Better yet, eliminate snacks altogether! Sounds Draconian, I know, but the bigger your overweight problem I will bet you dollars to
donuts ( pun intended) the bigger your snacking habit. So again, it depends on your own personal situation. If you are not that overweight, an occasional snack between meals is not going to make any difference one way or another. Corollary to that is if you are not that overweight you probably don't snack that much in the first place, so you won't be inclined to do much of it anyway. Now if you are serious about getting your weight thing under control, you need to make a concerted effort at reducing how much snacking you are doing. At the very least you can cut back on it. You don't have to go, ahem, ''cold turkey" (another pun), but, come on, you can't seriously believe that you can keep on having your little (or big, as the case may be) gastronomic treats between meals like you've been doing. You have to take it on a snack-by-snack basis, and determine if you really need this or if you can wait till the next meal. Now I'm not going to sit here and tell you to starve yourself. I know from my own experience there are sometimes I just have to eat something between a meal, because I know damn well that I ain't gonna make it to the next meal without bouncing off the walls like an orangutan. It affects my concentration, so when I get like that, well, don't tell me I can't eat something! Then I just apply the preceding Tips as to what my snack will be like eg. Tip #2 and Tip #4. I try to limit myself to protein like lunch-meat or cheese without any starches or sugars accompanying it. Now I know dietitians will tell you to reach for some raw "veggies", well whenever I've done that it only stimulated my appetite to where I was in full-on big dinner mode. In other words it makes me wolfish! That's because raw foods stimulate digestion and enhance the appetite, not assuage it. Don't ask me why they do, they just do. Ever been to a restaurant where they put a complimentary small platter of assorted raw vegetables on the table soon after being seated? Why do you think they do that? To give you something to munch on that won't fill you up and will get your gastric juices rolling enough for you to order even more from the menu! So reaching for raw vegs as a snack is a great idea from a calorie standpoint, but if it's going to make you want to switch into high gear and load up, well, then it's not such a good idea. That's why I always turn to protein, sans carbs. Nuts work really well and are really good for you, especially walnuts which are bursting with Omega 3 fatty acids.
There's a yogurt commercial out now with this cute redhead with big rimmed glasses standing in front of an open refrigerator starring at this beautiful cheesecake with strawberries on top, rationalizing how it would be OK for her to indulge in a piece, when one of her co-workers walks up and reaches for the particular brand of yogurt they are pushing without even glancing at that wonderful cheesecake. They have a quick exchange where the redhead remarks that the other girl looks great and the other girl replies how she's lost weight and is keeping it off. Then the redhead quickly grabs a container of the yogurt for herself, and cut to her eating it with a look on her face knowing she made the right choice. Anyway the point here is every time you decide to have a snack you are faced with some form of these issues. You can rationalize why you should have the wrong choice, and make it into the right choice in your own mind, or you can do the right thing and either wait till the next meal or if you can't make it that long, then you need to make the choice that will do the least amount of damage. It's so simple, people. Just common sense, but you need to stop and think and ask is this moving me toward my goal or away from it. If you can make a practice of doing this you will start to see a transformation in your physical appearance for the better.
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