Why am I always so hungry in the morning when I eat late at night?

Plummeting blood sugar levels?

.I think you are simply making poor choices when it comes to feeding your body. You have fallen into a bad habit of satiating your cravings with food at the worst time possible for eating at all. The evening meal should be your lightest meal of the day and done at a reasonable hour and not late at night. If you are eating late and snaking you more than likely are eating empty calories that your body is now used to burning through the night while it attempts to digest this gluttony excess while you try to sleep. You then wake up feeling like you ran a marathon and you are also starved because the empty calories did little to nourish your body. IMO, you may need a major overhaul with regards to your food (fuel) choices and very obviously the timing of when you eat and how much and what you eat.

You will find a lot of good tips and ideas if you discuss this with your doctor or ask for a referral to a nutritionist or dietitian.

I think Cruiser told you the real deal. If you are eating high carb foods with all of their hidden sugar content you are asking for a crash and burn. Eat earlier and eat protein and veg with some olive oil to grease the system. You will feel 100% better all over.

When I worked the graveyard shift, my eat/sleep schedule varied a lot (especially on days off) and I would sometimes wind up doing the same thing.

It is an observation I also made and found very frustrating. Put simply, the reason behind it I think is that your body doesn’t go into the hibernate mode that it typically would if you ate several hours before bed. If you figure that most people sleep 6–7 hours and eat dinner 2–3 hours before bedtime, their average “fast” time is 8 or more hours. During that time most of your systems go into stand-by mode, until you breakfast. When you eat a late meal however, you’re waking up earlier in that cycle, and so your body is running at a higher metabolic rate and therefore expects food pronto.

If you must eat so soon before gong to bed try to eat foods high in complex carbohydrates so that your body doesn’t have to deal with spikes in your blood sugar level as much.