Find yourself reaching for biscuits, cakes and chocolate when you're peckish? Time to get rid of your unhealthy snacking habits forever...
Adapt your habits to good snacking
The following are 8 tips that will help you ditch your bad food habits
1. Avoid bad snacking
If you reach for a mid-morning chocolate bar, an hour later you’ll be hungrier than before you ate it. This is because you’ll experience a surge in blood sugars, followed by a crash that leaves you craving more. You’ll probably feel guilty and will have set yourself up for a bad day. Biscuits, crisps and all processed foods are rubbish at satisfying your hunger, and they don’t give you the nutritional boost you need to make it to the next meal.
2. Healthy foods
Pick healthy foods that are digested slowly. Snacking should be used to control your hunger so that you make better decisions when it comes to meal times. Nobody can make a sensible decision in a supermarket or restaurant if they’re starving, so make sure you keep your body fuelled throughout the day.
3. Plan your snacks
The key to good snacking is good preparation
Think about what time of day you normally get hungry, and then have a snack ready. Knowing what and when you’re going to eat will stop you from caving in to poor food choices.
4. Go nuts
Nuts are a great snack because they’re full of good fat that protects your heart. They’re slow to digest, meaning you’ll feel full for longer. They’re also full of protein, micronutrients, essential vitamins and colon-healthy fibre.
5. Count those calories cleverly
Know your daily allowance
Aim to eat between 200-400 calories a day in snacks, adjusting your daily allowance accordingly (the NHS recommends women consume 1,400 calories for weight loss and 2,000 to maintain weight. This is a great way to spread out your meals and keep your appetite under control.
6. Shed some pounds
People who snack well generally do better with weight loss because they aren’t ravenous when it comes to lunch or dinner time. If you want to get your weight under control, just remember to stick to this one rule and it will make a huge difference to your dieting efforts: cut out processed foods.
7. Smoothies
Try to eat your food whole as often as possible. Blending into a smoothie breaks down the fibre – a mistake as fibre makes you feel full by keeping water in your gut. There’s also some research that suggests eating foods whole means you won’t absorb all the calories.
8. Fat is your friend
Fat is a brilliant appetite suppressant – 200 calories worth of nuts or avocado will keep you much fuller than 200 calories worth of cereal or chocolate, plus those calories will actually be good for your overall body function. Just eat in moderation.