Hi everyone, kinda new here but I figure I should share my personal experiment in the guys room since it involves "strange" elements.

I’ve noticed my cut stalls whenever the late-night dopamine loop hits: doom-scroll, snack, repeat. Decided to run a one-week reset to see if trimming *stimulation calories* can help actual calories.

**Reset checklist**
□ 8 p.m. screen cap: phone goes in desk drawer, watchface only.
□ 90 % whole-food rule (any “fun food” must fit before 2 p.m.).
□ 3-min cold rinse after workouts.
□ Picked up a silicone cage to keep wandering hands + browser tabs in check. (if you're wondering where it goes, the cage is from a funny shop called lockthecock so I'll let you figure that out)
□ Lights-out meditation playlist, then bed.

**Tracking**
• Target intake: 1,950 kcal
• Steps: >10 k daily
• Sleep (Oura): aiming +45 min average
• Craving score (1–5) each night

**Starting numbers (Day 0)**
Weight: 164 lb
Waist: 31.8″
Sleep: 6 h 05 m avg
Cravings after 9 p.m.: 4/5

I’ll loop back on Day 4 with a quick note (good, bad, ugly), then final results on Day 7. Anyone tried something similar—phone jail, NoFap streaks, cold therapy—to rein in nighttime nibbling? Drop tips!

Cheers

I curious where the idea came from for this?

Also, just from a scientific perspective, it seems odd to me to make so many changes all at once since it will be impossible to determine if only some of these changes are actually making any difference, or if some of these may be detrimental, while others are beneficial. For example, we know pretty conclusively that increased sleep is hugely beneficial to weight loss and better health overall. I think at the end of your experiment you won't be able to tell what changes you might want to make more permanently vs. which changes didn't help and can be safely ignored.

Just my thought so far. Regardless, I hope it helps you.

I agree completely with SpartanMaker, that is exactly what I was thinking. As a nurse, I understand your desire to challenge yourself, but you need one at a time to see what works and what doesn't benefit you.

I got nothing, bro.

Nothing.

If it works for you then more power to ya.

wow! I will be following to see how its going! I have read putting the phone away after a certain does help with better sleep so I am curious if you get the same results.

Well, I guess the OP isn't coming back. ?

If any of the rest of you are thinking about trying something like this, I'd encourage you to read up on what dopamine is and isn't. It's not a drug or a chemical that you can diet, detox, or fast your way past, regardless of what the social media influencers may have told you. You can't make it go away and no amount of deprivation is going to lessen your bodies ability to produce it on demand.

In fact, contrary to popular belief, dopamine isn't a even the "pleasure" hormone it's portrayed to be. It has a number of functions in the body, but one of it's key uses is as a neurotransmitter (think of it like a messenger from one brain cell to another). Dopamine job as a neurotransmitter is in reinforcing reward-seeking behavior.

Said differently, dopamine does not actually "cause" any pleasurable sensations, it simply triggers the brain when we do have pleasurable sensations to remember those and reward the behavior that caused the pleasure. You can think of it like a feedback mechanism. If you do something pleasurable, dopamine kicks in and says: "hey, we liked that, let's remember what caused it."

Dopamine is easily manufactured in your body, so as I said, trying to remove pleasurable stimuli in the hope that this will keep you from seeking these reward behaviors in the future just won't work. Plus, once that reward mechanism is triggered, removing the stimuli after the fact makes no difference. Your brain still remembers the pleasurable sensation.

If you have concerns about unhealthy behaviors such as late night snacking, the best plan is always going to be talking to a mental health professional. Through counseling and some techniques they can teach you, there are ways past these behaviors. If counseling isn't in the cards right now, I'd also recommend seeking out a book called Atomic Habits by James Clear. This book can teach you to trade out bad habits for good ones.

If sleep is a concern, we do have a pretty good idea of things you can do to improve the quality of sleep. As I mentioned, sleep is absolutely critical to weight loss and franky to just staying healthy. If you're looking for tips on improving sleep, I recommend Googling "sleep hygiene". There's a wealth of information out there.

Finally, I want to close by mentioning that late night eating is not necessarily bad and is not actually a cause of poor sleep. it depends more on what you eat, but multiple studies have shown that going to be hungry may be WORSE for sleep than eating before bed. It all comes down to what you eat and how close to bedtime you eat it. This is another one of those "common knowledge" things that's just wrong.