Lose Weight By Choosing Healthy Snacks and Treat Yourself Without Compromising Your Weight Loss Efforts
For many people, snacking is a huge obstacle that prevents them from losing weight. They eat healthy meals and stick to a consistent exercise routine but when they get hungry between meals, they reach for unhealthy snacks and put a lot of the good work to waste. But there is another problem with your weight loss efforts:
One other of the biggest mistakes people make when trying to lose weight is that they attempt to give up their favorite foods completely. Your favorite food is not necessarily unhealthy. However, by depriving themselves in this way, it often has the opposite effect and instead of eating healthier, they begin to crave the foods they can’t have which results in binging. In this article I’m going to be providing you with a number of tips for minimizing the impact of snacking on your fat loss efforts and also giving you a selection of healthy snacks to try. But that’s not all, I’m also going to be explaining why you don’t need to give up your favorite foods when trying to lose weight and outlining how to strike a healthy balance between treats and clean eating.
How To Ensure Snacking Doesn’t Sabotage Your Fat Loss Efforts?
1) Only Snack When You’re Hungry
One of the biggest reasons people gain weight is because they snack between meals out of boredom or habit instead of snacking based on their body’s hunger signals. As a result, they consume lots of extra calories, even though they’re not hungry at the time they consume these calories.
So next time you get the urge to snack, stop and think for a moment, decide whether you’re actually hungry and if you’re not, go for a quick walk or grab a glass of water to relieve the boredom or break the habit. If you are still hungry after drinking water, then it means that your body needs energy. This time it’s a real hunger!
2) Avoid Processed Snacks
Another mistake people make when it comes to snacking is that they reach for the processed snacks. They make sure their breakfasts, lunches and dinners are low in calories and filled with healthy, natural ingredients but as soon as they get hungry between meals, they grab a high calorie candy bar or a calorie rich bag of chips. As a result, they consume lots of calories between meals without even thinking and slow down their weight loss efforts. Processed snacks are foods to which the laboratories have added sugar, salt, fatty acids that will be combined with foods that we do not find in our kitchen such as hydrogenated oil, artificial flavors, dyes, thickener. These artificial ingredients are added to imitate a natural food or to hide defects also to increase the life of a drink or a food. This allows for cheap food, with a pleasant taste, easy to eat and ready to eat or heat.
To avoid making this same mistake, prepare some healthy snacks in advance and then when hunger strikes, you’ll have easy access to a range of low calorie, nutrient packed, fat burning snacks.
3) Avoid Soda
One final mistake people make when trying to lose weight is that they gulp down soda or diet soda between meals. Unfortunately, if you’re trying to lose weight, both of these drinks are bad choices. Regular soda is rich in calories and by consuming just a couple of glasses each day, you can add over 1,000 calories to your weekly intake. Diet soda is often lower in calories and sometimes even contains zero calories but the chemicals it contains interfere with your body’s fat burning processes and this has a negative effect on your overall weight loss.
A glass of soda brings nothing to health. These drinks have empty calories. Which means that sodas are drinks that bring only sugar and have no interest in your health. It is a source of bad calories.
The good news is that there are plenty of healthy, low calorie substitutes to soda available. Regular water is refreshing, hydrating and contains zero calories. Coffee and tea also contain zero calories and are a great choice if you prefer hot drinks.
5 Tasty Healthy Snack Suggestions
As mentioned above, one of the key things you need to be doing to ensure that snacking doesn’t sabotage your fat loss efforts is prepare healthy snacks in advance. The good news is this isn’t a difficult task and the list below outlines five simple and tasty healthy snacks that you can try:
1) Chili Roasted Pumpkin Seeds:
Chili roasted pumpkin seeds are an excellent healthy alternative to chips. Simply follow this recipe and then pour an equal amount of chili roasted pumpkin seeds into four small food bags, seal them and take a bag with you for an instant healthy snack.
2) Honey Roasted Peanuts:
Honey roasted peanuts are a sweet, protein packed snack that are sure to satisfy your appetite. Just follow this recipe and then split the nuts up equally into eight small food bags, seal them and carry a bag with you for an instant healthy snack.
3) Carrot Sticks & Hummus:
Carrots are packed full of health boosting fiber, vitamin A and vitamin K and by dipping them in a hummus you get a satisfying, creamy flavor. To prepare carrot sticks and hummus, chop a small carrot into sticks, grab a small pot of hummus, place them both in a sealable container, take them with you and then whenever you feel hungry, dip the carrot sticks into the hummus and enjoy a light, tasty snack.
4) Greek Yogurt & Blueberries:
Greek yogurt is an excellent source of healthy fats and protein while blueberries contain high levels of fiber and vitamin C. Simply combine a cup of Greek yogurt with half a cup of blueberries in a sealable container, take the sealable container with you and dig in whenever you get hungry.
5) Fruit Salad:
Fruit salad is low in calories and packed full of heath boosting vitamins and minerals. To prepare it, combine three of your favorite fruits along with a cup of your favorite fruit juice in a sealable container, carry the sealable container with you and then eat the fruit salad whenever you start to feel hungry.
Now that you’ve learned how to make very healthy snacks, do not forget to treat yourself well and not compromise your weight loss by avoiding your favorite foods.
Why Eating Your Favorite Foods Supports Your Fat Loss Efforts?
As discussed in the introduction, the concept of forbidden foods increases your desire for these foods and leads to a mindset where you start to resent your healthy eating habits because they’re preventing you from eating the foods you like. Ultimately, this combination of resentment and desire leads to you breaking your healthy eating habits, excessively binging on your favorite foods and undoing all the progress you’ve made as a result of eating healthy.
By allowing yourself to eat your favorite foods in moderation, you remove the forbidden element and instead of resenting your healthy eating habits, you’ll start to embrace them. As a result, you’ll enjoy your favorite foods when you do get to eat them, but you’ll also appreciate the fact that consuming them in moderation is helping you lose weight, and this will make you much less likely to binge.
How To Effectively Balance Healthy Eating Habits & Your Favorite Foods
The best way to get a good balance between healthy eating and your favorite foods is to apply an 80/20 rule where you eat healthy 80% of the time and allow yourself to eat whatever you want 20% of the time. When spread across the week, this means you can have four meals per week where you can eat anything you want.
However, this doesn’t mean you have to eat foods you don’t like the rest of the time and if you get a little creative, you can come up with healthy variations of your favorite treats that are low in calories and can be eaten at any time during the week. For example, if you’re a fan of burgers, there are plenty of healthy and natural burger recipes out there which are just as good for you as lean meats. Alternatively, chocolate covered fruits are a great substitute for candy bars which contain fewer calories and take just minutes to prepare.
Summary
Getting hungry between meals is inevitable but by following the advice in this article, you can ensure this hunger doesn’t lead to unhealthy snacking and have a negative impact on your fat loss goals. As with many health and fitness goals, balance is the key when it comes to weight loss. While clean eating is crucial if you want to drop the pounds, this still doesn’t mean you have to deprive yourself completely. So if snacking is one of your major weight loss weaknesses and you’ve tried and failed to give up your favorite foods in the past, follow the advice in this article and turn your snacking into a healthy habit today and enjoy the foods you like without letting them sabotage your fat loss efforts.
