Preventing Fearful Eating

You all know that I promote eating 3 well balanced meals a day. Sometimes when our meals get spread out longer than 3-4 hours then it is smart, to treat yourself to a healthy snack. As a coach, I like to prevent my clients from having “fearful eating”, which is the fear you feel if you know you are not going to eat again for a while. This may cause you to over eat at that meal.

Snacks are a great way to help you to continue exercising the choice of making healthy decisions. Preventing you from mindless eating and emotional eating. When you have a healthy snack you stabilize your blood sugar and feel full until your next meal. When you don't snack you make less healthy choices because you are starving and end up reaching for pre-packaged processed carbohydrate or sugary foods. When snacking (eating before you are starving), you are allowing yourself time to make smarter decisions. When you eat a handful of almonds an hour before dinner, this may help you choose the salmon for dinner at home instead of the cheeseburger at a fast food place on the way home.

Snacking also helps with stabilizing your metabolism which is key for overall health. When you tap into your hunger scale and learn when you are hungry and full, you understand how to help yourself feel better. A study I recently read showed an example of "fearful eating" and metabolism. The study was with a group of French people, who usually eat four meals a day. The group was divided into two groups. One group maintained their regular diet and the second group was told they had to give up one meal a day. The second group gained weight because they over ate at other meals due to “fearful eating.” When you over eat, it affects your digestion which slows down your metabolism. When you eat regularly, in a relaxed state and to satiety, your body has better glucose control. (If your glucose isn't controlled this can lead to Type 2 diabetes). It is important to keep your blood sugar balanced by snacking or eating small healthy meals regularly. Another perk of snacking, research has also shown that people who eat small frequent meals had lower LDL cholesterol preventing heart disease.

Another reason snacking is great, snacking makes you happier! Women in a study that had snacks reported having better moods and sharper minds and higher performance. It is true, if you have ever been hungry you know how it can affect your mood, so make sure you're keeping your energy up and mood happy with healthy snacks.

Not all snacks are equal, most of us fall into traps of snacking or grazing without a plan. Like when you're prepping your meal and your realize that you ate almost the entire block of cheese. Healthy snacks should be pre-planned so you avoid the candy drawer at work.

Snacking without a plan can be called mindless eating: snacking from boredom, stress, procrastinating or feelings of being unsatisfied.

Eating “Snack Food” or processed food is not going to help you long term. This is why people call them empty calories. Having foods like pretzels, chips, crackers are full of poor nutrients and leave you hungry again within a few hours. This is why it is important to choose real whole foods that are nutrient dense such as seeds, nuts, fruits, vegetables, and proteins.

So what does a perfect snack include:

The perfect snack includes the balance of carbohydrates, protein (around 5 grams to keep you feeling full) and healthy fat and of course portion control. The snack needs to be a balance of all 3 items. Just having a handful of celery, popcorn or pretzels won’t do the job. This is about balancing macronutrients to make you feel full and energized until your next meal.