If you didn’t eat compulsively before you started your new diet, and you’re suddenly eating an entire boxes of fruit loops, or twizzlers or whatever, then the obvious answer is there is something wrong with your diet, not with you.
Hunger is a biological response to the physiological condition of needing food.
If you are famished at night, then you under ate during the day and need to eat something.
It is important to remember that you can consume too many calories during the day and still have under ate because you didn’t get enough of some nutrient.
You are suffering from malnutrition.
I know, you said before that this can’t be the case because you eat vegetables.
Malnutrition is defined as a medical condition caused by an improper or insufficient diet.
Strong feelings of hunger or an abnormal appetite are ways your body tells you that you are malnourished.
So maybe you are eating vegetables, but you aren’t eating enough of a variety or enough fruit. Maybe the deficiency is related to protein, iron, minerals, or fat soluble vitamins. Or maybe your new diet is too restricted calorie wise and you just need to eat more.
This isn’t something which will be fixed by knitting, or distracting yourself. Nor is this the result of “bad habits” which need to be broken. You absolutely need to eat something.
Keep a food diary for a few days. Try entering a days worth of food into a nutritional calculator like the one at NutritionData.com, maybe you are grossly underestimating the number of calories you’re consuming during the day. Maybe you need to add more variety to your diet, maybe you’re not getting enough manganese, or iron, or whatever. It is hard to guess these things.
I know my post is a little late, as you stated that increasing your protein during the day has helped, but I thought it was really important to tell you that hunger is a biological condition not psychological. Struggling with your new diet just means the diet needs to be modified. You don’t lack will power and you are not a failure. You need food.
And for the poster who mentioned that her husband and two adult sons give her crap for eating at night; tell them that maybe if they worked even half as hard as you do they might need to eat more too. Or beat them with a stick. You eat because you’re hungry, you’re hungry because you work hard and your body needs nourishment to maintain the strength you have worked so hard to build. There are more productive ways for them to express their love and support for you then to make you feel guilty or bad about seeking nourishment.