Phases of a Successful Stop Night Eating Program

Don’t know why the phases of a successful stop night eating program are important? Read about phases of a successful stop night eating program first here. You’ll find a link to the article you are reading right now at the end, so start first by reading phases of a successful stop night eating program.

Overview- Phases of a Successful Stop Night Eating Program

I’m coaching women over 40 on how to lose weight for 6+ years now, and I always talk first about their failures in previous attempts to lose weight. After all, repeating previous mistakes is something to avoid at all costs and “you need to try harder doing the same stuff” usually doesn’t help.

Over the years I’ve realized that the type of advice or coaching one woman needs might not help  another and generally, when it comes to personal change, a kind of techniques that helps one woman might not do anything for another.

Recently I’ve read a great book about personal change (Prochaska et. al., “Changing for Good”) and the authors basically say: Successful personal change (including lose weight or stop night eating) develops in phases. When people go through change they change in phases and to change successfully, they need to finish a phase before starting the next.

Interestingly, every phase needs its own kind of techniques. So- to assess which kind of techniques to use you need to know which phase you are in- otherwise it’s likely that what you do (your technique for personal change) won’t fit with your situation.

This explains my experience with weight loss coaching: What fits for one women might not fit for another.

To summarize: There are phases of a successful stop night eating program. When you want to stop night eating successfully and permanently you will have to go through phases. Each phase has its own kind of techniques which will help you master the phase.

If you apply the kind of techniques that do not fit the phases you are in, you’ll likely won’t be able to go through the phase successfully, and might even have a relapse. Having a relapse means: Going back to a previous phase, maybe even to square zero…

We’d like to minimize the chance that you’ll experience a setback, so it is important to finish every phase successfully before starting the next one. I’ll provide you with a step-by-step process where we’ll go through to the phases of a successful stop night eating program and make sure you won’t miss anything.

So- what are the phases of a successful stop night eating program? It starts with 3 phases that ensure you are getting ready for change and stop night eating. Then there is one phase when you are actually taking action. After the action phase there is one more phase to make sure you stop night eating permanently and there won’t be a relapse.

There are 5 phases of a successful stop night eating program:

First of the Phases of a Successful Stop Night Eating Program: Precontemplation

You might know the situation from your weight loss journey: You sort of know that you might be too heavy, but are not really ready to admit it to yourself. And one day our doctor (or a friend or family member) more or less politely says that you absolutely have to lose weight or face severe consequences for your health.

The same might happen to night eaters. They think it’s OK, they are used to it, it might even always have been like that- and one day somebody says “You eat too much too late”.

This is the precontemplation phase: You are not ready to admit that you have a problem, but others are telling you so. And you are not really ready to face the consequences of changing your ways- eating less in the evening and at night.

Typically people in the precontemplation phase do not want to talk about their problem with night eating too.

Not everybody goes through this, some start in the next phase.

Second of the Phases of a Successful Stop Night Eating Program: Contemplation

People in this phase realize they have a problem, and start to gather information about it. If you came to this website by actively searching for information on night eating and how it relates to losing weight, then it is likely you are in this phase.

People in the contemplation phase tend to talk about their night eating behaviors with others too and try to get information and opinions on that.

On the other hand, they can remain stuck in this phase for a long time and are not really ready for profound change. This readiness is the result of  the next phase.

Third of the Phases of a Successful Stop Night Eating Program: Preparation

Here you’ll get ready to take action and face unexpected challenges. Outcome of this phase is a solid commitment to behavior change. Also, you’ll develop a solid, detailed plan on how to change. This needs to be a plan you’ve developed for yourself (not something prepackaged).

No prepared plan will make you lose weight and stop night eating. You will do that yourself (and for yourself). The plan and the information found here are only the helping catalyst to get you to the point where you will stop night eating.

Your likelihood to stick to a plan you’ve envisioned is much higher than if I would dump a plan on you. You’ll get enough information to be able to develop your personal stop night eating program. We’ve prepared a huge list of useful and proven tips and techniques for you which will help you to stop night eating and lose weight.

In this phase you might already try out some of the steps of your plan to make sure that they really fit to you and into your lifestyle. Once you are confident that you can do this and you are looking forward to the positive changes that stopping night eating and losing weight will bring you, it’s time for the next, the action phase.

Fourth of the Phases of a Successful Stop Night Eating Program: Action

Here you will actually do things that will stop night eating and help you to lose weight. Part of this will be restructuring your life in healthier ways, or at least parts of it. All the groundwork you’ve done in the previous phases will make sure that this phase will go smoothly.

Goal of this phase is- you’ve guessed it- to stop night eating so you will lose weight!

Of course, just stopping night eating for some time is not enough- you want to come to a point where you don’t have to do anything to live without night eating and there will be no effects of late night eating any more. So you need ways to maintain what you’ve accomplished or there will be a relapse.

The last of the phases of a successful stop night eating program is for that:

Fifth of the Phases of a Successful Stop Night Eating Program: Maintenance

Here you’ll replace fully night eating and eating late at night with new, healthy ways to live your life and lose weight. This needs to be done in a way that your old night eating is not present at all any more- after all, you won’t have to deprive yourself for the rest of your life. Things need to be easy, simple and enjoyable to maintain so you’ll lose weight automatically and “on autopilot”.

Also, you need to develop ways to handle unexpected temptations in this phase. The last phase, the action phase was on how to handle regular temptations- often every day night eating. This stage is about dealing with special circumstances, for example how a buffet at a wedding party and late night eating doesn’t lead you to a relapse.

You might be interested in which of the phases of a successful stop night eating program you are- it’s surprisingly simple to find out. Read more here: “How You Can Know in Which Phase to Stop Night Eating You Are In“.