Healthy Snacks

Don’t reach for that donut just yet. Here are some guidelines for choosing healthy snacks….

When snacking, it’s a good idea to think about blood sugar levels. If you consume a sugary snack, chances are your blood sugar levels will spike. Although you might feel a temporary rush of energy and possibly an elevated mood, you’ll most likely feel like you’ve hit a brick wall and experience a crash shortly after snacking on high-glycemic index foods.

After crashing, you’ll feel hungry again and repeat the vicious cycle.

In order to stabilize your blood sugar levels, when snacking, apply the same fundamental rule to that of each of your regular meals. (Hopefully, you’re eating breakfast, lunch and dinner daily, to maintain steady blood sugar and help burn fat.)

Always combine the following three macronutrients when eating:

• protein 
• carbohydrates
• natural fat

Combining macronutrients ensures that you’ll feel full for longer and won’t need to binge on sweets. In fact, if your regular meals have a good ratio of the three macronutrients, you might find you may not have to snack at all.

Start paying attention to how you feel after eating a meal. If you feel full for three to four hours after eating and don’t have bloating or a drop in energy, then whatever you just ate is the right macronutrient proportion for you.

For example, a breakfast of two eggs, one piece of sprouted whole grain bread with a little dab of butter and two small slices of all-natural bacon may satisfy you for several hours.

To keep your blood sugar levels steady, it’s a good idea not to go more than four hours during the day without eating. So taking the breakfast example above, say, eaten at 8 a.m., you’ll want to eat lunch at about noon.

Maybe you don’t get home till 6 p.m. If you wait till then to eat dinner, you’ll likely be tired and cranky, so it’s a good idea to have a late afternoon snack.

Here are some examples of healthy snacks that combine all 3 macronutrients:

• Celery and raw almond butter: celery is a carbohydrate; almond butter is both protein and natural fat.
• Cheese and crackers: opt for grass-fed cheese for higher essential Omega 3 fatty acid content if possible and gluten-free rice crackers for less intestinal bloating.
• Hummus and carrot sticks: hummus contains both a little protein and natural fat.
• Nitrate and nitrite-free jerky: contains protein and natural fat; you don’t always have to include a carbohydrate if you can digest meat efficiently.
• Edamame sprinkled with sea salt: edamame is the whole soybean and it contains both protein and essential trace minerals if sprinkled with sea salt.
• Greek Yogurt: unless you’re on a restricted diet, go for the full-fat variety, which will keep you full for longer and includes all three macronutrients
• Apple slices with honey and olives: perfect for those who crave sweet and salty.
• Organic turkey breast slice with crackers: it’s very easy to bring a package of healthy deli slices with you to work, just make sure none of your co-workers steals it; turkey contains both protein and natural fat.

Even nutritionists, dieticians and health coaches fall off the wagon. If you do and reach for a donut, the best thing to do is to eat a little protein and natural fat (preferably before eating the donut) to stabilize your blood sugar levels.

But if you adopt these healthy snacking guidelines, hopefully, your cravings for sugary junk food will subside.