Snacking

There are alot of myths out there to loose weight, but at the end of the day, reducing total daily calories and increasing activity is the main key to sucess.

We often find ourselves busy and find time to only eat 3 meals a day and sometimes one of those meals may also be missed. However finding a healthy routine when it comes to eating is one of the most important things. Making sure you dont miss meals, and look at some good healthy snacks between meals, as this is often over looked.

Its ok to snack between meals, especially if you are active, and need to fuel your body to keep energy levels up, and it can also prevent you binging on unhealthy foods and eating too much at main meal time.
Be careful that your snacks dont become meals and your energy intake becomes more than your energy output.
Night time snacking is unnecessary unless you are looking at toping up your glycogen levels for a huge training session the next morning, mainly for athletes. Otherwise they become unused calories and make it harder to stay in shape.

So look at your eaing habits and talk to your trainer if you need any suggestions.

I have listed below some great snack ideas, but again, think about your energy usage levels when selecting any of these:

• Popcorn- not saturated in salt and butter
• Almonds and other nuts
• Sunflower seeds
• Smoothies
• Low fat yohgurt
• Crackers with peanut butter, nonfat cottage cheese, etc
• hard boiled eggs
• Dryed Fruit (be careful though of the dired fruit very high in sugars)
• Tinned fruit or fruit cups
• FRESH fruit
• suger free jello
• green salad
• hummus with beans
• cherry tomatoes
• Soy chips
• Bean salad (3 bean mix in a tin)
• baked beans
• Tuna
• Olives
• Carrot sticks or celery with cottage cheese
• Breakfast cereal or muslie
• Rice crackers/cakes
• Roasted or tinned chick peas
• Vita wheats with some cheese and tomatoe (limit the cheese)
• celary stick or carrot sticks with low fat ricotta
• rice crackers
• a bowl of cereal instead of potatoe chips