To Snack, or not to Snack, should I hold off till Dinner?

Pardon the anecdote, but today's blog was too ironic not to post.  No joke, I'm driving to work today and pondering what I should blog about when I got back home.  I couldn't think of much going on at the moment mentally with me (scale still sucks, pedicure's still coming up!), so I tried to think of something I struggle with outside the eating disorder.  Duh, Snacking! I think to myself.  Snacking is something I have never known how to do.  I either make myself a meal's worth of food, or stick to a few carrot sticks and tell myself I'm full.  Either really isn't a good option, and I feel its a lack of knowledge more than anything.  Hell, two days ago I still felt like a seven year old, asking my fiance if what I had in front of me was an appropriate "snack."  (String cheese and 10 peanut butter pretzels, it was.)

When I got home I decided I would search a few Internet sites on what they felt were helpful snacks that would get you through the day and would not derail my diet efforts.  Although my diet efforts did not get derailed, my plans for searching the web did when I decided to go to the pool instead.  But, stopping at the gas station I found an article in Shape magazine that instead gave 20 great low-cal tasty snacks, including CHOCOLATE!  Yes, I can eat dark chocolate and not feel guilty!  Here's what it said about snacking:

A worthy snack is:
*200 or fewer calories
*0 grams of trans fat and no more than 3.5 grams of saturated fat
*No high-fructose corn syrup

Ok, so I don't check high-fructose corn syrup as much as I should, but knowing a snack should be around 200 calories really helped! That IS a handful of pretzels and piece of string cheese!  Or 12 tortilla chips and a scope of salsa!

The article pretty much broke it down into 4 snack categories: salty, crunchy, sweet and creamy:

Under salty my favorite pick was Snack Factory Sesame Pretzel Chips.  At about 110 calories I would still have 90 calories to add something sweet and curb any cravings until dinner. 



I found a Buffalo version of these snack chips in the store, and lord knows I love buffalo anything, so I wonder if they would still fit the ramifications?



And the thing I loved the most about the article is I could still have my sweet and creamy treat (yes, ice cream! I guess dieting isn't so bad). 

70 Calories, 2 Points (WW+)

I could get used to the idea of ice cream for a snack, especially chocolate and strawberry! Yum!

Hell, I could even have a fruit bar and buffalo pretzels and still be in the snack zone!  If I used to see this much food as a snack, I assumed it was too much, and wrong, therefore: came up.  This helps ease my mind, that I can eat larger "snacks" and still be in OK shape.

The thing is, the more I am working out, and the smaller (more wholesome) my meals are, the more I am realizing my stomach needs to eat in between lunch and dinner.  It's not a failure to my diet, its a boost to my metabolism.  I think of it as a little Fast and the Furious punch of Nos, vroom!  So next time my stomach rumbles at 3:45p.m.  I'm not going to give it dinner, instead I will choose a healthy snack that will bridge my way through the afternoon and get me safely to dinner, diet intact. 





Next up, Greek Yogurt! I've heard from multiple people this is a tasty treat that is super yummy and good for you!