Topic of the Week: Smart Snacking
On the South Beach Diet, you’re encouraged to have a mid-morning and a mid-afternoon snack. Keep in mind that the purpose of snacking is to prevent drops in blood sugar that cause cravings and leave you feeling famished. On Phases 1 and 2, snacks are particularly important to help wean you off highly processed refined starches and sugar-laden foods and help you adjust to this new style of eating.
Snacks should be eaten 1 to 2 hours after a meal or an hour before your cravings typically strike. The best snack is one that combines some protein and some high-fiber vegetables — for example, you might have some lean white-meat turkey, fat-free or reduced-fat cheese, plain nonfat or low-fat yogurt with a handful of nuts, or some hummus with some celery sticks or bell pepper slices. Lean deli meat roll-ups make a great snack. Try the <a href="http://www.southbeachdiet.com/mealplan/recipeview.asp?id=2168">Swiss and Turkey Roll-Ups with Nut Butter.
Looking for new snack ideas? Here are some <a href="http://southbeachdiet.com/sbd/members/crunchy-snack-ideas.aspx">healthy snacks with a crunch or try these nut mixes: <a href="http://www.southbeachdiet.com/mealplan/recipeview.asp?id=5338">Spicy Nut Mix, Southwest Pepita and Pecan Mix.
Our guest speaker this week is Erin Palinski, a registered and licensed dietitian as well as a Certified Personal Trainer. Erin has also been recognized as both a certified specialist in adult weight management and a certified specialist in childhood and adolescent weight management through the Commission on Dietetic Registration. Please feel free to post questions to Erin!
Thanks, Teresa!
Snacking throughout the day is vital to help prevent excessive hunger at meal times, which can lead to eating too fast and overeating. Think about the last time you may have waited too long in between meals. Were you very hungry by the next meal? Did you find you ate your meal faster? Did this result in eating until you were uncomfortably full, or perhaps making less-healthy meal choices? Skipping snacks can actually sabotage your weight-loss efforts. By snacking at regular intervals, this can help to prevent excessive hunger and cravings, allowing you to continue to make SBD-friendly choices at your next meal. Also, since snacking helps to regulate your appetite, you may find you can eat your next meal slower, which is very important since eating rapidly can cause you to eat well beyond the point of fullness (it takes 20 minutes for the stomach to signal to the brain that you’re full). Snacking may also help to stimulate your metabolism. When hunger and cravings are on the rise and your next meal is a few hours away, try having a healthy snack to keep you going. The best snacks are those that will keep you full for 1–3 hours. This includes foods containing lean protein, healthy fats, or whole grains. Some quick and healthy SBD snacks you may want to try include:
Phase 1
· Low-fat string cheese
· Hard-boiled eggs
· Natural peanut butter on celery
· Fat-free or low-fat plain yogurt with nuts
· Raw vegetables with SBD-friendly dip
· Tomato slices topped with melted, part-skim mozzarella cheese
· Hummus with vegetables
Phases 2 and 3
· Whole-grain bread or crackers topped with natural peanut butter or low-fat cheese
· Healthy trail mix made with whole-grain dry cereal and dry roasted nuts
· Fat-free or low-fat plain yogurt with fruit
· A piece of fruit with nuts or low-fat cheese
What snacks have you found the most helpful in satisfying your hunger and helping you stay on track with your SBD plan?
