Healthy Snacks- A Solution for the Ravenous

22 Aug 2012

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Healthy Weight Loss
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Snacks used to be the bane of my existence. Before I ever successfully lost weight, I remember doing everything in my power to avoid thinking about having a snack. My general MO was to wake up as late as possible to be at work on time and rush out the door, barely making it to my desk. I’d guzzle down several cups of coffee and dig head first into work until my stomach was grumbling so loud I couldn’t ignore it anymore.

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Lunch would usually consist of something from the deli downstairs, normally something along the lines of a chicken cheesesteak with fries or chips or a huge taco salad loaded with a fried taco shell, ground beef, cheese, sour cream, etc, all washed down with a bottle of diet soda. It’s funny how I always thought diet soda justified whatever I ate with it, but that’s another topic for another day.

The heavy lunch would keep me overly full (and usually fairly lethargic) until about 3 or 4, when my stomach would start grumbling again. I would try my best to ignore it, convincing myself that giving into a snack meant I was weak, and that I didn’t need it and should just wait for dinner.

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Source.

By the time I’d make it home, I was SO hungry that I’d usually collapse on my couch and call in an order for pizza or Chinese, since I was so hungry I couldn’t bear to cook.

The next day, I’d wake up and do it all again.

Fast forward several years, and I’ve realized something about myself – I tend to make REALLY bad decisions if I let myself get ravenous, even now. Looking back, I realize I lived in a perpetual state of going back and forth between extreme hunger, and being overly stuffed, and I truly had myself convinced that snacks were bad. Not the fried taco shell or the oodles of cheese and oil in the cheesesteak, but the potential snack I might have to ward off hunger. Boy, was I wrong.

Now I realize that using my mental energy to try to do everything in my power to avoid snacking was just perpetuating my obsession with food in a very unhealthy way, and that snacks are actually not bad at all. I know some people do best on three square meals a day, but for me, having a planned snack in the afternoon around 3 or 4 helps me from getting too hungry before dinner and throwing in the towel. I also find that having a snack helps me to get an extra serving of fruits and veggies in, since I always try to make that part of my snack.

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Some of my go-to snacks are:

-     Greek yogurt w/berries and Uncle Sam cereal for crunch

-     Cottage cheese w/thawed frozen raspberries

-     Microwave popcorn with a piece of fruit on the side

-     Hummus with carrots, celery, and cucumbers

-     A sliced apple with peanut butter

-     Hardboiled egg with a piece of fruit

For more snack ideas, check out this list of Whole Foods Weight Watcher: Snack Ideas.

What about you – are you a snacker? How many snacks do you have a day? What is your go-to?

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Beth

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