Cutting down on snacks is one of the fundamental aspects of any weight loss program. To lose weight you need to eat less and move more, and while snacks may feel nice in the moment, they are rarely actually necessary nor are they good for you. Getting to the root of your snacking behaviors may help you to power through that snacking desire with a bit more success. Snacking habits that stem out of boredom or stress can be much more successfully managed with other activities that won’t harm your weight loss efforts.
Avoiding Snacks
There are plenty of reasons as to why people snack. Sometimes we snack out of hunger, sure, but the majority of snacking behavior is for other reasons. You may go looking for something to munch on when you are home bored, or when you are feeling particularly stressed or upset. During these moments, the snacks that you turn to have a lot less to do with your feelings of hunger than they do with your feelings in general.
Here are a few activities that you should try to skip the snacks altogether:
- Exercise: You can’t rummage through the pantry if you are running down the sidewalk or at the gym. If you feel bored, think exercise, not food. Head out of the house and get sweating. You won’t want to eat while working out.
- Yoga: While this is a type of exercise, and so can fit with the suggestion above, it is worth standing on its own because of the way that yoga helps to manage stress. If you are feeling cravings for food as you are trying to manage stress, then a bit of yoga may help you to refocus.
- Hydrate: There are plenty of times in which your hunger isn’t really hunger at all, but instead is connected to thirst. Make yourself a huge cup of ice water and see how you feel after finishing it. Staying properly hydrated can actually help reduce hunger.
Of course, there will be times in which your hunger is plain old fashioned hunger, and the only thing that will help you to feel better and able to focus on your day is to have a snack. In those cases, it is smart to have a snack planned ahead of time so that you don’t make any in-the-moment decisions.