Always Hungry at Night, Never Early in the Day

#1

Have been Keto since 2017 although in the last year more off than on.

I notice that I feel better and seem to lose a little weight (not much) if I do not eat past 8PM or so. The problem is that I am rarely hungry before 2PM, even then I have to think and most of the time I am not overly interested. I have coffee with half and half or cream around noon, then I do not even remember to eat until about 5 when I have to start making dinner for the family. I can eat earlier if I have to, for example if I have lunch plans or H makes something special for brunch (rare). My point being I am not adverse to eating if it is put in front of me but I will not seek food out. Every once in a while I hate what I make for dinner so I do not bother eating anything and go to bed without dinner. I am not usually hungry then.

The problem comes when I do have a normal keto type meal with the family. If I only eat a little then I am hungry for real food two hours later (last night grabbed some turkey bacon from the fridge at 11). If I eat a lot then I want dessert or something sweet. I keep some sugar free chocolate for this and sometimes it works and sometimes it does not but either way I am eating late.

In the past I have fasted for days and not been as tempted as I am on a normal Wednesday night after eating brisket and broccoli.

How can I get the feeling I have at 2PM when I am not hungry at 11PM? Note I am usually up past midnight so I still have a few hours to go at 11PM

(Laurie) #2

Hi Saphire. For most of my life I was a night person and a midnight eater. Eating early in the day was distasteful. So I think I get it.

In your post, you seem to be saying your possible/preferred eating window would be between 2 pm and 8 pm. Could you commit to eating something at, say, 2 pm and 7:30 pm? You don’t have to force yourself; just be aware of the time, and ask yourself if you could eat an egg or a bit of meat or something.

If you do skip the 7:30 snack, and then you’re hungry at 11:00, ask yourself whether it would have helped if you’d eaten something earlier. After a few nights you will probably figure out the answer.

Developing the habit of eating at certain times might help you avoid some of the confusion you’re facing – confusion that can lead to going off keto.

(If you don’t like what the family is eating at dinnertime, can you eat something else?)

Finally, don’t stuff yourself at meal time in an effort to ward off the midnight munchies. I have found that eating too much just makes me hungry. Looks like the same thing happens to you.

It might take a bit of experimenting. And you could try keeping notes, or posting daily on your own Accountability thread in this forum. I do both. Good luck!

#3

Just like our bodies, our metabolisms have a clock. Typically they’re in sync, but if you’re an owl or night worker or just up really late at night for some reason you can disconnect them. Sounds like that’s what’s going on with you.

If you’re eating dinner somewhere in the 5pm range then you’re all working days? If so why are you even awake at 1100pm? You’re extending the length of your day almost into the next one. That by itself can do that to you. Make sure you’re eating enough as well, not being hungry can be a sign of a slow metabolism.

This one scares me

Why is your meal not a real meal?

I used to do the same, fasts were so easy for me it was stupid. I learned it was because I was slowing my metabolism. Made fat loss near impossible.

#4

Not really. My work sometimes requires late hours and even when it does not I and work best after everyone is asleep so I do not have interruptions, without going into too many details, I sleep a normal amount 7-8 hours a night, it is just not the same hours as most people. I have always had a weird sleep cycle, even as a kid. My parents talk about how I would not fall asleep at night. 5PM is the first point in the day that I have any thought of food beyond coffee.

Thank you Laurie @islandlight ideally I would like to eat between 2-8 with coffee with cream at 12. However, occasionally I want to eat something at 2PM and I plan to but when it comes to it I am usually not hungry. Sometimes when I am hungry at night I will even think about the egg salad or whatever I will make the next day and plan it but then when it comes time to actually make it the next day I cannot be bothered. Today one of my kids was making herself something around 2 or 3 and the smell of the frying onions was a bit much and I normally like onions. I was finally hungry around 7. The weird part was at dinner I ate until I thought I was full, had a lamb Gyro salad, grilled chicken and vegetables and yogurt sauce. Plenty of fat, it was good. Then about 30 minutes later I had the munchies even though I did not finish all my grilled chicken. I had a bit of Russell Stover chocolate and then grabbed a spoonful of peanut butter and now I am thinking about what else I can eat even though I know I am not really hungry.

If I had skipped dinner altogether I would not be hungry, would have some seltzer or water and go about my evening and I really would not care about food.

what I meant was if I have a smaller size portion. Not because I am dieting but because I do not really love what I made. For example, really not a fan of baked chicken. Will eat one piece and really do not want anymore. Before you ask, I am catering to the tastes of the rest of my family. There is absolutely nothing stopping me from eating something different but there are times when I cannot be bothered because I was not that hungry at 7 but then a couple of hours later I am. Even if I eat a full portion the way I did tonight I am still hungry or have that nagging snacking need.

Is this specific to people with thyroid issues? I have been reading Dr. Fung for many years and I think fasting has been a benefit to me. The theory is if you are fat adapted you use your stored body fat to make up for the calorie deficit. Have you read otherwise?

The problem for me is I am afraid to do it during Covid because I do have weird temporary stuff that has happened in the past on days 3-5 of a fast relating to getting colds and other infections. I do not want to make myself vulnerable. In my case I found that I mostly lost weight during the fasts and kept it off with keto in between fasts. I have had trouble sticking to keto in the last year or so and have been disinclined to fast. Either way I have gained weight

#5

I haven’t (read) otherwise, I’ve experienced otherwise. I was also at one point a fan of Jason Fung, started with Complete Guide to Fasting, then Obesity code. I became a fasting machine and because I was good at it I kept it up. Believed the whole thing about not slowing down your metabolism and I’ve found that to very much not be the truth. I did loose a lot of “weight” on it, I say “weight” because I was loosing muscle as well which he said wouldn’t really happen. WRONG! My metabolism slowed down, weight loss became near impossible and it took a very long time to get back. I’m still not where I want to be. After a couple body scans and metabolic testing I confirmed is was in fact that I was loosing muscle and slowing my RMR.

Like everything the info you get changes depending on where you read it. Here, most things about fasting are positive. But go to a fitness, weightlifting, performance type place and read about fasting and you see it screws most of them up. I think when your focus is “weight” loss that’s all you care about and the scale is your only reference point and when that’s the case it’ll appear to work. But I was loosing “weight” as muscle (and fat) but also slowing my RMR, therefor eating less since I was never hungry and that was doing a ton as well.

(UsedToBeT2D) #6

Turkey bacon?

#7

We are different but many things are familiar to me.

Yeah, it would totally happen to me, that’s why I like carnivore where I grab some super satiating fatty pork, not triggering chocolate and peanut (and I am most vulnerable in late hours and without stricter rules things can go wrong way too easily. I have a long loving history with chocolate and peanut but they should be avoided most of the time). These items are individual to some extent, of course.

Do you know how much do you eat when you try to eat once as you aren’t hungry at lunch? It’s probably not enough for you for a whole day. I know this though it’s rare that I wait until I get hungry but when I do, it’s often 5pm and if my carbs are as low as they should, I typically can’t eat enough so I get hungry later. And if it’s very late, that’s my vulnerable uncontrolled time regarding eating, no idea why. So I try to avoid that. I have options.

  1. I eat lunch, no matter what. I always can eat lunch, I don’t need hunger or appetite or any proper urge for it but I rarely do it when I am alone at home.
  2. I eat a big dinner, no matter what. I have dishes I easily can eat after satiation. Or wait 30 mins and eat then or something. Choosing my main food is important though. I ate very fatty pork in the last days and inevitably had small meals, fortunately I had borderline hungry earlier than usual.

Waiting until I get hungry again is bad as I will end up eating at midnight and that is rarely good for me. I am mostly safe on carnivore, it will be a tiny snack, some fatty protein then but it’s still not ideal. But if I eat the right amount of the right food (the timing is automatically good then), I manage to stay perfectly satiated until bedtime and that’s the state where I don’t feel any desire to eat so I don’t do that. Lack of hunger alone doesn’t work at all. Like you, I go to bed late, I had this all my adult life and I never could work seriously before noon (or 5pm if I needed focus and was surrounded with noisy, interrupting people until then). I am an evening person and my ideal eating window is in the afternoon/evening too.
I don’t do this right all the time yet myself but things are way better since I realized carbs mess me up even on keto and reduced them (sometimes it’s not the carbs but certain items but usually carbs are to blame if I have any problem eating wise). I experimented a lot to figure out what works and I needed to get used to the new style as well.

I experienced waiting until hunger isn’t always good. It’s surely individual though. I had times when eating too late triggered overeating and I didn’t even enjoy it, in the contrary. Some of us can go moderately long without any hunger (I tend to get at least a bit hungry every day if I wait for it but sometimes it doesn’t happen for days) but it doesn’t mean eating just a few times a week would be good. Unless I want to fast, I don’t wait for hunger but eat when it’s dinnertime (as long as I can without a force but I almost always can eat dinner). And try to have enough food to last for a day.

I had the “sweets in the end/after a meal” thing as an old habit but it disappears when I drop almost all carbs. Without that, probably some tempting fatty protein snack could work when I am at least a bit determined not to follow all my whims. But it’s way better when I have stricter rules and avoid dangerous substances to begin with.

When I can’t be bothered, I grab some simple things from the fridge. One doesn’t necessarily cook for themselves to eat something nice. Maybe I am lucky I love simple cold things… They can’t help if I need a full meal but some cheese, boiled egg, dry sausage can help to make my meal a bit more substantial. And I keep food for myself in the freezer too. I love cooking but it takes so much time even now that we eat simpler so when I do something, I make as much as possible without using much more effort and time as well. And I freeze some of it. Or eat it for days.
So if we had chicken now (I am not into it right now but I can eat some), I would have a piece, some eggs, some cheese and some sausage or maybe pork or liver from the freezer… It would be a fine meal (especially that I need variety and chicken can’t even satiate me alone so I need additions).

(Bob M) #8

I also have found fasting to be a tremendous benefit. Unlike lfod14, fasting has not harmed me and I’ve gained muscle mass while losing fat mass.

(Edith) #9

Maybe don’t have the coffee and cream. Caffeine can be an appetite suppressant and the cream maybe giving you enough calories to mess with your appetite. Don’t eat food until you are ready to eat, and then when you do eat, eat real food: fatty meat and vegetables.

Something else to consider maybe that your hungry signals are different than on SAD. I no longer get hangry, headaches, or hunger pains when I’m hungry. I will suddenly start thinking about food and have a hard time concentrating on other things, feel low energy, or sometimes even a little nauseous. If I get those feelings, I know it is time to eat.

Another thought is that because you stay up so late, your natural circadian rhythm is probably just later than someone on an earlier schedule. I go to bed around 10 pm. I eat dinner around 6:00 PM. I have about 3-3.5 hours between dinner and bedtime. Eating dinner at 10 or 11:00 PM, maybe giving you that three hours between dinner and bedtime. Maybe eating later is just what you need to do based upon your sleep schedule.

Finally, if your work is thought intensive, that uses a lot of energy. Eating dinner late while you are working may not be a bad thing.

#10

Thank you for the response but no coffee is impossible. I skip the cream when fasting, add ice and cinnamon and ginger and nutmeg and it is tolerable but honestly I really enjoy my coffee. Even if I did not, no coffee would mean a 4 day headache (I gave it up once about 8 years ago, it was memorably bad). Yes I think my hunger signals are different. If I am busy and with other people after a while they will insist on stopping for lunch or dinner and I will sort of look at them and wonder what the rush is.
I do get hungry, I will all of a sudden be excited about eating and be willing to stop what I am doing to focus on food. It simply does not happen before 4 or 5 at the earliest. Also, even if I do eat it does not seem to trigger anything. Today as an experiment I made myself egg salad around 3PM. An hour later I was not hungry. If I ate the same thing for dinner or even more, an hour later I would have the munchies… Also, I felt the same as I did the day before, neither hungry nor full, I had to think as to whether I had eaten.

As for eating later due to my circadian rhythm I have found that does not work. Yes I could probably stop eating at 9 and be ok but I cannot stop eating at 11 and still feel good. Even though I am still up for another 3 hours. Plus I have often found myself eating at midnight or later. It makes no sense since this is very much my natural rhythm and not something that is a choice. Although during my first pregnancy I would be up at 6AM (did not have to get up for work until at least 7) and asleep by 10 for a number of months and I hated it because it felt strange. Ironically this is the kid has the same circadian rhythm as I do!

Good to hear. May I ask if you have any thyroid issues?

Sounds exactly like me. I can always eat! One thing, I do not generally eat pork and most fatty meat does not agree with me (leave it at that). Which is why @KetoType2 I eat turkey bacon instead of real bacon. I am pretty limited in my proteins, generally no pork, I dislike most fish (will eat it if there are no other options but rarely by choice), not a fan of game meats like duck or lamb (will eat it if it is made really well but I am not a great cook), so I mostly eat cheese, eggs, beef and chicken and turkey with the occasional foray into Tofu which I actually like. Even with beef there are only certain cuts I will eat voluntarily, I cannot handle visible fat.

I wonder how many other people experienced something similar? Also, if I may ask how much weight did you have to lose? I wonder if people who have 50 lbs or more (chose a number at random), have a different outcome than someone who only has 20 lbs? I felt like from fasting I had a good outcome but I had to keep it up and I reached a point where I did not want to. One nice thing was I definitely had autophagy, I had very little excess skin even after losing 50 lbs in less than a year