your behavior. Hi, I'm Dr. Morgan Nolte, founder of Zivli. As a geriatric physical therapist, I saw the heartbreaking effects of insulin resistance. At Zivli, our mission is to help you prevent and reverse insulin resistance for long-term weight loss and disease prevention.

through a low insulin and inflammation lifestyle. Each week on this podcast, you'll learn simple, actionable tips to lose weight, keep it off and get healthy. If you're ready to create a body and life you love, you're in the right place. Let's get started.

Well, hey there and welcome back to another episode of the Reshape Your Health podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Morgan Nolte, and I am very excited that you tuned in today because I'm sharing some behind the scenes tips and tricks from my own life on a habit that I am still working to master, which is eating after dinner and overeating during dinner. Before we get to those tips, I just wanted to check in, see how you're doing, see how you're doing with winter.

In the middle of Nebraska, it is cold. Our kids had a snow day this week and then we had three days in a row of late starts. So, you know, we're just kind of in that season right now of the doldrums of winter. I think I'm about 33 weeks pregnant at the time of this recording. And you hear all the time, you know, every year goes faster as you get older, but I'll tell you what, these have been some long nine months and we are so excited to meet this baby.

We are working very hard behind the scenes at Team Zivli to be sure that we're prepared for maternity leave and that we have awesome interviews coming out during the time that I'm taking care of our newborn. So I won't be leaving you high and dry. Don't worry. We have really great content coming your way. And I wanted to dig into this topic today about overeating and emotional eating, because if you've been listening to the podcast for a while,

You know that intermittent fasting is one of my favorite strategies, both for weight loss and weight maintenance. And also that being pregnant, it's just not really a tool that I'm able to utilize like I was before I was pregnant. And so it brought to light that tendency that I have in the evenings to overeat or eat after dinner. And I think that for many people, myself included, it's like, you feel like you have a really good handle on a habit.

and then something happens. And then that habit kind of creeps back into your life, right? And it's important to have a process of self-reflection so that you catch it early. And thankfully I do have that and I'm catching it early, but this one's a stubborn one for me. And I've been reflecting a lot on it lately. I think one of the best things that you can do to find these hidden habits that might be sabotaging your weight loss

or your blood sugar goals is to track your behavior and specifically track your intended behavior and then your actual behavior. So during a coaching call this week with one of our Zivli members, I took her through an exercise to create her ideal day and her ideal week. And if you've never done that before, I think it's really powerful to actually map out like what are the roles in my life? What are the goals that I have for those roles?

and what are the priorities that I'm focusing on this week, and then actually put them down on a calendar. Because what's really cool is we identified for her that she wanted to exercise more. And the best time for her to exercise more was kind of first thing in the morning. And I said, well, why haven't you been doing that? You know, what's holding you back? And she's like, honestly, nothing. Like, I just don't really have a space to do it. And so that was a pretty big breakthrough where, you know, sometimes just a little bit of coaching

it helps kind of shine the light on something that's been there all along that you just haven't realized. And so she realized, instead of just focusing on wanting to exercise more and repeating that to myself, I should actually be focusing on creating a space so that I can exercise more. identifying like what is your desired behavior? So for hers, it was exercising more.

and comparing that to your actual behavior. So for her, it's not currently exercising every morning. For me, it's not consistently like stopping at enough at dinnertime. Like identifying that gap is such a great opportunity to then dig into the obstacles getting in the way. So her obstacles getting in the way where, you know, she needs to clean up the basement, kind of get a place set up for her weights, move her treadmill downstairs, maybe get a TV and a DVD player down there.

We wanna make it easy, enjoyable, satisfying, all those things. And for me, identifying the gap between my desired behavior, which is not getting seconds at dinnertime, not snacking before or after dinner, so not like picking at the food while I'm cooking it, not picking at the food while I'm cleaning it up, and then just straight up not snacking after dinner, right? Because we know there are harmful health.

risks to eating late at night. You're going to interrupt your sleep. Your body is less sensitive to insulin at night. So any carbohydrates that I eat in the evening will always cause a greater blood sugar response than they would if I ate them at midday. And then portions in general have a big impact on your blood sugars. So if I'm overeating at dinner, I'm having a higher blood sugar response than I want. So this is a really important habit for me to get control of and I'm committed to doing it.

And I wanted to share some ideas that I will be implementing that I have been implementing. And I hope that you do the same. If this is a habit that you struggle with, I know so many people do. So first off, if you're a Zivli member, you have access to the end emotional eating masterclass. And I highly suggest that you watch that if this is a struggle for you, because emotional eating and overeating can come from a lot of different places.

And it's important that you can accurately troubleshoot, like where is this problem coming from for me specifically? Is this a mindset problem or is this a nutrition problem from the rest of the day? Am I under fueling my body? Am I under feeding my soul? There's a big difference there. So we talk about how to properly fuel your body so that you have enough protein, you have enough fat, you have enough fiber, you have enough water in your diet.

to the likelihood that you're going to overeat at dinnertime. Now, friends, this is not my problem. I am properly fueling my body. I think that this is a dopamine problem, meaning I eat to feel good in the evenings. I am guessing I am not alone there, okay? I want to get to the point where I'm always eating to fuel my body, but sometimes I think that...

your brain gets used to a certain level of dopamine release from a certain amount of calories in each meal. And I've just trained my brain over time to kind of stop eating after a certain amount of calories at dinner because that's the level where I feel emotionally satisfied, mentally satisfied.

And it's an interesting thing because there's a lot of different things that can cause that dopamine release of that feel good hormone. Food is not the only thing. know, relaxation, I think spending time with family in a way that's not stressful, moving my body, like those things can release dopamine too. getting outside, but I'm not gonna do that right now. it's negative.

something outside. So that's not really a great option. But if I can be real with myself, and if I can admit, I think this is a dopamine issue, I think I need to train my brain that it is okay to be a little bit uncomfortable after dinner to be a little bit dissatisfied after dinner, and create space between when my first serving is done,

and then the next meal, right? Because sometimes it's like, okay, you eat and then you go get seconds like 30 seconds later, or you eat and then in 10 minutes, you're kind of nibbling at the food as you're doing the dishes. My goal is to create a rock solid system to stop eating after one portion of dinner, okay? And I recognize that that will be uncomfortable. And I recognize why that will be uncomfortable is because I will be having

literally a different chemical reaction in my brain when I consume fewer calories than normal at a meal at dinner. And that is okay, that is not going to kill me. Down-radulating my dopamine in the evenings is probably a great idea. So the first thing I think that's helping me is just recognizing that this is not a fueling problem. Like you are well fed, you are well hydrated, you are not starving.

This is an emotional eating issue and it's because in the evenings you kind of feel a little bit more stressed out. There's a little bit more stuff to do around the house with the kids being home, dishes to do, bedtime routine. And it's almost like I wanna bolster my dopamine, bolster my feel-good hormones by eating more so that I can have the capacity to execute the rest of my duties, honestly.

And I'm just getting to the point where, you you get so fed up with a habit after amount of pun intended fed up with a habit that you're just like, this is enough. And I'm just to that point, I'm like, this is enough. And so what I'm doing is creating a system like my stop eating system is kind of what I've called it, I guess right now, stop eating system. And my goal is to have a very well balanced structured dinner.

So I'm not going to be depriving myself. I would say like 600 calories of dinner with at least 40 to 50 grams of protein, probably close to 10 grams of fiber. I'm filling in the rest with healthy fats and some carbs, you know, very well balanced. I'm hydrating, but then here's the deal. After dinner, I'm going to take my plate to the kitchen. Okay. And I'm not going to do the dishes right away because to me,

that is too close of like, of a cue or a stimulus to be snacking on the leftover dinner food. I just got done eating the food is still like kind of strong on my tongue, you still want more of it. So it's a little bit too tempting of an environment to be in the kitchen and do the dishes right away after dinner, at least for me at this moment in time. And so I have two options. The first is I can either go brush my teeth right away. Or

which is my preferred, this is gonna be my preferred option, do my evening mindset routine immediately after eating. So finish logging my food, do a little bit of mindset work, remind myself, like if I need to journal through those uncomfortable emotions of like, on a scale of zero to 10, I wanna go back for more food, know, seven out of 10 right now, even though I'm not hungry. And that's a really important question you can ask yourself, like, am I actually hungry?

And if you answer no, honestly to that question, boom, it's emotional eating and it's okay. Join the club because honestly, I think that this is a lifelong habit that we have to continually reflect upon and assess and create systems around because life will always change. And as life changes, we get to modify our systems around that so that we can continue to be successful.

even though our external circumstances are a little bit different. Okay. So that is what I'm trying right now. I'm going to be eating dinner and then ideally I'll go brush my teeth and then do my evening routine with a cup of tea. I think another huge thing that I've recognized for me is it's an oral fixation. Like I like having something in my hands and I like, you know, something food wise or liquid wise in my mouth. So having a cup of tea,

or having a sparkling water in the evenings, just to appease that oral fixation has really been helping. So if you haven't yet tried some sort of evening routine to help you stop eating, that's what I'm doing and I'll keep you posted on my progress. I am pretty confident that it's gonna work. It's just a matter of focus, honestly. I think a lot of us, first off,

We have these habits that are just so ingrained into our behaviors that we don't even realize that they're not serving us. So the first thing is just awareness of habits that aren't serving you. And then the second thing is commitment. You have to be committed and you have to want to change the habit. So on the top of my personal faith formula, which Zivli members know all about, it's module five of our program.

That's really where we get into auto suggestion and how do we change our behaviors? How do we change our thoughts? So on the very top, I said, no snacking, no overeating. It's just like, you're just done. We're going to release the attachment that you have to this excessive amount of dopamine that's released in the evening when you overeat. And so that when we talk about non-attachment a lot in the program too, you got to release attachments to habits that aren't serving you.

and this is one that's not serving me. So I would love for you to reflect this week, action item this week, reflect upon a habit that's not serving you. And then I want you to do what I did. I want you to try to create a system to stop that habit. And it is okay if your system does not work on the first time or the second time or the third time, you keep trying, all right? Because your health is worth it, your happiness is worth it.

Especially if you're like me focusing on overeating at dinner time or eating after dinner, your sleep is worth it, right? Because that affects our sleep. And I just, know that this is possible for you. I know this is possible for me. And I just want to share some things that I'm doing, some ideas that have worked for me. And I hope that you got value from this episode and that you start to steal some of those ideas and implement them in your own life.

All right, that's it for this Shorty Mindset episode. I will talk with you at the same time, same place next week. Bye for now.

Thanks for listening to the Reshape Your Health podcast today. To learn more about Zivli, our online course and coaching program to reverse insulin resistance for long-term weight loss and disease prevention, check out our website at www.zivli.com. That's z-i-v-l-i dot com. And if you enjoyed today's episode, please leave a rating and review on your listening platform and share it with a friend.

I'll talk with you at the same time, same place next week. Bye for now.