Nutrition Tip Tuesday from the RD: Snacking & Your Eating Schedule

Hey there BHC readers! Did you have a nice Easter celebration? I hope it was filled with lots of good family time and Cadbury eggs.

For this week’s Nutrition Tip Tuesday, I wanted to talk a little bit about snacking, especially when it comes to having an “eating schedule.” I’m a big fan of having several snacks throughout the day. I will almost always have a morning and afternoon snack, and sometimes I’ll even throw a pre-dinner snack in there if I’m hungry when I get home from work. Why do I incorporate so many snacks into my day? 1) I like food, and the more frequently I can eat it, the better! 2) I tend to get hungry every 3-4 hours. If I don’t snack, my blood sugar drops, and I will get hangry, which nobody wants. 3) Making sure I have an AM and PM snack keeps me from ravenously over-eating at lunch and dinner.

As you can see, there are lots of great reasons to incorporate snacks into your daily routine. I do want to mention a common pitfall I’ve seen with myself and others when it comes to snacks and timing of meals. I, myself, struggled with this for years! My morning snack time was always “supposed” to be between 10-11am, lunch was “supposed” to be between 12-1pm, my PM snack was “supposed” to be between 3-4pm… you get the idea. Sometimes I would be starving at 2pm, but I would think “oh, but it isn’t my snack time yet so I need to wait.” That’s nonsense! Our body needs fuel when our body needs fuel. My body doesn’t care if it’s 2:59 or 5:00pm when it’s ready for a snack! When our body signals to us that it’s hungry (maybe our stomach feels empty or grumbles, we feel a little weak, we’re losing energy or concentration, etc.) we need to respond to those cues. I’d encourage you to notice if you’ve either consciously or subconsciously set a food schedule for yourself and give yourself the freedom to deviate from that schedule when your body tells you it needs a different timeline. Ignoring those hunger cues just sets us up to overeat when we do allow ourselves to eat, or to eat so quickly that we don’t even enjoy our food and find satisfaction in it.

Just in case you’re in search of some snack ideas to incorporate into your routine, I wanted to share some of my favorite go-to snacks!

RX Bars (apple cinnamon and chocolate sea salt are my favorites)

 

Luna Bars (look for the ones with 5 grams of sugar or less – the Chocolate Hazelnut is my favorite!)

 

Siggi’s yogurt (coconut is to die for) or any other yogurt with <15 grams of sugar. I like topping yogurt with nuts or homemade granola for more staying power.

Nuts and dried fruit (try to find no sugar added!) – I love dried mango and walnuts

Popcorn!

Apple and almond butter or a sliced apple and cinnamon

Carrot slices or cucumbers and hummus

What are your favorite snacks?

You know the drill, let us know if you have any questions by leaving a comment below, or if there’s a specific topic you’d like Emily to cover in a future Nutrition Tip Tuesday!

xo,

Emily (& Bess)