Healthy Snacking Tips

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In this post, you will learn all about:

 Healthy snacking ideas, 

 healthy snacks to reach for at home, 

  and how to make your own healthy snack.

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Healthy Snacking Tips and Ideas For Living Better

Today I want to talk about healthy snacking, reaching for healthy snacks, and how to live a healthier lifestyle. For a majority of people, healthy eating and healthy snacking seems nearly impossible, as if it’s like choosing between breathing air or living in a  bubble for the rest of your life.  Ok, I don’t know where that reference came from, ha, but honestly, have you ever seen the movie Bubble Boy with Jake Gyllenhaal?  It’s….well…I liked Zodiac a lot more. Anyway, I digress…

As I was saying, people who think healthy living is eating perfect 100% of the time, never snacking or indulging, well thats just miserable.  

To be completely honest, that doesn’t even sound appealing to me, and I’m a pretty healthy guy. I think the most common misconception with being healthy and eating clean is that it is an all or nothing thing. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. To say that I am a perfectly clean eating, healthy snacking machine would be a huge lie. But I have already covered how I eat in a previous post, click this link here to read my post about the 90-10 rule of dieting.

OK, back to healthy snacking.

So what do you do when hunger strikes and you only have a short amount of time to eat something quickly?

I used to be the guy who would quickly reach for the tortilla chips, the pretzels, the pop tarts, whatever I had on hand that could be quick and somewhat filling (sound familiar?).

I now realize how incredibly unhealthy I used to be. Thanks college life, thanks for teaching me how to be unhealthy, now I can just stop with all of that poo eating. Ha ha.

So if you have ever felt like this, hungry and ready to eat whatever you find, don’t worry, I’m here to help!

 

Healthy Snacking Tips

Healthy Snacking Tip #1:
Only keep healthy options around.

This one may seem like a no-brainer, but sometimes you actually have to hear it or see it before you realize it yourself. Only keep healthy options around to avoid snacking on the unhealthy options. If you constantly reach for tortilla chips, pretzels, salty and sweet snacks, your best bet is going to be to just eliminate them from home altogether. Think about it. If you get a craving when you’re in a rush and you want to snack, when you go to reach for something quick to eat, if you don’t have any unhealthy options and only have healthy options, you will only eat healthy snacks.

What are some good healthy snack ideas?

If you take a look at our household snack cabinet, you will find things like:

– raw almonds
– raw cashews
– The Good Bean
– unsalted peanuts
– plain rice cakes
– peanut butter and almond butter
– plain popcorn kernels (pop with an air popcorn maker like this inexpensive one on Amazon)
– dark chocolate (70% or higher for those special cravings )

 

In our fridge, you will find snacks like:

– apples (also oranges, bananas, pears, and blueberries)
– raw broccoli and cauliflower (great for dipping in hummus)
– raw sugar snap peas
– carrots
– celery
– pickles (we love the Farmer’s Garden by Vlasic kosher dill spears )
– hard boiled eggs
– cheese
– plain Greek yogurt (like Chobani, or a store brand)
(or the Chobani 100 Greek with the fruit, that has half the amount of sugar as the original because it is sweetened with Stevia)

Here’s a super tasty snack that is only 3 ingredients, my almond pear cakes:

Almond Pear Cakes:

– Raw almond butter

– pear, sliced

– plain rice cakes  

(optional dash of cinnamon)

Oh by the way, my wife has some killer hummus recipes on her site…check out her recipes in the links below.

Everything Hummus

Buffalo Hummus

Healthy Snacking Tip #2:
Eat more at each meal.

By simply adding a little more protein or some more vegetables to your meal, you can help to avoid any snack cravings. Protein is a very satiating food. I go into a lot of detail about protein in a previous post of mine. Click here to read all about protein.

Vegetables are fantastic. The green, fibrous carbs that are found in vegetables help keep you fuller, longer, and help keep your digestive track flowing smoothly. Haha.

The other great thing about vegetables is that they are packed with many different vitamins and minerals your body requires on a daily basis. 

Healthy Snacking Tip #3:
Drink more water.

 It’s that simple.

A majority of the time when you feel hungry or have a craving for a snack, healthy snacking could work…but water is usually the answer more often than not. Our bodies are incredible machines that work effortlessly to make sure you stay alive. Unfortunately, some of us can’t tell the difference between the signal our body gives us when we need nutrition of some sort.  So we go with what we think we know, which is that any hungry feeling means we’re hungry for food. When you feel hungry at times, more often than not it’s your body’s way of telling you you’re dehydrated. But, if you feel as though that feeling cannot be filled with a tall glass of water, you might as well take the healthy snacking ideas I mentioned earlier and eat up!  But also drink some water! How much? You want to aim for about HALF YOUR BODY WEIGHT IN OUNCES per day.  I talked all about the importance of water in a previous post of mine, click here to read all about water.

The next time you feel hungry and want to grab a quick snack, think about drinking a tall glass of water first, that may do the trick.

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You’re a healthy person, and I know you value your health (keep reading my blog).  But here’s the thing, I have to remind you that these tips are provided for your information and are not intended as medical advice. Please work with your health care professional to determine what’s right for you.  Just remember, eating right (and exercising) starts with you.  [smart_track_player url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/bentonbetter/Healthy_Snacking_Tips.mp3″ title=”Healthy Snacking Tips” artist=”Bent On Better” image=”https://www.bentonbetter.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/HEALTHFITNESS.png” social=”true” social_twitter=”true” social_facebook=”true” social_gplus=”true” social_linkedin=”true” social_pinterest=”true” ]  

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Thanks for joining me again this week, I’m glad you decided to come back. If you’re new to the blog, welcome! Visit my Start Here page to get the low down on this whole Bent On Better thing. If you have any questions you’d like addressed personally, feel free to email me at Matt@BentOnBetter.com.   Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic updates, available for both iOS and Android on Stitcher!   Cover photo by Fresh April Flours

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