A puzzling formula

As some of you know, I struggle with late night eating.  I'll find myself exhausted from work but unable to go to bed, instead I'll sit watching hours of hulu.com or netflix.com.  Periodically I'll get up to wander around the house while thinking about eating something, finally making my way into the kitchen.  There I'll stand with the refrigerator door wide open, letting the light shine on me (isn't there a song about this? something about this little light?) Mostly I'm looking for anything sweet and chocolate so I can raise the blood sugar and get a shot of caffeine and stay up even longer.

Part of this is not wanting to go to bed so the next day doesn't come so quickly....well, actually ALL of this is about not wanting the next day to come.  Sleep, commute, work, commute, hang out at home in an exhausted stupper, and then start all over again. Kind of sounds like boredom but before I go down that rabbit hole I need to make sure it's not all about some other thought or emotion.  So much can contributed to this resulting formula: staying up too late + overeating  = exhaustion and weight gain.

Since I've lost weight before and gained back half of what I lost, I want to be much more aware of how my emotions contribute to my eating habits this time around. Many of the new food journals neglect to encourage documenting our emotions along with what we eat and our activity.  Here's one I found that looks helpful: One Day at a Time and Linda Spangle's book "Life is Hard, Food is Easy" has an entire chapter about "Head-Hunger and Heart-Hunger".  So I'm on to journally...food, activities AND emotions!  Wish me luck.