If you want to lose weight, doctors tell you to avoid these 5 dietary details after 5 p.m.

Don't worry when you see this title, Dr. Zhuo is not telling you to stop eating after 5 pm. What Dr. Zhuo wants to emphasize is that these common details of life from around 5 pm to bedtime may affect your weight.

Because weight loss is an ongoing process, it requires more than just a small, sustainable energy deficit. It also involves factors like circadian rhythms, meal timing, and intermittent fasting. Emerging research shows that when you eat is just as important as what you can eat. According to nutritionists, if you want to lose weight, here are five things you should do as little as possible after 5 p.m.

1. Overeating after a day's work Do you have an insatiable hunger at night, so you eat whatever you see? Overeating is more of an emotional release, whether it is a piece of cream cake or a spicy hot pot, just to eat and drink to get rid of the negative emotions of a day's work.

First of all, please do not associate negative emotions with diet. The culture of eating broadcasts is subtly affecting our eating habits. Sometimes it is easier to quit this habit than you think. Therefore, dieting to reduce food intake, and venting negative emotions through communication, exercise, etc. before eating, may avoid the problem of overeating. In addition, it is necessary to allocate the proportion of three meals a day. If you don’t eat well for breakfast and don’t eat enough for lunch, this may be the reason why you eat too much at dinner. To prevent overeating at night, make sure you have enough time to eat enough food to meet your needs for the day. This way you won’t feel hungry.

When you're trying to lose weight, eating smaller, more frequent meals every three to four hours with balanced meals containing protein, fiber, and fat can prevent overeating in the evening. So choose a fiber- and protein-rich snack like an apple with peanut butter in the mid-afternoon so you don't end up hungry at 5 p.m., triggering a binge.

1. Eating snacks at random, such as eating melon seeds, potato chips, and nuts, is a big taboo for people who are trying to lose weight.

Because the act of grabbing food from a snack bag can make us forget about the energy we're taking in. Chips straight from the bag can lead to mindless eating, especially if you're doing it while scrolling through your phone or watching TV. Before you know it, you may have consumed the energy of a whole meal. Instead of mindlessly snacking, make a plan for what your evening snack will include (think produce and protein that will keep you full), and then enjoy it.

1. Staying up late and not getting enough sleep A 2021 study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition linked late-night eating to impaired weight loss and elevated triglycerides. The later you go to bed, the more energy you consume, and the greater the probability that you will need extra energy from your diet.

Therefore, don't browse social media or reply to private messages before going to bed, as these temptations will consume your sleep motivation. At the same time, the blue light from the phone will be dazzling and make it difficult to fall asleep. For this reason, try a short meditation or drink some decaffeinated milk to help us settle down and have a good night's rest.

In addition, the lack of sleep caused by staying up late may induce an increase in the hormones cortisol and ghrelin, so that people who sleep less than 7 hours a night will eat more snacks the next day than those who sleep more than 7 hours. So please don't stay up late to avoid excessive energy intake later.

1. People who don't eat carbohydrates for dinner to lose weight may be averse to eating carbon water. However, everything will turn into the opposite. The more you try to avoid eating, the more you seem to be unable to restrain yourself from eating a lot when you feel hungry. Although eating carbon water at dinner will make you feel guilty about losing weight, adding a moderate amount of carbon water can effectively make up for your energy gap and help you lose weight.

Because carbohydrates not only provide energy for our brain and central nervous system, but also a moderate amount of fat and protein can help reduce the impact of lowering blood sugar and delay the feeling of fullness. It can effectively prevent hunger from coming too quickly during weight loss and inducing subsequent overeating.

1. Opening the refrigerator without a plan. You should know that delicious food makes people feel happy and comforted. When we are stressed, bored or craving for a certain food, our appetite will not only be opened, but we may even lose our mind and think that eating these foods is right. Therefore, how to restrain the temptation of delicious food and withstand the hunger that comes at any time is the core of our diet during weight loss. For this, we need to develop an effective plan.

First, clear your fridge of tempting processed foods like chips, candy, and refined snacks. Instead, fill your fridge and cupboards with more nutritious alternatives like nuts, fruit, whole grains, and high-quality protein.

Second, make a plan so you don't hang around the refrigerator and open it frequently after dinner.

Finally, we need to make a plan to avoid eating. When we feel hungry suddenly, we should not impulsively open the refrigerator to eat high-calorie sweets that lack nutrition. We should plan to eat some high-fiber, low-calorie fruits or vegetable salads to deal with the impulsive response of our stomach to trick the brain.

To sum up, these details are something that happens to everyone. If you are also in the above situation, there is no need to feel guilty or ashamed that things that lead to weight loss are not going as planned.

As long as we are aware of these details and try to avoid them next time, it is much more important to be able to execute effectively most of the time than to fail occasionally. With a flexible execution plan, I believe we will succeed in losing weight through diet.