How to Stop Snacking at Night, When Bored or at Work

By Paul Butler · Online Coach & Personal Trainer

Nobody in the history of Britain has eaten a single crisp. The packet may say "sharing bag", but we all know that is a personal challenge, not a suggestion.

So how do you stop snacking? Mostly by accepting that it usually isn't about hunger. Snacking at night, when you are bored or at your desk tends to be habit, tiredness, boredom or simply the food being there. Fix your meals first, make snacks a bit harder to reach, and plan the ones you actually want.

Why do I keep snacking even when I'm not hungry?

Because snacking is usually a habit with a trigger, not a response to an empty stomach. The sofa and the telly, the four o'clock slump at work, a boring afternoon at home: your brain learns that these moments come with food. Add tiredness and a cupboard full of biscuits, and you are eating before you have even decided to.

The useful question isn't "how do I find more willpower?" It is "what happened just before I opened the cupboard?"

Boredom really does make you eat more

This one has actually been studied. Researchers ran a week-long food diary and then two experiments on boredom and eating. In the diary, the more bored people were on a given day, the more calories they ate. In the experiments, a dull task made people want to snack rather than eat something healthy.

There was a useful twist, too. When the healthy option was something more interesting, bored people went for that instead (Moynihan et al., 2015). So the fix for boredom snacking is something that genuinely gives your brain a bit of interest, which might be food you enjoy or might be getting up and doing something else entirely. A sad rice cake will not cut it.

Why snack foods are so easy to overeat

Most snack foods are what researchers call ultra-processed: made in a factory, from ingredients you wouldn't cook with at home, and very easy to keep eating. One study tested just how easy.

Twenty adults lived in a research centre for four weeks. For two weeks they were offered ultra-processed meals, and for the other two, unprocessed meals matched for calories, sugar, fat and fibre. They could eat as much or as little as they liked. On the ultra-processed food they ate about 500 calories a day more, and gained around a kilo in a fortnight. On the unprocessed food they lost about a kilo.

"Limiting consumption of ultra-processed foods may be an effective strategy for obesity prevention and treatment."

It was a small study and only four weeks long, but it was tightly controlled. And it explains something you have probably noticed: nobody accidentally eats six apples in front of the telly.

When it happens, and what to try

Make snacks harder, not forbidden

Banning snacks outright tends to end with you eating half a packet of biscuits standing at the counter at ten o'clock. Making them slightly more effort works better, because most snacking happens on autopilot.

• Out of sight. Put the snacks in a high cupboard and the fruit on the counter. You eat what you see.
• Never from the bag. Put a portion in a bowl and put the bag away before you sit down.
• Smaller packs. A multipack of small bags beats one big "sharing" bag, for reasons already covered.
• Brush your teeth after dinner. It sounds daft, but it is a clear signal to yourself that eating is done for the day.

You don't need a meal plan. You need a structure that survives a bad week, and a kitchen set up for the tired version of you rather than the motivated one.

Plan a snack instead of banning them

If you know you will want something at four o'clock or at nine, plan it. A planned snack with some protein in it, like Greek yoghurt, a boiled egg or a bit of cheese with an apple, takes the edge off and stops the grazing. And if you are snacking because you are genuinely hungry, the problem is usually your meals, which the post on always being hungry covers.

If evening snacking is your main battle, there is no magic cut-off time for food, but the evening is where most unplanned eating happens. The carbs at night post goes through why that matters more than the clock.

When it is more than snacking

If eating often feels out of your control, if you eat large amounts in one go and feel awful afterwards, or if food comes with a lot of guilt, that is worth more than a list of tips. The food guilt post covers where that line sits, and Beat can help without you needing a diagnosis.

Frequently asked questions

Is snacking bad if I'm trying to lose weight?

Not by itself. What matters is how much you eat across the whole day. Planned snacks can actually help by stopping you arriving at dinner starving. It is the unplanned, unnoticed grazing that tends to add up without you realising.

What are good snacks when you're trying to lose weight?

Ones with some protein or fibre, because they keep you fuller for longer. Greek yoghurt, a boiled egg, cottage cheese, a piece of fruit with a few nuts, or chopped veg with hummus. The best snack is one you enjoy enough that you don't go looking for a second one.

Why do I snack more when I'm tired?

Being short on sleep makes you hungrier and makes it harder to say no, so tired evenings are when the cupboard gets raided. Fixing your sleep often fixes a surprising amount of snacking. If you are tired all the time, it is worth looking at why before blaming your willpower.

Should I stop eating after a certain time?

You don't have to. Your body doesn't store food differently after 8pm. A cut-off time works for some people simply because it stops the evening grazing, so if it helps you, use it. If it just makes you hungry and grumpy, plan a proper evening snack instead.

This is general information, not medical advice. If eating often feels out of your control, Beat can help, and your GP is a good first stop.

More honest guides on fat loss, nutrition and training

The 2019 Hall et al. ultra-processed food trial in Cell Metabolism and the 2015 Moynihan et al. boredom and eating studies are linked in the text. Images from Pexels (free to use): Srattha Nualsate, Pavel Danilyuk, Damir K.