Healthy Snacking Guide for Weight Loss + A Healthy Snack Recipe
Are you worried that your wild snacking habits are ruining your weight loss goals?
According to PubMed, snacking contributes close to one third of daily energy intake.
Depending on how you do it, snacking can either improve or be a detriment to your weight loss.
This guide is going to remove the guess work when it comes to snacking for weight loss.
What Really Counts as A Snack?
A snack is anything you eat or drink outside of your regular meals.
The mostly snacked on things are: fruits, vegetables, drinks (soda, juice, protein shakes), sweet treats (ice cream, candy, cakes, cookies and crackers), nuts or a smaller portions of a regular meal.
To meet your weight loss goals, there are a lot of things to consider while snacking to promote weight loss.
1. Count The Calories in Your Snacks
It is really easy to get distracted and down a whole bag of chips without caring how much calories you are consuming.
To avoid this, count the calories in your snacks. You should know exactly how much of your daily caloric intake is coming from snacks.
If your snacks are store bought, pay attention to the calories per serving sizes, and then calculate the calories in the entire snack.
It may indicate 50 calories per serving size on the label, but have 5 serving sizes inside. Do the math to avoid the extra calories.
2. Plan Ahead
Plan your portions ahead and don’t sit down with a whole bag of chips when you intend to take only a handful. We all know what is going to happen!
Your snacks should be planned together with your meals, so you know exactly how much you should take beforehand.
3. Read Labels and Stick to Snacks with Nutritional Value
Reading labels helps you know how much calories you will take and how much nutrients are in the snack.
Be wary of hidden sugars and sodium. If the cholesterol amounts per serving are high, steer clear too.
There are a multitude of healthy snacks with clear labels to choose from nowadays. Here are some favorites:
· GoMacro organic vegan protein bars
· Chomps grass fed beef jerky
· RXBAR
· Enlightened Brands Vanilla Ice Cream
· Skinny Dipped Dark Chocolate Covered Almonds
· Mama Chia — Chia Granola Clusters
4. When in Doubt, Prepare It Yourself
The only way to be sure your snack is healthy is to prepare it yourself. This way you will know what goes in it and you can choose the healthiest ingredients and calculate the calories efficiently.
Making sure you can easily access healthy snacks when you are hungry is important, it prevents you from making unhealthy snack choices.
You can prepare healthy energy bars in and store them in the refrigerator for a week or up to two months in the freezer.
(Stay tuned for a healthy, under 10 minutes snack recipe at the end)
5. Fruits, Vegetables and Nuts
You can never go wrong with having fruits, vegetables and nuts as snacks.
Nuts (pecans, almonds, peanuts) are filled with proteins and have a relative amount of fibers that will keep you full for a long time.
Fiber filled fruits such as grapefruits, apples and pomegranate are not only good snacks but also promote heart health.
Veggies like baby carrots and celery accompanied with dips like hummus or ranch make for healthy and tasty snacks.
6. Swap Sodas for Flavored Water
Sodas and commercial juices are filled with sugars and preservatives and their consumption has been linked to weight gain.
A less sugary option that does not threaten your weight loss goals is flavored water.
If the taste of water — or lack of, repels you, you can infuse your own water by adding lemons, ginger, roses, cucumber or mint.
You can also just shove them in your water bottle and let them float freely.
7. Sugar Substitutes
If you enjoy sweet treats, like ice creams, you can make them healthier by using natural sweeteners like:
· Ripe bananas
· Stevia
· Dates
· Honey
These have health benefits and nutrients and are not empty calories compared to regular sweeteners like sugar.
8. Snacking Frequency
Even if it is from healthy snacks, calories seem to rack up pretty fast if you keep munching on things — yeah, shocker!
The frequency of eating has not been found to affect weight loss, if you stay within your caloric intake.
What matters is the quality of snacks you eat, focus on the ones that make you feel full faster. The fuller you feel, the less likely you are to keep eating.
Protein and fiber filled snacks promote fullness.
Healthy Snack Recipes
1. Banana Oat ’n’ Peanut Butter
Prep time: 10 minutes
Ingredients
2 ripe bananas
½ cup rolled oats
½ cup peanut butter (or other nut butter)
1 teaspoon cinnamon powder
Total calories: 379
Method
Add the ripe bananas into a bowl and mash
Add the rolled oats, peanut butter and cinnamon powder
Stir until all the ingredients are perfectly blended
Scoop the mixture and roll into 1 inch balls
Eat as they are or freeze for 30 minutes to 1 hour depending on how hard you want them.
