Snacks are so important!

Prior to changing my eating habits last year, I was not a person who snacked very often. I would eat larger meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and rarely ate snacks unless I was late eating a primary meal. This all changed when I started controlling my portions during my main meals. In the beginning, I felt like I was starving all the time. This lasted for approximately 2-3 months. I would bring snacks along with me to work but even then I still did not feel satisfied.

My number one problem that I realized was that I was choosing the wrong things as snacks. I was drawn to the low calorie packaged food because it was easy to log in my Lose It app and it had a long shelf life. I thought that eating 100 calorie packs during a snack time would be sufficient but I was very wrong.  A lot of these products are just empty calories. Now I do not eat anything that is labeled 100 calories or any of the Weight Watchers or Special K (except the Red Berries cereal occasionally for breakfast) or South Beach diet products. If it has the word diet in it at all I stay away.

Finding snack foods that are healthy and high in fiber and/or protein is my main goal. My current snacks now consist of fruit (grapes, bananas, apples, strawberries), cheese, yogurt, peanut butter, applesauce, and other similar foods. I love vegetables but I do not care for raw vegetables unless they are in a salad but any raw vegetable would also be a good snack. I also try and buy organic or natural (no preservatives/dyes/artificial) snacks whenever possible. I try and stay away from high carb snacks during snack time since I am getting plenty of carbs during my main meals.

I started out taking 2 snacks with me to work but now I only take one. I would eat one snack in the morning and one in the afternoon. Now my body is used to the amount of calories I eat daily so I no longer feel like I'm starving all the time. Snacking definitely kept me on track during the hardest months last year.