How do you deal with getting hungry before going to bed?

First of all I want to say thank you to the community for helping me controlling my hunger. I am mainly a lurker but that was the main reason for starting the 16/8 routine and I am pretty happy with it, keeping my weight is a bonus and I am doing it for about two years now with few exceptions. One thing I struggle with frequently is getting too hungry before I go to bed. It is not a good night sleep and I wake up a lot. Usually I would counter the hunger with water and I also do that during these nights but you can imagine that 1L of water is not particularly helpful for sleeping through. Is anyone experiencing the similar issues? Do you have any advice for me? Maybe I am missing something. For context, I usually have dinner around 7- 8pm and go to bed at 1 am. I get up at 9:30 am that is plenty of sleep for me. During the week I have a decent dinner with slices of dense rye bread raw veggies, hummus and cheese sometimes a tomato soup with it which keeps me from getting hungry about 3-4 hours. Fast metabolism I guess. I enjoy my time during the evening and if possible I would prefer not to go to bed much earlier :)

Answer

The longer you do it the easier it gets for real. I learned to look at hunger different as well when my stomach growls or feels empty I remind myself that is good my body is empty so I’m losing weight and my body isn’t burdened with processing food it’s able to focus on what it needs. So hunger is actually the goal you are feeling the moment you are working for and really if you examine it… Hunger doesn’t hurt. There is no pain if the doc gave you a shot for weight loss and told you it is gonna suck and you will feel bad but then all you felt was hunger you would be elated that’s all it was. It’s not that bad and it’s a sign your doing good!

Answer

I struggled with the same thing and started out with my eating window pretty close to bed time. Then, as my appetite lowered and I felt full all the way to bed time, I slowly moved it forward. Maybe that would help. Good luck!

Answer

I guess I’m in the minority but like to go to sleep almost hungry, it’s easier physically for me to skip supper and evening my favorite time to work out. The exercise is relaxing and exhausting and makes sleep easier.

With one caveat - I sleep comfortably when hungry IF I plan to eat the next morning. Multi day fasts give me insomnia.

Answer

I watch scary movies and read scary stuff before bed. I think it makes my amygdala go into flight mode and shuts off my desire to eat. It also makes me too scared to walk down my dark hallway to the kitchen to get snacks at midnight. Does this count as a life hack?