Can't stay away from the evening carbs!!

[Emz87]

Hi, I eat a good serve of carbs for breakfast (oats) morning tea (often a ryvita cracker) and lunch (brown ice or soba noodles or pumpkin and kumara) but I'm really trying to stay away from starchy carbs for that afternoon snack and dinner- but it's so hard!!

I work out after work so around 6pm so if I just have a couple of eggs or a whey shake made with water at 4pm like I try to do I feel really average during my workout... then I load up on huge amounts of non-starchy carbs at dinner - cabbage, broccoli, spinach etc (with a protein - 100g chicken or fish) which is ok at the time... but I inevitably can't keep my hands away from SOME sort of carb half an hour or so after my dinner, often sneaking spoonfuls of my partner's rice...

How do you all stay low carb in the evening? I really want to be able to do it as I'm just trying to lose 1 final kg and really tone up and get my abs etc coming through - but my appetite gets me every time despite the huge mountains of veges I get through at dinner. help!

Thanks

[fitnessgirl20]

I used to find myself in the same situation. Recently I've started to have a bigger afternoon tea= a handful of almonds, 2 ryvita/vita wheat crackers with cottage cheese and tomato/cucumber and sometimes a protein shake as well depending on how much exercise I've done that day. Although that's a little carb in the afternoon with the crackers, you'd be better off doing that than having spoonfuls of rice, which sometimes may add up to 1/2 a cup or so! :shock:

[VampireChick]

To stop myself from going insane, I have a carb serving for dinner about every three nights (to try and coincide with a heavy weights day). This is usually Weds and Sat. Try just having them on set nights (but not too many). After a month or so it'll be easy as. I barely crave them as much now. Also, are you have them at lunch? I have a good serving of kumara, rice or pumpkin on my weights days (ALWAYS). Seems to work well and helps with energy levels and growth. Everyone is different though, but give it a go.

[Chillicat]

That's a hard one. For me I think it was really just a matter of breaking the habit by forcing myself to stop doing it - which isn't easy. Throughout my uni years I lived on pasta and sauce dishes, and used to make a few day's worth, but often used to just munch out on the next night's dinner just because it was there. Oddly enough I was skinny as a rake at that time (must have been all the cycling everywhere and swimming I was into at the time!).

The question I have is are you really hungry or is it habit? Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference. I find the 'make a cuppa' and by the time it's made, cooled and drank I can normally make a better assessment of whether I am hungry or just wanting a munch.

I see from your other post that you're having trouble with the last kilo as well. Do you count calories? Your diet looks pretty good to me, but maybe your portions are too small and you are still hungry, and so eating more at night? Maybe a food journal with a fairly good estimate of calories would help you to work out if you need to be eating more during the day, or whether you just have to suck it up and break the munchie habit?

[Emz87]

Yea i do count calories and try to be as accurate as possible - gets a bit hard when you get down to things like the olive oil I used to roast the kumara in etc...

But I tend to finish my working day sitting on about 1000 cals and head to the gym for a workout. When my willpower wins at dinner I'll end up around 1300 - 1500 cals depending on dins. Does that sound about right? But yes with the sneaky nibbling I do I suspect I'm getting more like 1700 - 2000 (and I do worry that i underestimate the cals too)

Bear in mind I am only 150cm tall! That's something I battle with: when I look up the cals/ratios that I should be hitting using online calculators etc they often tell me to only have around1200 cals a day - that's not a lot of food. it sucks!

[ThePman]

Can't say I've ever worried about it, as long as calorie totals are working. You workout at night, the body wants carbs around activity. As long as the numbers add up, I don't see what's to worry about.

[teamfatboy]

How much water are you drinking through the day ? Like CC's comment about having a cuppa, sometimes knocking back a big drink of water can help with "hunger pangs".

The Pman's point is a good one too... provided your overall carb-pro-fat ratio across the day is good, there's actually not a lot wrong with having some of the carbs in the last meal. It's more an issue if you've already had all the carbs you "should have had" - so maybe you could look at re-distributing them across the day ?

[morattigirl]

Whenever i have my after tea "cuppa" I've always gotta have me gingernuts for dunking :pfft: can't help it, they just go together!! :grin:

[Chillicat]

Whenever i have my after tea "cuppa" I've always gotta have me gingernuts for dunking :pfft: can't help it, they just go together!! :grin:

Yeah that could be a problem!

I don't like the taste of coffee but love tea and have a zillion different flavours: green, several blacks, and some non-caffeines, so at night I have something like a peppermint or camomile or something like that - I've never associated dunking bikkies in those kinds of teas, so it's not a problem.

[Pseudonym]

Can't say I've ever worried about it, as long as calorie totals are working. You workout at night, the body wants carbs around activity. As long as the numbers add up, I don't see what's to worry about.

:nod: I did a competition diet eating loads of carbs at night. I'd taper off the carbs during the day while I wasn't particularly active, then after my evening workout I'd have a couple of carb-heavy meals. I think the key is to tailor your carb intake according to your activity level at the time.

[Chillicat]

Yeah, I've never obsessed about the timing of carbs if it fits into the plan. Makes sense that if you're training at night then you'd need them at night.

Only reason why I wondered about your portion sizes during the day and whether you might be undereating was because that's what I was doing earlier in the year. I'd stopped keeping a food journal because I wasn't too bothered whether or not I put on a few kilos, but I found I was really nibbly at night after dinner which was unusual for me. So I kept a journal for a week and realised that excluding the nibbles at night I was a good few hundred calories short of what I needed for maintenance - so it was no wonder I was nibbly and would then hack off huge chunks of cheese to munch on (cheese is my chocolate - it's my go to food when I feel like munching). As soon as I increased what I was eating during the day, I didn't munch any more after dinner.

[Emz87]

Thanks for the tips I think I just need to make sure I have a decent afternoon snack then really utilise that willpower after dinner, have a cup of tea like suggested and stay away from the lounge where my flatmates are currently eating their way through a pack of freddo frogs!

[cantygirl]

It makes things ten times worse with having flat mates eating yummy bad stuff. I liken it to making up the kids lunch boxes at the end of the day, so hard to not have a slither of this and a slither of that.

What I found worked for me was straight after dinner I would make up a cup of green tea which helped calm my cravings. Then about 30 minutes later, a cup of decaf with 2 corn thins smeared with honey, quite satisfying for me as my sweet tooth has always been my issue.

[VampireChick]

It makes things ten times worse with having flat mates eating yummy bad stuff. I liken it to making up the kids lunch boxes at the end of the day, so hard to not have a slither of this and a slither of that.

What I found worked for me was straight after dinner I would make up a cup of green tea which helped calm my cravings. Then about 30 minutes later, a cup of decaf with 2 corn thins smeared with honey, quite satisfying for me as my sweet tooth has always been my issue.

I really like the sound of that! I have an issue with peanut butter and honey, as in, I like to sneak a tablespoon here and there. If I know I can have it as an evening snack I won't do it so much. Great tip.

[fitnessgirl20]

It makes things ten times worse with having flat mates eating yummy bad stuff. I liken it to making up the kids lunch boxes at the end of the day, so hard to not have a slither of this and a slither of that.

What I found worked for me was straight after dinner I would make up a cup of green tea which helped calm my cravings. Then about 30 minutes later, a cup of decaf with 2 corn thins smeared with honey, quite satisfying for me as my sweet tooth has always been my issue.

I really like the sound of that! I have an issue with peanut butter and honey, as in, I like to sneak a tablespoon here and there. If I know I can have it as an evening snack I won't do it so much. Great tip.

I JUST had some vita wheats with peanut butter and honey! YUMMY

[vongi]

... but I found I was really nibbly at night after dinner which was unusual for me...

This happens on my active days when I have dance classes, along with weights + cardio. This is probably a no brainer question but just for confirmation, it'd be better to do low intensity on a weight day huh? Just so I dont get the damn munchies and screw a day up.

It makes things ten times worse with having flat mates eating yummy bad stuff.

I hear yah :nod:

[cantygirl]

I wouldn't get to hung up about the munchies, probably its your bodies way of telling you that all that work needs to be repaid in fuel. If however you are training for something and you need to downsize, then thats a different matter, try and keep it under control but don't get to stressed about it.