cashews

[RavioliOnToast]

I'm trying to overhaul my diet

Today is my first fast. I want some healthy snack ideas for through the week though as I don't want to eat shit on NFDs.

Are cashews ok? I read in another thread about having cream cheese and carrot sticks etc. Is it full fat cream cheese I have to buy?

Bump as I'm doing my asda shop

They are very high calorie. But it depends what your aims are - they have good nutritional value.

20 cashews was a Healthy Extra when I did Slimming World. 20 of them. I used to mix them up with grapes and eat each thing induvidually, one by one.

You really have to control how many you eat or they will make you gain weight. However, they are good for helping you feel full.

Dried fruit is the same-delicious, quite good for you but only if you control the portions. I love dried cherries.

Buy lower fat cream cheese (the Co op low fat cream cheese is nicer than the Philadelphia one btw).

Olives are good, especially with those hot/sweet Spanish piquillo peppers.

Celery and cucumber sticks, red pepper (all with low fat houmous).

A small apple and 20g of cheddar cheese.

Those really sweet cherry tomatoes are good enough to eat on their own as a snack.

A couple of oatcakes.

I thought high fat and low carb was meant to be better than all the low fat foods? Or have I made that up?

You said you were doing a fast day? My understanding of fasting is have very low calories in those days. For example on the 5:2 diet you would have two fasting days each week and eat normally on the other 5. If that's what you are doing then cashews are no good!

If you are doing a low carb, high fat diet that's different. You could maybe have a small amount of nuts but not much as they contain carbs as well as far and protein.

Or if you are doing a general cutting back calorie counting/low fat weight watchers style diet then similarly you could have a very small amount as a snack.

Any of the above diets if effective but you have to stick to one approach. You can't mix and match them .

Fat not far!!

Well, I can't do high fat for specific reasons. And the high fat message has been distorted; see here and here.

Low fat dairy is ok I think because mostly it is made with semi-skimmed or skimmed milk rather than having strange things put in to replace the fat. Low fat fruit yoghurt is terrible, because the sugar is so high.

Ravioli Cashews are not low carb. If you are eating high fat, then ideally your carbs should come from vegetables

I'm fasting on Mondays and Thursday's, and want to rejig my eating on my non fast days. I would usually have toast as a snack, or crisps- are cashews better than those?

Or shall I choose something else all together? I can't just immediately clean eat, if at all. And I will be eating whatever with the family on a night- whether that be chilli and brown rice or a Sunday lunch , I just want to make better choices 80% of the time to what I am now. I am not particularly low carbing, although I do want to cut out 95% of bread and white carbs IYSWIM?

A little meal plan my trying to construct so far has;

Breakfast - either : scrambled egg and bacon (fat cut off) or 2 ingredient pancakes with berries and Greek yoghurt

Snack- handful of cashews

Dinner - spinach and feta omelette or stir fry

Snack - cream cheese and carrot batons

Tea- whatever everyone else is having, whether this is pizza or whatever.

I usually eat -
Breakfast - 2x toast with lurpak
Snack- biscuitsx2/dry weetos
Dinner- sandwich, crisps
Snack- little cake/an apple
Tea- whatever everyone else is eating (I home cook a lot of slimming world meals, on a Saturday we have asda pizza as we both work quite late)

Does this sound okay? Sorry I wasn't clear in my first post.

Should I be buying low fat cream cheese in this instance? I really need help, I have no idea what to do. Or does it not even matter if I'm doing 5:2?

If you're doing 5:2 you don't need to worry as long as you stick to 500 calories on fast days. Personally I think full fat tastes better and is probably better for you. As long as you are eating stuff like that moderately I wouldn't worry. I saw quite a good recipe book for 5:2 with recipes for the whole week but can't remember what it was called!

In that case, you are better having cashews as a snack rather than crisps. I think if you are doing 5:2 then on your non fast days you should eat 'normally'. Don't go for high fat if you are eating carbs or I don't think you will lose any weight. Good luck