The Truth About Snacking

Now I'm sharing what I know with you fitness , nutrition and all the deeper stuff to help you discover your strongest body . Hello , we're back . We're back with another episode , again working on that first intro . Today we're talking about snacking . So if you need a snack , get it . If you're driving , don't snack with both hands . You need one hand on the wheel .

If you need to pull over and pause and get your snack , feel free to do so . Today we're talking about snacking in terms of reaching your nutrition goals , your fitness goals . I don't know about you , but for me , when I'm working with my clients , many folks have heard that they shouldn't be snacking .

That's sort of a common myth that gets pedaled around in the fitness and the nutrition space , partially because I think when we , when nutrition coaches , are talking about overall consumption , they're trying to figure out ways to minimize it , and if you don't eat in between meals , then the idea is that you're eating fewer calories over the course of the day and

that equates to fat loss , to weight loss , things like that . And culturally and sort of , at different points in like American dieting culture , there have been moments where snacking has been demonized in that same way , or snacking has been really pushed . I'm 37 years old and when I was really young , snack wells was a big thing .

So you had these sort of low calorie , low fat prepackaged snack items , with the idea that a prepackaged snack item was going to keep you from overindulging . Same thing later , when I was like in high school , college , the 100 calorie packs were like a big thing , and so they took some of your favorite snacks and they took all the taste out of them .

No , they were okay , but they were limited to this small size , so that you were only eating 100 calories at one time . Now I want to be pretty transparent with you here . I am not going to focus on calorie counting . Certainly not in this episode and certainly in none of these episodes am I giving broad recommendations around how many calories to consume .

Nor do I think , in most cases , that this is the first intervention when we talk about nutrition . I am a primarily like . When working with me , you're going to get a A varied sort of like multi-layered approach , some of which is intuitive eating , some of which is sports performance nutrition , some of which is , you know , flexible nutrition any of that .

But over the overarching theme , in sort of my nutrition coaching , is prioritizing your best life , which means nutritious foods , nutrient dense foods , as well as foods that taste good , foods that are important to your culture , foods that provide emotional support . There's so much to this that I can't sort of simply break this down into how many calories .

So when I'm talking about this kind of like snack thing , I'm just bringing it up as sort of if you remember , there was a moment in time where this was a big part of the packaged food industry , and still is packaged foods in a way , especially sort of like quote unquote indulgent foods , packaged in small amounts so that you don't overindulge , and so I think

that the messaging around snacking if you have ever heard like , oh no , you shouldn't be snacking if you're trying to reach your fitness goals or if you're trying to quote unquote lose weight , or whatever that may be you may have heard that because there is this attempt to keep you from having too much , and so I believe what the aim , then , is really talking

about mindful snacking versus mindless snacking and we're going to get into that and I'm going to give you sort of some questions to ask yourself about your snacking habits , to see if they're serving you , if there's anything that you can change to better support your nutrition , better support your energy levels , better support your mood .

See , all of these things are aspects of our nutrition .

It's not just , you know , the amount of protein we're getting and I'm going to talk about that a lot but it's also about how does it make us feel , and how does it make us feel for our exercise , how does it make us feel for the work that we're concentrating on , how does it make us feel when it's time to go to bed , things like that .

So , if you have heard that you weren't supposed to snack , I want to encourage you to think sort of outside of that box , and I also want to encourage you , if you are a person who says , oh , I can't snack , I want you to listen to this whole episode and I want you to think a little bit about why you have that mindset about yourself , and I'm going to

encourage you to maybe question whether or not you've placed that on yourself or someone else has placed that on you , because you feel like you can't have control around certain foods .

And there are so many things we can do from a psychological standpoint , but also as a habit practice standpoint , where you will feel like you have greater control over foods because you aren't restricting them in the same way that you were before .

So when we hear don't , don't ever snack , what that doesn't take into consideration is the really varied lifestyles that all human beings have .

I don't know about you , but I worked a job as a personal trainer when I was working in a gym that started with sessions at 5.30 or 6.00 am , sometimes going for an extended period of time , sometimes having a break at 9.00 am and then not having another break until 2.00 or 3.00 pm .

The idea that I was just not going to snack and eat these three square meals a day was impossible . Same thing , I mean . People have shift work , people working in retail get a 20-minute sometimes . So what are you eating in those 20 minutes ? People work all kinds of jobs , people .

My daughter is going to school and I think her lunch period is at 10 am in the morning 10 am , goodness gracious , and then she's going to eat dinner at 5 pm ? I don't think so .

So we're thinking about different kinds of schedules and then how we can best support , like I said before , those energy levels , the way we're feeling throughout the day , being able to fuel the activities we want to , and then what is going to taste and feel good . Those are the things we're thinking about when we're thinking about snacking .

So the other question to ask a little bit is what is a snack versus a meal ? And that is , in a lot of ways , something that people are using for selling you stuff . When we talk about food marketing and food advertising . Snacking provides the opportunity to put your certain food or your commodity in a specific category so that you can sell it and market it .

In that way . There is nothing , truly nothing , that says one food is a snack versus one food is a meal , food right , that's an arbitrary distinction that we have and if we think about it in terms of and I think this is kind of helpful in the same way that there aren't breakfast foods and dinner foods , there are foods .

We have culturally and societally decided that these foods are breakfast foods versus dinner foods , but that's not a real distinction . That's a distinction that we've created .

We can embrace that distinction and use it to our advantage , or we can buck that distinction and use it in a way that's more helpful for us , so that if you feel like you need a more substantial breakfast and you want to have rotisserie chicken in the morning , you can have rotisserie chicken in the morning , because there's nothing to say that that's not a

breakfast food . And if we look at a variety of different cultures , they're having different foods at different times of the day . So , again , it's about finding foods and a system of eating that is going to work well for you .

So why would it be really useful to snack ? Well , in that same way , we are beings who are using our food as energy throughout the day , and if we wait too long , we don't have enough energy to support the kinds of activities we're doing . Our body then takes that energy from somewhere else .

We are maybe brain foggy , maybe fatigued , can't concentrate very well , or we just literally can't get up the energy to do the exercises we wanted to all kinds of reasons why we may want to snack in between meals because of the expansive amount of time . So we think about like what ?

What amount of time is going to go is going to occur in between meals , but also , what activities am I going to need to participate in in that specific amount of time ? So there are really like useful times for us to snack to better support the things that we're doing .

And so then we have to wonder , like do we even need the distinction between a snack and a meal ? For some people who love to sort of control their day and or have a plan , sometimes that distinction might be really helpful , and if it's helping you and it's working for you , great .

If it's not , maybe a question to ask yourself is like do I need to even call this a snack versus a meal ? All that's typically all that's saying is like there are different kinds of foods or their different amounts of food , and a meal is a bigger amount of food and a snack is a smaller amount of food .

What if , for you , it worked better to have the same amount of food spread over more amount , more individual eating sessions , which then made less of a distinction between how much you were eating at any given point ? It really is just going to depend on the person , but it's worthwhile to ask if we even need that distinction .

So , going back to the beginning , where I was like you might be a person who says I can't snack , or you might be a person who , every time you want to start a new quote unquote fitness journey , anytime you start you're like all right , now I'm gonna get this right and I'm and I'm with you because I've done it before , I've done it .

Before I've done the , I had years and years and years of doing the Monday . I'm gonna get this right thing .

So I am not laughing at you , I'm laughing with you and I'm helping you to discover , hopefully , that there is a different way to do it and that we're gonna have so many Mondays in our future where it's just another day that's helping to support versus a blank slate . Start over again , try tons of new habits all on the same day .

So if you're a person who has told yourself or has heard that that you struggle with snacking and if you're the person who , okay , I want to hit this body weight goal , I want to hit this physical you know PR with one of my lifts , I want to feel stronger or better , so tomorrow I'm just not gonna snack and I'm only gonna eat three meals , if that is you

, I want you to run through a few of these questions about your snacking and see if you can't figure out a way to incorporate snacking that is actually going to better support you and leave you more successful than cutting it out entirely . Okay , so when it comes to snacking , can you literally be more mindful with it ?

One of the biggest things that happens with snacking is because it is not a quote unquote meal . I say that a lot . It's because you can't see me and I just want to like be clear about when I'm using terms sort of I don't know as what they are known , sort of from a cultural context .

Anyway , when you're snacking and it's not a meal , you sometimes aren't sitting down . You aren't sitting down . You certainly maybe aren't sitting at the table , maybe you're sitting in front of the TV , maybe you're sitting in the car , maybe you're standing and you're eating it in between things .

I used to stand in the closet of the personal training studio and just eat my string cheese in the closet . While it was useful and there was utility for it in that given scenario , I wasn't all that tasting the cheese , I wasn't feeling really full and supported afterward or I wasn't even sometimes remembering that I ate it .

If you are a parent who is making lunches for kids and you're putting a ton of food into their stuff and then you're snacking a little bit as you go , that might be a useful time for you to snack . Just remember , in that situation you're not really present with the food .

Or while you're making dinner , maybe you are consuming a lot as a snack that isn't all that filling , that isn't all that satiating , and you aren't being mindful about it because you're worried about something else .

If your snacking tends to be more of the mindless snacking , can you find ways to be more mindful about it so that you're able to take advantage of all the things that are helpful about eating food Feeling how it's supporting your body , feeling the tastes and the textures being present , remembering that you ate it , giving yourself the time to feel full or even

feel like you've eaten food . That being more mindful may be part of the key . The next one is can you make these snacks more like mini meals ? I'm a big advocate for maybe not having as big a distinction between these snacks and meals , because sometimes it isn't going to be as clear .

I think it's hard sometimes because , let's say , you have kids and you have dinner time . You want that dinner to be pretty robust , you want to fill them up . You are sitting down for it and you put a lot of food out there . You might feel the obligation to eat more at that time and you don't want to waste food .

I also understand that Wasting food is a really hard thing . When it comes to being a little bit more intuitive about our eating , because oftentimes we may not exactly measure the portion that is appropriate for us and then are we wasting . This is all going to come down to your families and your own particular needs .

If we think about meals and snacks a little bit more fluidly , we may be more likely to choose foods that are going to be more nutritionally supportive , more nutrient dense Most snack foods , marketed snack foods are these really carb rich , really what they're called highly palatable ? Listen , highly palatable is a good thing because you want to eat it .

The problem is that they're in some cases just so palatable that you don't quite know when to stop . Combining highly palatable foods with some more nutrient dense foods sort of cuts that a little bit , in that you're going to feel fuller and more satiated by some of the nutrient foods too . But the snack foods that we typically are getting .

These sort of convenience foods aren't giving us the combination of macro and micronutrients that give us the support we need when we're talking about protein , carbohydrates , fat and fiber the things that , in combination altogether , are going to help us with our energy levels , help us with our satiation , feeling full and then being able to focus .

We're not getting them from sort of conventionally packaged snack foods . So if we think about the snack as less of a snack and more of a mini meal , can we get more of those macro nutrients that we need ? Can we get even more quantity of food ?

So when I go back to that idea of the 100 calorie pack or the snack wells , that idea that a snack is 100 calories is really limiting for you if you need more food at that given time , because if you're eating food and it's less than you need , you're going to be hungry again .

So then are you Snacking again on something that is also not giving you the nutrients that you need , or that your body is sort of craving , and then you're really hungry at dinner still and then maybe you are eating more than you intended to over eating that kind of thing Mini meals versus snack is also going to encourage you to do that more mindful thing where

you're going to sit down . If you have chicken and rice in a little container as your snack , that's more like a mini meal and you're going to sit down and eat it . Now I want to be really careful when I'm throwing out any of these sort of like examples . I'm not saying that that's the thing you need to eat . There are lots of ways to eat .

There are lots of diets that are , you know , and when I when I say diet , I mean the kinds of food you're eating . I don't mean calorie restriction . Any of these things are lots of ways to do this . So I just throw out an example sometimes so that you can visualize what I'm talking about . But you could put anything .

You could put the pasta that you had last night , or you could have , you know , yeah , the leftovers from dinner are now you're many . You've split it into two mini meals rather than one lunch , and then some , you know , carrots for your snack .

Because if we think about those kinds of snack , even if we're doing our and I'm going to put big quotes on this , quote unquote healthy snack where you put hummus and veggies and you're like okay , this is what I'm going to have as my snack .

It still might not be enough food and it still might not be a great combination of those all those kinds of things that we need Carbohydrates , protein , fat and fiber and , depending on you know , they might be different at given meals . It might not be that , and so you've like now you're angry because you had your quote unquote healthy snack , which is great .

You did get a ton of nutrients from that and you , you did get some , you know , fresh produce and amazing hummus amazing . All those things are great . Did it taste good ? Awesome ? Did you like the flavor of it ? Awesome . You still might be hungry later . And then you're angry that you're so hungry when it comes to dinner that you're like well , who cares ?

I need blank , blank , blank and blank , because I'm not putting in foods that I'm telling you are bad . There's no bad food . You will hear that from me over and over and over again .

But let's say you have food that you did not plan to indulge in because you thought your quote unquote again , sorry , if you're , if you're really irritated with that , I don't know what to tell you . You're going to you're upset because you had that snack and it didn't fill you up . So switching it to that sort of mini meal thought can be really helpful .

Can you this is the third one Can you better anticipate and plan those snacks ? So sometimes what happens is just that we thought we were going to do those three square meals or those four square meals and then we didn't plan for snacks .

So then we're left at the point where we've got to go to the gas station to pick up the convenience food and the options just aren't great . So there are some , you know , like better options , or some more filling options or some more nutrient dense options . But , like you know , again you're getting pre-packaged snacks stuff .

Some of it is better than others and you can combine things in the gas station . And that's one of my favorite things to do is , like you know , take those chips you like and then see if you can find the nuts and if they have some kind of fruit option and some kind of dairy , you know , cheese or or a jerky stick or whatever those kinds of things are .

Again , I'm not trying to explicitly give you recommendations , I'm merely having you sort of change your thought process around the food that you're going to try to eat at that time . I try to eat at that time .

So if you can plan and anticipate the snacks , even if you don't eat them , even if that day you're just not hungry and you didn't end up getting around to the snack , can you anticipate it so you have more control over the things that you're going to have at that snack time , giving yourself more options so that you're not left at that hangriest place trying to

come up with what you're going to eat Again , convenience food continues to get sort of more , there are more options , but you sometimes get stuck in a place where , like , you don't can't have exactly what you want , and then you're left with kind of a difficult decision of having to take the mental energy , to take the concentration energy to think about this kind

of food and pick the right thing or quote unquote right thing , or instead just going with what's easiest or what sounds most delicious , and sometimes it's not going to support what it is that you're planning to do later .

And then lastly then this is maybe the most important one Can you let the guilt go ? Can you snack and just let the guilt of ? This isn't exactly what I wanted to be eating right now , or this isn't the most nutrient dense , or this is the most nutrient dense , or this isn't the highest in protein thing .

Can you just let it go , because , in the grand scheme of things , your body is really smart and really thoughtful about what it needs , and when we learn to trust our body a little bit more , we ultimately can find ways to eat things that are in more support of us .

But some of the feelings that we have around snacking are just created and put upon us by other people and by industries that want to sell you a diet snack .

So can you let it go , and can you give yourself permission to figure out what you need to eat and that every day doesn't have to be the perfect thing to eat at any given time , and you don't have to be quote-unquote Perfect with your nutrition . We are human beings . We are eating a variety of foods .

There is no perfect , there is no one way to do things . So how can you be gentler , kinder with yourself in a way that allows you to experiment and to discover ways that make your , that make you feel good ? How can you make yourself feel good with food and when I say that I don't mean it just tastes good .

You know the difference between eating a snack that , like , tasted amazing and then 10 seconds later you have a headache and you're still hungry Some days . That's gonna be the way it goes other days .

Now that you have this information , because you've been listening to your body , because you've been , you know , sort of taking notes on how how things work for you , you're like , oh okay , I Get it .

I maybe don't want to have that every day at 4 pm Because I feel terrible afterward , but I've let myself go , I've let myself off the hook in terms of Meeting some ideal standard so that I can make choices that are better for me . Of Course , you're gonna do what is best for you and no one size fits all , so let me go through those questions .

I want you to ask yourself one more time , and then we'll wrap up . If you are struggling with snacking or you believe that you can't be a snacker , I want you to think about these questions . Can you be more mindful with your snacking Rather than mindless ? Can you make the the them more mini meals versus Snack foods ?

Can you kind of emulate your meals in smaller or maybe all of your meals are getting a little smaller to include these ? Can you anticipate the snacks and plan the kinds of food so that you're not stuck making last-minute , really hungry decisions ? And Can you let the guilt go ?

Can you just let it be and Let the Let your own judgment of your choices Take a break for a little while so that you can prioritize how you feel , how you want to feel and how you want to support your goals moving forward ? Okay , so those are the questions I want you to ask yourself , and it's gonna take time . This doesn't happen overnight .

Just just be thinking about this in in how it can support you . Also and I will say this on every time I talk about nutrition or exercise or habit change I want you to remember what worked for you before may not work exactly the same way .

Again , okay , I the number of times I've worked with clients over 13 years when they tell me that the diet that they used at this time is the , is how they got looking , the way they want to look , or they felt the best when they did this , this , this and this . That is amazing and I'm glad it was what you wanted at that time and I'm glad it worked .

We have to realize that we have different seasons of life . We have different Things going on in our life . We also know more at a given time as well , as our bodies are changing and evolving . So , even if you did this exact thing before , you may not be able to recreate that exactly again .

Just something to consider and Give yourself permission to evolve , to adapt and change with the seasons of life and realize that , as nice as it would be to be able to just like Go on autopilot and do things the way you did 10 years ago , we might just need to do something a little bit different .

This is your Never-ending self-improvement or self-support project , because maybe you don't even need improvement self-support project and you're just gonna evolve with it . All right , if this is helpful , let me know . Also , since this is a brand new podcast , we were like trying , we , I , I mean , I am trying to build up those ratings and reviews .

So if this is working for you , if you found it helpful , if you think it's gonna be useful to somebody else , you can leave those stars at the bottom , you can leave a review or you can send it to somebody that you know . Thank you , thank you . Thank you for listening . Go get strong and I'll talk to you later .