The Importance of Snacking

     When it comes to losing weight, its important to eat the right amounts of healthy foods each day. While this sounds self-evident, it's much easier said than done. Too many people go on diets which involve feeling hungry for most of the day, then feeling guilty when they give in to the overwhelming urge to eat. That’s a great way to undermine your chance of success. Instead, feed your body throughout the day to fend off cravings and improve your chance for success.

    As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’m reading a really useful book called “Eat This, Not That”. The chapter on snacks and sweets discusses the need to snack wisely when losing weight – a point that’s worth emphasizing. 

    The diet plan for my current workout program (Focus T25) incorporates this idea, by having you eat five smaller meals throughout the day.  Essentially, you eat a smaller breakfast, lunch and dinner, leaving room for two snacks at mid-morning and mid-afternoon. By spreading your food consumption throughout the day, your body gets used to the idea that food will be forthcoming – and it will be less inclined to horde fat.

    For this reason, it’s extremely important to keep healthy snacks on hand, and to eat them in the right amounts so that you don’t blast through your calorie limits (I wrote about the Harris-Benedict equation to calculate proper calorie consumption in an earlier August 2013 post). Creating a healthy diet means finding a balance between eating the right kinds of food, and eating the right amounts of food. It takes some trial and error to find the right balance for you, so be patient with yourself as you continue to experiment.

    Some healthy foods I like to keep around the house include:

Almonds (small quantities – they’re really healthy but high in calories)
Greek yogurt
Cottage cheese
String cheese (1 piece)
Apple
Celery with peanut butter
Carrot sticks dipped in hummus
A bit of dark chocolate

    I also drink Shakeology for my mid-afternoon snack, which is a shake blend that I really like.  I keep my recipe under 250 calories, and it keeps me going until dinner. A smoothie or protein shake can be used for this purpose as well.

These are just some of my own personal preferences - there are plenty of other healthy options out there. The important thing is to have the healthy snacks that you like readily available at home (or at work), so that you can fend off those hunger pangs before they drive you to overeat the wrong foods.