If you eat with DCs between 5pm and 6pm do you eat later in the as well - if so what?

[Toowittoowoo]

I really enjoy eating with the DCs whenever we can but the problem is I am really hungry again by 8pm and DH (who is slim so doesn't care) ends up buying unhealthy snack food to eat.

What do the rest of you do to avoid going to bed hungry or eating rubbish all evening?

We normally eat at around 6.30pm if we eat with the DCs.

We will sometimes have something later in the evening - either a bit of cheese, or we'll share a bar of dark chocolate (only 250cals each). Sometimes just a hot chocolate or a glass of wine.
Often nothing though, but if you are used to eating later then it does take a while for your body to adjust.

Can you increase your dinner portion slightly so that you don't get so hungry later?

We eat at 5/5.30 with our 2 year old. I find if there are low amounts of carb and reasonable amounts of fat in my dinner I don't feel particularly hungry through the evening, and might just have a ramekin with say, 10 almonds, 10 pecans, couple of dates and a square of the 90% lindt chocolate.

If I'm feeling more hungry, a couple of slices of cheese with a few walnuts, few cherry toms and some cucumber sticks makes me feel like I've had a "mini meal" but is also nicely balanced, and because it's savory , stops me going on a sweet food rampage.

DH tends to much on a few buttered oatcakes with or without the cheese.
Of course we do have evenings where we just eat a pile of ice cream but actually it's not often and I always feel a bit sick after so don't tend to do it again for ages.

So in answer, the key for me is to have a fairly low carb dinner to avoid having a sugar crash three hours later, ie just when you are parked infront of the TV and having something to much would be nice!