Habit 7: Healthy Snacks

Great work so far on Habitspark Diet Foundations!  Starting today, you’ll be tracking: Habit 1: Healthy Breakfast, Habit 2: Food Planning, Habit 3: Healthy Lunch, Habit 4: Daily Exercise, Habit 5: Healthy Dinner, Habit 6: Eat Only at Table in Dining Area, & Habit 7: Healthy Snacks

Habit 7: Healthy Snacks

Eat snacks that give you a portion of:

1. Grains, vegetables, or fruits and
2. Fats or proteins

It’s important not to let yourself get overly hungry, which is a good reason to have healthy snacks during the day.  Eating snacks that have both grains, vegetables, or fruits and fats or proteins gives you great nutritive value and keeps you satisfied longer.  Here are some possible combinations:

Apple + almonds
Celery + peanut butter
Yogurt + berries
Cheese (1 oz) + popcorn

Think about your current eating patterns.  Now you’ve been eating three healthy meals a day for at least two weeks.  When else do you tend to eat during the day?  Are you hungry between breakfast and lunch?  Hungry between lunch and dinner?  Hungry after dinner?  Plan snacks for the times when you tend to eat and/or get hungry.  Remember, this should be based on you and your eating patterns.  It’s perfectly okay to not have any planned snacks and just have your 3 daily meals, and it is also perfectly okay to eat 3 meals and 3 snacks per day.

It’s also a good idea to carry around a “go to” snack for times when you need to eat later than expected or become hungrier than usual.  Nuts & dried fruit make great “go to” snacks because they’ll last a while.   Be careful on portions, however, and try to stay away from dried fruit with added sugar.