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Originally Posted by Leto
I am usually quite hungry by dinner time. I am leaving now to get home to eat and am tempted to buy a coffee crisp on the way to the car.
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This is a sign that you haven't been eating enough before dinner time. Change your habits and you will see this problem lessen if not disappear completely. I'm seldom hungry on my way home from work. I only get hungry closer to dinner time.
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[...] I have to say that I like my late night snacks. This is a time that my wife and I are winding down, and watching something lame on tv (usually CSI or Law & Order) and can enjoy something to eat. I have gone the cereal & yoghurt route before, and can do so again.
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The cereal and yogurt is a good one. Just keep the portion reasonable, and try to use wholesome cereals as opposed to the sugary kind. Think granola, and try to find a cereal without too much sugar. Also remember that fruit-flavoured/bottom yogurts usually have a lot of added sugar. If you find a cereal with dried fruit in it (or if you add your own), try using plain yogurt if you don't already. If you're used to all that sugar, it might be an acquired taste, but it's worth it. Try adding some seeds and/or nuts for extra flavour. Removing the sugar calories and replacing them with fruit/nut/seed calories is a good strategy, generally. A little goes a long way with those ingredients.
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Delaying my coffee until later sounds hard to do. But not impossible.
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That's the spirit! It might take a while, but you can easily shift your coffee habits over time. If your intake is 2 cups per day, you don't need to cut back, just start later. Start at around 9 or 10am, and stop before 4pm. Try not to drink much more than 2 cup per day overall. Less is usually better when it comes to caffeine.
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My bed time is typically 11:30 to midnight. I usually fall asleep while my wife is watching the CTV news or surfing the web on her laptop. So I get about 6 to 6.5 hours each night. I have tried to sleep longer, but that's rare.
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I've struggled with my own sleep habits lately. While there are some people who get by just fine on 6 to 6.5 hours a night, most people can't, which explains why sleep deprivation is such a growing problem. The average optimal sleep is around 7 to 7.5 per night. It's sometimes as high as 8 for some people, but recent studies have shown that the "8 for health" rule isn't quite accurate. It's more like 7.5. Some people need as much as 10, but that's rare.
You can find out your optimal sleep time with some experimentation. One way is to pick a time (say, 7 hours) and go to bed at the same time each night where you'll get just that. Then on Sat. (or when you aren't working one day), see how long you sleep without an alarm, but don't try to sleep in. Make some notes. Try it again for another week: 7 hours Mon-Fri, then see what happens Sat. If you find you are sleeping in a lot and comfortably so, you might need more than 7 hours per night. Try bumping it up to 7.5. On the other hand, if you are reasonably refreshed after about 7 or 8 hours on Sat. morning, you might be fine with 7. The key is to keep the same bedtime each night, even on weekends, and to wake up at the same time as well. Our bodies are fairly strict cyclical machines, which is why we feel sapped when we're off-kilter.
You can use weekends to "catch up" if you think you're rather sleep deprived, but it's not a good idea to play catch-up/fall-behind week after week. (I'm guilty of this too; most of us are.) This experiment might not work at first if you are currently deeply entrenched in sleep deprivation (which might be more likely than you think). Our bodies recover from sleep deprivation rather efficiently, but it might take some time. The second or third week of this experiment might be more fruitful in this case.
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Thanks for your interest!
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No problem!
And good luck!