Snacking and Weight Gain

Incorporating healthy snacks into a meal plan can be done easily when worked into the whole day's meal plan. Snack foods should be eaten in moderation. The serving size and type of snack is the most important part when choosing what to snack on.

Healthy Snack Ideas

By choosing snacks that are low fat and high in complex carbohydrates, snacks may be healthy. The following are some healthy foods that make tasty snacks. These snacks are also great for packing in lunches and taking to work to have between meals:

• Fresh fruit
• Raw vegetables
• Pretzels, rice cakes, low fat crackers, or air-popped popcorn
• Non-fat or low fat yogurt or frozen yogurt
• Frozen fruit popsicles
• Low fat cookies such as vanilla wafers, animal, or graham crackers 

One way to eat snacks while trying to lose weight is to save parts of your meals to eat as snacks later on.

Overcoming Food Craving Triggers

The sight of certain foods can trigger a desire for the foods you're trying to avoid. Keeping snack stashes of high fat cookies or candy around may only increase the desire for such foods making it difficult to resist snacking on them.

Maintain a stash of low-fat, healthy snacks that are also appealing when the urge to snack hits. Removing the temptations allows for healthy snacking while trying to lose weight. Also, planning for snacks and preparing them ahead of time may reduce the temptation to snack on high calorie choices. 

Snack time can also be more enjoyable if you are doing nothing while snacking but concentrating on the enjoyment of eating. Know the times when you are most likely to snack. Add a snack to your daily food plan to correspond with this time.

Planned snacking allows you to adhere to your plan and avoid empty calorie snacking or overeating. Also, by not skipping meals, the likelihood of snacking on high calorie foods will be reduced. For further information about weight control and snacking, contact a registered dietitian or your healthcare provider.

Prepping in Advance

Planned snacking sounds like it would be a lot of work.  If you do it right, it can be just as convenient as snacking on just about anything else.  The key is to work in quantity and to give yourself lots of options.

By snacking properly for your weight, you’ll feel better, support your health and look better through all the nutrition you’re giving your overall wellness and your skin. It doesn’t have to be complicated or time consuming.  But you will need to think things through, particularly at the beginning.

How to Prepare

Start by thinking up two or three snacks you’ll like and that will fit into your weight loss strategy well.  Once you know what you want to make, list all the ingredients you will require to prepare them.  This may not take much. If you’re making carrot and celery sticks, you just need carrots and celery. If you’re making hummus, find your favorite recipe and add all the ingredients you need to your list.  Head on over to the grocery store and pick up what you’ll need for a few days’ worth of the snack.

Don’t forget that when you’re making your own snacks, you need to keep them somewhere.  Though baggies are handy, it’s much more eco-friendly if you invest in a few reusable containers you can use to store your snacks and keep them fresh.  Make sure the containers are durable and easy to clean or you’ll feel less likely to use them.

Next, prepare several days’ worth of the snacks for which you’ve purchased the ingredients.  Portion them out and store them so you will be able to grab one on the go whenever you want it.  This can make it easy for you to grab a snack as soon as you’re hungry or to bring one with you so you won’t be inclined to use the vending machine at work.

Using Your Freezer

Pay special attention to snacks that can be frozen because you can make those in especially large batches so you can freeze portions for the future.  This makes it even easier to have your weight loss snacks ready for when you need them over time.  If you do this several times, you’ll have many snack options ready in your freezer so you can grab what you want based on your taste on any given day.  Over time, you’ll build up many different types of snacks without needing to prepare them every day.