The days of consuming three sit-down meals alongside the family are now prologue, at least for a great many Americans. Sitting down to even a single such meal each day is often marked as a minor miracle, and not one wholly devoid of its own challenges. Try extracting a moment’s worth of conversation out of the mobile device generation and you will find yourself yearning for the days of carrier pigeons! We are incessantly “on the go,” as the words are often said. Modern life requires a great deal of its every practitioner, so to speak, and the stresses associated with such a life often create a two-fold dietary challenge.
Firstly, keeping to a consistent diet is essentially a fool’s errand when measured against the highly variable schedules of working professionals and incessantly busy parents. Secondly, the craving for wildly unhealthy but intensely tasty foods grows in direct correlation to mounting pressures in the office, at home, and (where else?) on the road. We are a snacking folk, and a depressingly sedentary culture; these are byproducts of prosperity. Merge those two factors and we become a heavier-than-desired culture of incessant snacking fiends.
As should be common knowledge, satiating snacks in the moment are likely to yield tremendously unsatisfying results over the long term. Snacking has, quite intuitively, become a sort of cultural sin, or perhaps a necessary evil. Unless, that is, a healthy variation is adopted and adhered to.
In that very spirit, we have organized a list of 13 weight loss snacks, each item of which presents you the reader with a viable and flavorful alternative to the innumerable convenient foods tempting decent people the nation over.
#1 Berries—Mother Nature’s answer to candies and sweets. High in nutrition; low in everything else.
#2 Cruciferous Vegetables—A bit more challenging to take down than berries, the benefits of such cruciferous vegetables as broccoli and kale cannot be overstated. Try juicing these life savers if necessary.
#3 Nuts—Filling and nutrient dense, you need only a handful to hold you over for hours on end.
#4 Tea—A flavorful answer to water, tea registers at “0” on the calorie scale but can help maintain a favorable metabolic rate while easing stress.
#5 Coffee—Go easy on the extras. A drop of cream might not hurt. Anything beyond that…
#6 High Fiber Cereal—Less fun than their marshmallow-laden counterparts, these cereals will go a long ways towards satisfying hunger and aiding your digestion.
#7 Dark chocolate—Nutritionally potent in the extreme, once you’ve developed a taste for dark chocolate, you’ll scarcely miss its milky cousin.
#8 Yogurt—Protein and calcium to the hilt. Steer clear of the sweeter options. Also, Greek is probably the better option.
#9 Cottage Cheese—Not as easy on the eyes as is yogurt, but worth a few square inches of refrigerator real estate.
#10 Egg Whites—Let a yolk slip in from time to time. Terrific amino acid content which aids in muscle repair and in keeping the body feeling full and satisfied.
#11 Hummus—Great texture and flavor. Enough said.
#12 Oatmeal—Like the yogurt, be cognizant of overly sugared varieties.
#13 Almond Milk—A lean alternative to dairy products.
Learning the Importance of Smaller Meals
Though it is something of a shame that the family meal has fallen victim to the challenges of modern life, there may be a silver lining. Smaller meals, it turns out, are potentially preferable to their larger counterparts.
This is not to rule out family meals entirely. To the contrary, enjoy those where and when you can! It simply may be more physiologically ideal to take your meals in smaller does. If these 13 weight loss snacks can be of help in realizing that aim, we are happy to have been useful. We also encourage examining a few other dieting tips which may prove beneficial to your overall wellbeing:
All of this is to say that our aim of providing readers with a host of healthy alternatives to the mainstream mainstays of concentrated fats and sugars is wide-ranging and well-researched.
Take Action Today!
It is important for each of us to balance our priorities as we see fit. But all too often professional and logistical challenges force health and diet to a low rung on the proverbial priority ladder. Our appeal is one of owning your bodily well being and caring for it in much the same way you might care for a prized personal possession. After all, your healthiest body truly is precisely that—a prize.
For still more guidance in the space of responsible eating and healthy living, treat yourself to a broader tour of our website in its entirety.
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