The dreaded evening urge to nibble. What are your ideas for low cal. snacks?

[Laiste]

You know when you just want to EAT SOMETHING in the evening, but are trying to cut back on calories? If i just ignore the urge I often end up pigging on a pile of buttered toast at about 9pm 😣🙄

Better to be prepared! My ideas are:

Frozen grapes
Ice pops
Bowl of rice crispies

but i'm getting bored with them and too many frozen grapes give me the sh*ts. What do you have on standby?

These are all fabulous ideas! The teeth cleaning and making sure you're not thirsty first (clean your teeth, down a glass of water and see how you feel) are things which have worked for me in the past and i'd forgotten.

And the chewing gum!

@Salutina you know - that makes perfect sense. We get up really early here (5am) and i have a cup of tea/bottle of water and can go until nearly 10/11am ish before i think about food. I'll often eat then and call it sort of lunch. We have our evening meal at 5ish (in a minute - yay!) and then, yes, i suppose i feel less bad about a snack when i think about it being breakfast, but moved. We're in bed by 10.

Even more disappointing when you think you've picked up the lightly salted ones and end up spreading Nutella over salt and vinegar ones

@HardbackWriter when i'm REALLY in the zone and have already lost a good bit of weight i can do the 'just don't eat' thing.

At the moment i'm just getting going.

People eat in the evening?

(Am doing 16:8 - fasting 4pm till 8am - and finding it less of a struggle than I’d imagined. For the first few weeks I just took myself to bed early to avoid the kitchen. Now I’m acclimatised it’s actually quite nice not to have to think about another meal in the evenings. #SmuggyMcSmugface)

@Pastaa apple and peanut butter sounds really bloody nice!

We've currently got 2 boxes of Mini Twister lollies as they came in the Coop £5 freezer deal. I have never fancied Twisters, but noticed these were 30kcals sp thought I'd try one, and they are quite tasty and refreshing.

Do you have your tea very early? I rarely get this as we normally eat around 8pm, but the other day we ate just before 6pm and I was starving by 9.

Can you try eating a little later instead?

@lurkingfromhome you're right. I know you are. The blood sugar up and down thing especially.

Rice pudding is pretty low cal

@Laiste Yay! Mystery solved, your body is just asking for its third meal. Give it something proper and enjoy it, definitely no guilt or hair shirts required!

I love this approach now, actually, as it's become my daily meal where I'm just catering to my needs and tastes and noone else's, and there's no feeling of obligation to eat a particular 'type' of food (eg 'dinner' or 'breakfast'). I just eat what I fancy til I'm full! It's very liberating.

I know what you mean.

My problem is i never fancy much in the mornings and lunch time to be honest. I guess this is why i'm accepting my urge to nibble in the evening and own it rather than deny it.

slices of cucumber with salt

Can't really have dinner later. I cook for DH and the kids, DH and i are up at 5am and we need a meal at 5ish.

I know the thread has moved on somewhat but I love mini gherkins wrapped with a bit of pastrami. Satisfies the craving for crunchy and salty.

Propercorn popcorn individual bags in the multipacks are around 44 calories .

Babybel light are 42 calories.

@Laiste I know I sound harsh, but I speak from experience. I once calculated that my evening snacks contained more calories than I was having for lunch (ie a proper meal), and because I was trying to have a little bit of this, a little bit of that, a low-sugar this, a small piece of that it wasn't even filling me up and I was always peckish. Now I eat a really good-sized dinner, have two pieces of fruit afterwards then that's it until the next day and it is actually much easier.

Fresh apricots 20 cal each

@MuddlerInLaw aka smuggymcsmug. 😃Made me laugh.

Again - once i'm well in the zone i'll probably be able to do without in the evening more often.

Dinner now!
I'll be back.
Thank you so much for all this.

Plain Popcorn
squeeze of lemon or lime
sprinkle with a mix up of chilli, cumin, coriander plus salt and pepper

It's a street food snack in Mexico. I love it. Spicy and crunchy like crisps.

@lurkingfromhome it's really fine, we're all speaking from experience. Your experience is totally valid and what you've learned from it works for you. What I've learned from my experience is that my approach works for me. I'm losing weight, my gut is happier, I'm no longer trying to fight against my natural eating rhythm - this is all good, for me.

My approach won't work for everyone, but nothing does - we're all different, and we're all sharing our experiences to help the OP figure out what works for her. I was being pretty light hearted in my last post, possibly that wasn't obvious. But the OP can take everyone's suggestions and use them however works for her. I'm really glad you've found an approach that works for you too

Whoops incredibly sorry @lurkingfromhome ! I was scrolling through the replies after getting a noand somehow thought I'd read that you'd tagged me not the OP. Apologies

I'm low carb so I don't count calories but I find half a ball of mozzarella does it for me.

*after getting a notification and

So if you go with intuitive eating I guess you'd just choose a bit of what you fancy. Worry less about calories.

Maybe something like a banana. Or a sandwich. I like frozen yoghurt recently, the Yeo valley one