The Worst Times to Snack

There are two different definitions I would like to offer for snacking. The first is a small amount of food taken at non-normal meal times, when you get hungry between breakfast and lunch, or between lunch and dinner. The other is repetitious munching, often with repeat visits to the fridge, cabinet, or your desk drawer. The latter is not necessarily a time when you are hungry.

Snacking between meals has its pluses and minuses. The plus is that it is more reasonable to eat for one sitting during a meal and not eat to cover more hours than your stomach can comfortably handle at once. In other words, if you have a well-balanced, nutritious, low-glycemic breakfast at 8:00 AM and you have a business lunch at 1:00 PM, it is reasonable that you might get hungry, say, around 11:00 AM. This is a sensible time to have a healthy, balanced, nourishing snack. (Be sure to brush your teeth after every snack, not just after every meal.)

There are three things in particular to be aware of about the other kind of snacking.

1. Under no circumstances should you eat when you are under tremendous stress. If you can learn to alleviate stress (relax and calm yourself) using strategies other than food, your life and your body will change for the better. If you are using food to mitigate stress, you will invariably make different and poorer choices than if you are more relaxed and centered. If stress hormones are flooding your body, loading up on simple carbs is even more risky because of the double-whammy inflammatory effect this can have on your body. This is one of the main culprits of degenerative disease.


2. If you keep eating throughout the day, this will put wear and tear on your pancreas and levels of blood glucose. This is one of the risk factors for diabetes and heart disease. You must give your body a chance to normalize between intakes of food, to let your metabolism do its job, and to take a break between surges of insulin.


3. If you nosh throughout the day, or during particular times, from boredom or habit, this is a great place to intervene on your own behalf. If you are bored, then you can go out of your way to discover what makes you feel good, other than food. One of my clients turned to funny videos on his computer instead of donuts when the stress was hitting the fan. Another discovered that a bike ride around the neighborhood gave her more energy and a cheerier outlook compared to coming home from work and chowing down bread and cheese before dinner. She felt stressed after work, and was willing to employ other ways to unwind.

Small meals are still in. Grazing (eating throughout the day) is potentially risky. Stuffing yourself and eating unconsciously has no place in a healthy and balanced lifestyle. You can make incredibly powerful changes, one healthy choice at a time.

As a health coach, Rosie Bank counsels her clients to feel better, look better, have more energy, lose weight, and have more peace and control regarding their health. As a practicing therapist for over 40 years, Rosie empowers her clients to live more successfully in their bodies. For free reports, a newsletter entitled Healthy News You Can Use, and to learn more about Rosie's new book, Feel Great Lose Weight, please visithttp://www.rosiebank.com

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Ways to Lose Weight That Can Help Everyone

Everyone is always on the lookout for the latest and greatest ways to lose weight. Previously I have written about how I believe that the only way to lose weight over the long term is to make changes to your everyday habits. The problem with diets is that the changes you make while on them are always radical and temporary in nature. As soon as you go off the diet, you go back to your old habits and the weight comes back. Making simple, long term changes to your eating habits is the key. In this article I'm going to outline some more simple changes that can help you achieve real, long term weight loss.

One of the biggest obstacles for weight loss, particularly for children, is the availability of soft drinks like Coke and Pepsi. They contain so many calories in the form of refined, concentrated sugar that you can easily drink your entire daily caloric intake in one sitting. What's worse is that so many restaurants these days offer bottomless refills, making it easy to overindulge. Whenever possible, it is best to avoid this glorified sugar water. Any kind of fruit juice would be preferable, and plain old water is the best. If you really feel like having a Coke, limit yourself to one glass. Pop should be viewed as a treat, like chocolate cake. To lose weight, you need to break yourself of the habit of having it with every meal.

For the sake of time, too many people out there skip breakfast. The big problem with skipping breakfast is that people often find themselves famished by the time 10 am rolls around. As a result they often grab whatever they can, which usually means an unhealthy choice like a pastry or doughnut. If you are rushed for time in the morning, try grabbing a piece of fruit like an apple. If you are just not that hungry first thing in the morning, this might be a sign that you are eating too much too late in the evening. In such a case try eating a smaller dinner, and try eating it before 7pm.

One of the best ways to lose weight is to eat more food in the form of fruits and vegetables. In your heart of hearts, I bet that you know that you should eat more fruits and vegetables too. Fruits and Veggies are all nutrient rich, low cal, and filling. When you eat a healthy serving of produce, you will feel fuller longer, and will wide up eating less in the long run. The only caution here is to go easy on the creamy dips, dressings, butter and cheese sauce that can often accompany such meals. Also, with produce like apples, always remember to eat the skin whenever possible. The skin often contains lots of fiber and nutrients in it's own right.

In a perfect world, you'd have the time to cook yourself a healthy meal every night. However, the world we live in is far from perfect, and we are often rushed. This is why we often grab fast food as a last resort. To combat this tendency, plan ahead for these hurried moments by having some healthy, frozen meals available ready to go. If this saves you from one trip to McDonald's, it will be worth it. Here's an additional tip. If you buy your healthy frozen meal from store, you will find that they often pretty skimpy on the vegetables. Try to round out the meal by adding a salad or some other fruit or vegetable.

The last habit that can help you lose weight is to get more sleep. Most people know that they could use more sleep, although few understand the connection between proper sleep and weight loss. The reason for this is that when you are groggy due to lack of sleep, you will often try and make up for it by grabbing a high calorie sugar food as a pick me up. When you are feeling tired, you are also much more likely to skip whatever workout regime you are on. This is why getting enough sleep is one of the easiest ways to lose weight there is.

So, there you have it. If you are interested in losing weight over the long term, all of these habits listed above can help you. None of them are difficult to do, yet all of them can lean to real, long lasting results. As I stated earlier, the way I lost 30lbs, and have kept it off, was by changing my habits. Always remember, diets don't work! If I can do it, so can you. If you have any questions feel free to visit my website and leave a comment using the "contact me" form. Good luck!

David Nordmark has long had an interest in natural fitness and health techniques. He runs the website at animal kingdom workouts.com

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