Home
>
Weight Loss
>
7 Ways to Stop Nighttime Snacking in Front of the TV

7 Ways to Stop Nighttime Snacking in Front of the TV

Stop Being Influenced by Food Ads on TV

There is much in the news today about obesity and you can be assured that the food industry fully intends to place the blame squarely on the individual, despite the fact they spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year in an effort to entice us to buy more and more of their products. Children are especially vulnerable to the advertising for cereals, snack bars, crackers, cookies, candy, and fast foods. Colorful packaging, and now even colorful foods to encourage the little shoppers to badger their parents into buying the "convenient" snack packs for them. "Mommy I want it" is exactly the result advertisers are paying to obtain. They know that many adults will give in to the child's demands, just to "keep the peace."

If you live in modern society, you can't escape advertising. How many times have you been happily minding your own business when suddenly the TV screen flashes a big, juicy, something! Your stomach may start gurgling, your mouth starts watering, and the launch sequence for hunger has begun. Once the countdown starts, nothing can stop the launch into the kitchen, or for the seriously dedicated, out the door to go get something to eat. This can happen only an hour after a big dinner. The ads are designed to do this, and they work well as we prove with our food dollars every day.

Count the Food Ads

Next time you watch TV keep a note pad nearby and make a little hash mark every time you see a commercial that encourages you to eat. You'll also notice there are certain ads that seem to trigger the hunger response more than others. What is it about those ads? Do you start to mentally taste the food? Does it remind you of happy occasions? It can even remind you of unhappy occasions which then drives you to want something to eat because you "deserve" it.

Notice whether it is the people in the ad, the message itself, the words they use, even the background music or scenery? See if you can pin-point what, exactly, it is about the ad that draws you in. Notice what you don't like about ads that simply do not interest you. Play college student and do this as homework, and if you can get your kids to do it with you, all the better.

My son has come to me many times to tell me about something he's seen on TV and now wants me to buy. He gets caught up in the half hour infomercials and becomes so convinced their product is the single best thing, that it's difficult to change his mind.

Evenings are an especially rough time for dieters because of the over abundance of advertising for food. Seeing delicious things to eat can create the sensation of hunger until it becomes a patterned response. Turning on the TV then begins to make you hungry, even without the food cues.

7 Ways to Combat Evening Snacking Habit

1. Mute the commercials or switch to another channel (channel surfers already do this anyway). Not watching or hearing the ad can help enormously. Remember, out of sight, out of mind.

2. Use commercial break time to do housework. You'd be amazed at how much clutter you can clear in three or four minutes, and every hour you get at least four of these breaks.

3. Mute the ads and keep your hands busy until your show comes back on with a project like knitting, reading or finishing that book you've been writing.

4. Start a new business (then you're probably not in front of the TV anyway).

5. Step outside and breath some fresh air for a few minutes.

6. Exercise during the ads. Stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down, do this for a full minute. It's a great leg exercise. Use a kitchen chair rather than the couch to be kinder on your knees.

7. Move to another seat in the room. Sometimes just getting up from your usual spot in the room (the coach, or your favorite chair) and moving to another location can help, so can getting a glass of water. Sometimes it's thirst.

Be Willing to Experiment and You can Overcome the Allure of the Food Ads
The worst thing you can do is simply watch and then attempt to combat your growing desire to eat. Once the idea that you're hungry is planted, it becomes much more difficult to change your mind. Instead stop the idea from occurring in the first place by finding something else to do instead of watching another Burger King commercial.
Advertising only works when we're paying attention, either watching or listening. I've no quarrel with advertisers, I advertise my services too, but watching one hundred ads all featuring food after dinnertime is a bit much for anyone to endure. Food ads are designed for you to simply sit and be mesmerized by the flashing words, snappy slogans, colors and lights. Pay closer attention, or pay none at all, but either way you'll gain a much greater understanding of how advertising influences you.
~~ Kathryn Martyn, Master NLP Practitioner, EFT counselor, author of the free e-book: Changing Beliefs, Your First Step to Permanent Weight Loss, and owner of onemorebite-weightloss.com
Get onemorebite-weightloss.com: Inspirational Mini Lessons Using EFT and NLP for Ending the Struggle with Weight Loss.
recurring cleaning service Mundelein ..
In The News:
New phone return scam targets recent buyers with fake carrier calls. Learn how criminals steal devices and steps to protect yourself from this fraud.
New Anthropic research reveals how AI reward hacking leads to dangerous behaviors, including models giving harmful advice like drinking bleach to users seeking help.
The Fox News AI Newsletter gives readers the latest AI technology advancements, covering the challenges and opportunities AI presents.
Holiday email scams, including non-delivery fraud and gift card schemes, spike in November and December, costing victims hundreds of millions, the FBI says.
Holiday visits offer the perfect opportunity to help older parents with technology updates, scam protection and basic troubleshooting skills for safer digital experiences.
Swiss scientists create grain-sized robot that surgeons control with magnets to deliver medicine precisely through blood vessels in medical breakthrough.
Researchers exploited WhatsApp's API vulnerability to scrape 3.5 billion phone numbers. Learn how this massive data breach happened and protect yourself.
Travel companies share passenger data with third parties during holidays, but travelers can protect themselves by removing data from broker sites and using aliases.
Xpeng's humanoid robot moves so realistically that crowds believed it was fake, marking a major advancement in robotics technology ahead of 2026 commercial launch.
Researchers discover phishing scam using invisible characters to evade email security, with protection tips including password managers and two-factor authentication.
iPhone and Android users can reduce battery drain and data usage by restricting Background App Refresh to Wi-Fi connections instead of mobile networks.
Scammers nearly stole an Apple account by exploiting the support system with authentic-looking tickets and phone calls, users can protect themselves with safety steps.
FoloToy restored sales of its AI teddy bear Kumma after a weeklong suspension following safety group findings of risky and inappropriate responses to children.
Threat intelligence firm Synthient uncovers one of the largest password exposures ever, prompting immediate security recommendations.
Viral video shared by Elon Musk shows Tesla's Optimus humanoid robots performing tasks from cooking to construction, garnering over 58.5 million views on social media.
Chinese hackers used Anthropic's Claude AI to launch autonomous cyberattacks on 30 organizations worldwide, marking a major shift in cybersecurity threats.
Apple's new Sleep Score feature gives you a rating for your nightly rest quality. Learn how to set it up on your Apple Watch and iPhone today.
Essential phone settings to enable before losing your device, including Find My network, location services and security features for iPhone and Android.
The Fox News AI Newsletter gives readers the latest AI technology advancements, covering the challenges and opportunities AI presents.
Cybersecurity research shows weak passwords remain a major threat, with simple patterns and number sequences putting millions of accounts at risk.
New Android malware BankBot YNRK silences phones, steals banking data and drains crypto wallets automatically. Learn how this advanced threat works.
FDA approves first human trial for Paradromics' brain-computer interface that could restore speech for paralyzed patients through neural technology.
New phishing platform QRR targets Microsoft 365 users across 1,000 domains in 90 countries. Learn how to spot fake login pages and protect your accounts.
OpenTable now uses AI to track your dining habits and share insights with restaurants. Learn what data they collect and how to protect your privacy.
Google's discontinued Nest thermostats still secretly upload home data to company servers despite losing smart features, raising serious privacy concerns.