UNITED STATES—I know I’m not the only one who is guilty of this. You know how you have those situations where you’re not really hungry, but for some reason you cannot resist that temptation to snack. It is almost like having a moment of boredom can cause one to snack when in reality, they don’t even want to snack to begin with. I am someone who starts out the day eating breakfast. It is a must for me and totally gets my fuel moving for the day. Now, after breakfast, then we get into that notion of snacking.
If you do the math right, the argument is that we should have 6 meals a day: breakfast, a snack, lunch, a snack, dinner and then one final snack before bedtime. The thing about snacking for most Americans is the fact that we tend to over snack or have multiple small snacks that we don’t equate to being actual snacks to begin with. This goal when you have a meal is to get satiated. Now when I say satiated, I mean full, but not to the point where you are stuffed and unable to do anything for several hours.
If that happens to be your eating habits, that is a real bad one America, and will do no good to you in the long run. In addition, the worst thing you can do is to skip a meal. You might ask why? You tend to overeat the moment you get the opportunity to eat. That is never a wise choice to say the least. You skip breakfast you’re going to double eat or overeat for lunch, if you skip lunch come dinner time you might stuff your face full because you feel the need to make up for that missed meal.
I know this might sound juvenile, but when it comes to snacking consider the prospect of portioning things out. Utilize those plastic containers where you’re able to satisfy a craving without actually overeating in the process. I mean I know so many people who talk day in and day out about just having a few potato chips and before you know it they’ve consumed the entire got damn bag. When you snack, size matters because sometimes we just cannot control ourselves, and we eat more than we expected and it results in us feeling guilty after the fact.
Don’t deprive yourself of having a guilty pleasure as a snack, but make sure it’s not something so loaded with calories, sugar or fat that you regret it in the long run. I’ll give you an example, I have a sweet tooth. Anyone who knows me knows that about me. However, I don’t just pig out because I can. I purchased a slice of cake form my local Farmer’s Market. Now this cake was decadent and tasty to say the least. However, instead of eating the entire slice in one sitting, I ate it over a period of two days. In doing so I kept my calorie consumption low, but I also found a way to satisfy a craving and still have something for later.
I mean we’ve all heard that saying, “Never go to the grocery story hungry.” Why? You’re likely to buy any and everything that looks good to you in your opinion. The same applies for snacking when you want to subdue that craving. Find something that can be slightly healthy, but also at the same time allows you to consume a hefty portion where you get full and are not in turmoil about trying to find something else to eat before you next meal. We all have cravings and you should not deprive yourself when you are hungry, but at the same time you don’t want to regret what you eat either.
Written By Kelsey Thomas
