The Glycemic Index Diet for Dummies (106 page)
Planning Out Healthy Snacks: A Top Weight-Loss Strategy
Planning out healthy snacks is a solution to mindless grazing and waitin
g too long to eat. You may read this advice as a simple suggestion you've seen before, but it's a very important strategy and means the difference between staying stuck at a weight you don't like and seeing the results you're looking for.
Carefully choosing your snacks will help you stick with your low-glycemic plan and save you hundreds of calories.
Wondering how to go about picking healthy, low-glycemic snacks? Start by thinking about your average busy, stressful workday. You know you'll be working late, and although you're able to grab some lunch and dinner at the local takeout restaurant, you haven't planned any of your snacks for the day. Your boss keeps a bowl of Peanut M&M's on the counter, and there's a vending machine down the hallway. Throughout the day you pick on the M&M's, grab a large latte from the coffee stand, and munch on a small bag of potato chips from the vending machine.
That doesn't sound like much for an eight- to ten-hour day, but you've actually just consumed 948 calories in snacks. Not only that, but the potato chips are higher-glycemic, leaving you with a blood sugar spike and stimulating your appetite for more food. And thanks to the restaurant takeout, you're looking at substantially more calories for your entire day.
Are you eating too much at snack time?
Eating too much during snack time can cause you to consume excess calories throughout the day, but how do you know how much to eat? Other than portion sizes, the most important tool at your disposal is your body's fullness and hunger cues. (Believe it or not, your body has other levels than just
really hungry
and
really full.
)As an experiment, wait about three to four hours after a meal and write down what your hunger level is at that time. Are you extremely hungry (1), moderately hungry (2 to 4), or neutral (5)? Eat a small snack, wait for about 20 minutes, and record how full you feel at that time. Are you still hungry? Are you feeling neutral or perhaps slightly full? Getting used to these different levels of hunger and fullness is a great weight-loss strategy that can help you control calories in an effective way.
Think about your hunger on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being "starving," 5 being neutral, and 10 being "stuffed to the gills." Many people get used to feeling very full after a meal and snacks. However, a snack's job is to tide you over until your next meal . . . not necessarily to make you feel completely full. A good rule of thumb is to eat something small and allow yourself to feel neutral or just comfortably full. If you feel stuffed to the gills after a snack, you probably ate too much.
With a mindful, planned snack, you can change this scenario. Substitute a small coffee, an ounce of nuts with an apple, and a yogurt for the Peanut M&M's, large latte, and bag of chips. These simple, preplanned swaps bring your snack total down to just 380 calories, and the choice of low-glycemic foods helps you feel more satisfied.
You have many low-glycemic snack options to choose from, whether you want to find something quick or make something at home. Here are some healthy grab-and-go snack ideas that take either no or little time to prepare:
8-ounce lowfat yogurt, fruity or plain
1 ounce of nuts with a piece of fruit (such as an apple or orange)
1 ounce of trail mix with dried fruit
Mozzarella cheese stick with a piece of fruit
1 ounce of peanut butter spread on two celery sticks
1 ounce of peanut butter spread on one small sliced apple or half of a banana
1/3 cup lowfat cottage cheese with fruit