LATE NIGHT EATING.
Three words every college girl struggles to prevent on most nights of their lives, aside from the appropriate drunk and blackout moments when calories obviously don’t count.
Obviously.
The constant temptation to order pizza or open the bag of chips lying on your desk that you promised you would never eat now that Super Bowl Sunday was over; again an acceptable time where calories don’t count.
The pathetic and desperate desire to go behind your roommates back and steal that chocolate bar you saw her hide in her drawer because your sweet tooth craving has grown so large it’s filling up all the oxygen in the room and you have completely convinced yourself that you will die without it.
Totally logical.
Well ladies I have the solution to this seemingly impossible and unsolvable situation. It’s not easy and requires some of the most difficult concepts of discipline and obedience one may ever experience. Picture yourself in an army academy and then multiple that by like one thousand.
Just say NO.
Turn that bag of chips away, throw out the left over candy from Halloween, and please for the love of god get rid of that birthday cake you’ve been saving in your fridge since your birthday…three months ago.
Like I said there is no easy way out of this. A woman and her food is an unbreakable bond. Like Batman and Robin or Scooby and Shaggy. Even in the worst of circumstances there is no breaking these two apart.
But ladies, you don’t have to live your life like this. There is hope.
First of all decide you aren’t going to partake in this evil. Know why you don’t want to. Eating late at night is one of the biggest reasons why people struggle to lose weight. Think about yourself lying in your bed, sleeping, with that gross greasy pizza swimming around in your stomach; not a great feeling.
Let me also clarify that I am not shunning off all late night eating. Obviously if you are hungry you should not starve, but make sure you are making smart decisions. Grab a couple pretzels if you have to, but not the entire bag. Even better grab an apple or some fruit, but be careful because sometimes the acidity can upset your stomach so late at night.
If you are having a sweet tooth maybe grab a piece of gum and see if that satisfies your craving before digging in to that chocolate candy bar. And better yet, try some water or a sweet tea. People are usually unaware of whether they are hungry or thirsty and half the time just need to take a really big sip of water.
Understand why you are making the choices to eat late at night. Are you bored? Have you restricted yourself of too many calories throughout the day that your body is demanding you give in? Are you upset or stressed and looking for a way out of doing whatever you should be doing? Many people can fix their late night eating habits by establishing the cause of these.
What is most important is to not make it a habit or a “go to” comfort. People who use food to solve their problems of boredom or sadness or whatever it may be have substituted food for actually taking action against this problem. And although it does make us feel better and can be very useful for the nights our boyfriends are not being very nice to us (Ben and Jerry are always reliable), as we all know this feeling is temporary and the underlying problem still remains.
So lets be honest with ourselves and what we can expect. Can we expect to never eat anything late at night? Probably not.
But we can set goals for ourselves. Everyone is entitled to pig out with their friends at their monthly slumber parties while making fun of every girl participating in the Bachelor and the hideous dress she chose to wore on the first day meeting Sean. Taffeta? Really?
Long story short, even though with me we know the story is never short, you know yourself best and you know what your body responds best to. What’s most important is that you are honest with the choices you are making and respect your body enough to treat it right.