Benefits of Snacking

I've been eating morning and afternoon snacks for years. Snacks help prevent blood sugar drops in between meals preventing a drop in energy. They also help get a little more nutrition into your diet, provided the snacks are healthy. They also help prevent overeating at meal times. The key to snacking is to eat them a few hours after meals and to make sure they include healthy fats, protein and fiber. A sugar filled candy bar and bag of chips will only make you feel worse and will not provide any nutritional benefit. Some healthy snack ideas to get started with are:
  • handful of nuts
  • smoothie with protein powder, spinaach, berries and almond or coconut milk
  • an apple with some sort of butter like peanut, almond, sunflower or pumpkin seed
  • string cheese and a small piece of fruit
  • a homemade granola bar or breakfast cookie provided you can tolerate grains and it uses a low glycemic sweetener like honey, maple syrup or coconut sugar
  • nice cream that uses a banana as a base
  • avocado toast with a side of cheese
  • smashed berries on bread with peanut, almond, sunflower or pumpkin seed butter
  • homemade hot chocolate
I don't recommend snacking after dinner. It's best to stop eating a few hours before bedtime to increase the fasting time between dinner and breakfast. Eating too much close to bedtime can also disrupt your sleep. Challenge: If you don't currently eat a snack and feel hungry or tired a few hours after eating a meal, take a day or two and try a snack from the list above. If you do eat snacks, re-examine what you eat and make sure it's not something that is full of sugar and chemicals. Make sure it includes healthy fats, protein and fiber and is low sugar. #ads Snack Recipe Books
References https://foodandnutrition.org/july-august-2015/science-says-snacking/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/snacking/

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