Tag: be snack aware

A day of snacks… ☕️ 🍫

There are lots of strategies you can use when trying to stick to your calorie deficit to lose weight/fat. Being aware of the calories in the foods you choose to consume and swapping to lower calorie foods which you also enjoy is an obvious option. As well as the calories though it’s worth considering the quantity and volume of the food you’re choosing.

Snacking is a common problem and an easy way to extra calories to sneak in. It’s not hard to accumulate over 1000 cals of snacks in a day. A coffee when you get to work with a couple of biscuits (medium semi skimmed latte and chocolate digestives), a ‘healthy’ snack mid morning of 30g cashews and an apple, a Mars bar to give you a bit of an energy boost in the afternoon, and a small bag of kettle chips when you’re waiting for dinner. None of that will seem excessive at the time, in fact you may not even notice much if it. You can see, however, how easily it could take you over your calories for the day.

There are some easy swaps you could make that won’t impact too much on your satisfaction, still allow you to follow your preferred pattern of eating but save 500 cals. In this example you could swap the coffee to a flat white and the digestives to a couple of lotus biscuits. You could just have the apple for your ‘healthy’ snack, swap to a curly wurly to give you an afternoon boost and some pop chips pre dinner and you’ll save over 500 cals, and it’s still a lot of snacks so you won’t feel deprived.

Obviously you may decide instead to cut a few of the snacks and have the higher calorie options, but that’s where knowing the calorie content comes in! You can have whatever you want, if you can fit it into your calories, this is just another strategy to add to your toolkit to help you stick to those calories.

Enjoy 🤗

Xx

Foods that make you fat… 🍕

Remember no one food makes you fat, and no one food makes you lose fat. Every day I hear people freaking out because they’ve eaten something that isn’t ‘healthy’. Usually they mean they’ve eaten something that isn’t a whole food (fruit, vegetables, whole

grains) or foods that are perceived as ‘good’

E.g. nuts, avocados, salads, hummus etc.

So yes the majority of your diet should ideally come from ‘healthy’ foods e.g. fruits, vegetables, lean protein, good quality carbohydrates, fibre etc. Ideally around 80% of your diet should be from these food, but that still leaves room for all the other foods you enjoy.

You can and should include foods you perceive as ‘bad’ like cookies, cakes, take aways, alcohol, ‘bad’ carbs etc in your diet in moderation. It doesn’t mean you’ve ‘fallen off the wagon’, or gone off your diet, that you’re a failure, or ‘can’t stick to anything’, or need to ‘start over’. No one can stick to a diet that excludes everything they love all the time – it’s not sustainable. So try to forget this all or nothing attitude, as it’s only setting you up for failure and it’s really not being very nice to yourself!

So don’t freak out if you have some chocolate or a glass of wine. It won’t make you fat, it won’t ‘ruin’ your diet. Quitting because you think you’ve failed will though. So just accommodate the fun foods into your calories. Try to aim for no more than 20 percent ‘fun’ foods (just to ensure you’re getting the right vitamins and minerals etc) but equally don’t over think it – and remember its your diet over time that matters – over months and years, not hours and days. So if you’re over calories today, just be under for the next few days to accommodate it!

Enjoy 🤗

xx

Full of sugar… or is it?🍌 🍫

Have you ever been told you shouldn’t be having (insert snack of choice) because it’s FULL of sugar? As if sugar is something that’s inherently bad? Wouldn’t a banana be a better option than a snickers for example?

The reality is there is nothing ‘bad’ about sugar. We need sugar – it’s a great source of easy energy and it also tastes great. Sugar is made up of two components, fructose and glucose. The molecular structure is the same no matter where they come from. Fruit contains fructose, glucose and also some sucrose (a combination of fructose and glucose). Sweets/ ice creams etc will tend to be higher in sucrose.

This is a great example – a snickers actually has considerably less sugar than a medium banana. The snickers does have more calories, and fewer micronutrients than the banana and you’d probably feel fuller for longer with the banana thanks to the additional fibre etc. The fibre slows digestion making it more filling (and good for your gut heath). This means you’re less likely to want to eat more later, and it’s better for your blood sugar levels. So objectively the banana is a better choice health-wise.

Foods also provide other things – such as pleasure, convenience etc. So if you fancy a snickers as an afternoon pick me up then go for it – as long as it fits your calorie goal for the day. If you prefer a banana than go for that! In terms of the impact on weight/fat loss there will be very little difference as long as you stay within your daily calories and are aware the snickers will be a less filling option. And in terms of sugar content the banana is actually higher.

I’m not suggesting the snickers is better for you than a banana, nor am I suggesting you avoid fruit in favour of chocolate lol! I’m just suggesting we recognise that no foods are ‘bad’, and that as part of a balanced, healthy diet you can have both! Sometimes the snickers will be what you need, sometimes the banana!

Enjoy 🤗

xx

Just a few sweets… vs a disaster! 🍬

It’s very easy when trying to lose weight and control your calories to fall into the trap of feeling massively guilty about what you may view as ‘falling off the wagon’. Sitting down and demolishing half a packet of biscuits with your afternoon coffee is often something that becomes a ‘disaster’ for the diet and can result in a spiral of guilt. This can then derail you for the rest of the day or week – meaning one small instance of overeating becomes much larger.

In contrast it’s often very easy to not notice the odd nibble here and there. Grabbing a chocolate from the bowl in the office as you walk past, popping another one in your mouth while you wait for coffee, just having a couple of Percy pigs your friend offers you, and grabbing a few of the kids Colin the Caterpillar sweets. It’s likely that if spread over the day you may not even notice you’ve had these, and you may not even remember to factor them into your daily calories.

A bite here, a nibble there, just one sweet here… it’s nothing right? Yet the actual calorie impact is significant – 390 cals in this example. Whereas in contrast half a packet of Oreos would be viewed as a total disaster. One is laden with guilt, the other you barely notice. Neither is a great approach – the important thing is to be aware of the calories in what you’re eating. This means you need to consider all the little extras you might not think of as important, but equally means you need to remove the guilt from some perceived ‘disasters’ – as they’re often not as bad as you actually think!

As always knowledge is power! If you know what you’re eating you can have whatever you want and make it fit your goals!

Enjoy

🤗

Xx