Here are my two tips for healthy snacking:
1) Volumetrics: choose less calories dense foods: something that will fill you up and that you can eat a lot of for less calories. As we've said before, the mind can control the body. Examples would be soups, salads, yogurt, oatmeal, etc.
2) Rewards: I add the healthy food to something that is more of a "reward" food but still stays within my caloric requirements. For example, the below green salad on a flatbread wrap. The green salad is what is most nutritious, the flatbread wrap is my reward, what I look forward to eating. I keep myself motivated to eat it and look forward to it because I get to have the flatbread. I believe in balancing your very healthy foods with some that are less so, but that motivate you to eat the healthy food.
Well I have quite the hard time committing to the green smoothie craze. Let's be honest, you drink a smoothie, you process it as drink, then you're hungry again. Or at least that's how it works for me. I do drink a green smoothie after every workout but that's because I get to eat something shortly thereafter!
I needed to figure out how to keep myself going in the mid-afternoon between lunch and dinner. I've found that having a lighter lunch, and then having another "second" lunch works really well. How? First it allows me to do some light activity after lunch which keeps me feeling energized, and second, instead of something like a green smoothie I eat a huge green salad, sprouts, spinach, kale. I add just 2 TBSP of Dressing (my low cal DELICIOUS Galeo's Miso Dressing) and then dust on some Nutritional Yeast mixed with Hemp Seeds (picked this one up from the raw foodies---tastes like Parmesan). I put this on a flatbread, which yes probably has some refined flour, but only packs 110 calories and tastes delicious, soft, and more caloric than it is. Plus, they sell them at Whole Foods so they must meet their standards. I also called the company, Damascus Bakeries and they assured me they use natural ingredients. OCD much?
The point in all this rambling, is that eating the big green salad helps to fill me up, and the fake parmesan and flat bread I look very forward to eating. The whole thing packs in around 200-230 calories depending. So, it has as much as an average energy bar and less than a Clif Bar.
Recent Comments