Guest guest Posted August 7, 2011 Report Share Posted August 7, 2011 What’s your snack habit? Knowing how you eat is important to making sure you eat the right thing! Are you a grazer or a traditionalist? A grazer is someone who does best eating 5-6 small meals throughout the day. To be honest, I’m skeptical of grazing. I know it works for some people, but I’ve seen it do more harm than good. Snacks can be a double-edged sword. If they blunt your appetite at mealtime, then they are doing their job. Often, however, people eat their snacks, telling themselves how small their dinner will be, but by the time dinner rolls around, they have forgotten everything. The result: too many calories over the course of the day and, thus, weight gain. Snacks should be a mix of protein, fat, and carbohydrates, so your energy levels stay steady throughout the day. If you are a traditionalist and do best on three meals a day, this is even more essential. I’m a traditionalist. I prefer this approach because it makes food less of a centerpiece in my life. Regardless of your snacking tendencies, the key is to stick with it and do the same thing every day so that it becomes a habit. For instance, I never snack at work. I don’t even have to think about it anymore, so it takes no willpower on my part. Work is for work. Home and restaurants are for eating. My body has grown accustomed to not eating between meals, so I never desire snacks. Sure, sometimes I may fall off the wagon, but I always motivate myself to get back into the habit that works for me. I believe there to be 6 strategies for developing your Snack Habit: 1. Bombproof your House 2. Bombproof your Office 3. Try Tea 4. Easy Does It 5. Protein Persists 6. Fiber Fills Get rid of the temptations in your house and your office! Don’t feel like you are wasting anything. That’s a destructive thinking pattern. If you discovered poison in your house and threw it out, you wouldn’t think you were wasting it. Well, guess what? That tray of leftover cupcakes from last week’s BBQ is poison, the slow-acting kind, and in the long run, it’ll make you plenty sick. You have no reason for bringing junk food into the house, the office, or even the car, and sabotaging yourself. Give it to your neighbors, bring it to the homeless shelter – just get RID of it! You’ll be amazed when you start reaching for apples or almonds instead of sugary snacks. After a few weeks, when you happen to taste junk food somewhere, you will discover an amazing thing: it doesn’t taste so good! Once you lose your taste for it, chances are it won’t come back! Hot tea or decaf coffee have no calories and keep you full longer. Too hot for hot tea? You can sip on some iced tea without sugar as a great way to get your water for the day, and it satisfies like any other snack! If you snack, it’s particularly important to plan your meals in advance. A submarine sandwich is NOT a snack! For that matter, you shouldn’t follow up a mid-morning snack with a full sandwich for lunch. Try dividing the sandwich up and having half for a snack, then half with grapes on the side for lunch. Think the same way about dinner if you have a mid-afternoon snack: whatever your snack is, you should very consciously carve that amount of food out of your dinner. If you are devoted to dessert, that could serve as one of your snacks. Be sure to check the portion sizes - a two-hundred calorie serving of ice cream is pretty small but plenty satisfying! If you are a grazer, make sure your snacks have some protein in them. Protein takes longer to digest than carbohydrates, keeping you fuller longer. If you are super ambitious, remember this: fiber is your friend! Naturally found in fruits, veggies, beans, and whole grains, it tapes up space in the stomach without delivering extra calories. In other words, it makes us feel full without filling us out! It also helps control our blood sugar and insulin levels. What can be better? Now that you know how to snack, add these healthy alternatives to junk food. Make a new habit of reaching for something GOOD for you every day this month. Spicy Tamari Almonds Cashew-Ginger Trail Mix (without the M & Ms!) Fat free Greek yogurt Fresh berries Peachy Green Tea Hard-boiled eggs Yellow lentils Figs and other seasonal fruits Low fat string cheese Bell peppers and hummos Almond milk Fiber-One cereal bars Happy Snacking! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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