What healthy snacks do you have in your cupboard?

[Lsquiggles]

Just that really! No idea what snacks I can keep in the cupboard to snack on that are filling, don't taste like diet food and will help with weight loss.

What do you have in your cupboard?

Snacking generally is not good for weight loss, even healthy snacks like fruit as it raises your insulin levels. You are better off making sure your meals are healthy with protein/ non refined carbs to keep you full till the next meal. In between, plenty of water and Herbal teas - boring I know, but it does work. As does cleaning your teeth after your evening meal to stop you evening snacking.

Rice cakes with dark chocolate coating
Alpen Lite Bars
Skinny Whips
Space Raiders
Tomato Snaps
Proper Corn popcorn
Sugar Free Jelly
Pink and White wafers
Mallow and Marsh Bars
Rice cakes and corn cakes
Choc shot
Tinned fruit in juice
PBFit peanut butter powder

We've got fruit in the fruit bowl. That's about it for healthy snacks

Wasabi peas. Well, they seem a lot healthier than most of my other snacks.

Snacking is bad even for your teeth you know.
I have nuts, cheese, olive, salami, yogurt, cucumber, tomatoes, pickles some fruits, rarely crisps and chocolate.

Ryvita with laughing cow cheese triangle and vegemite for when I need the crunch factor, or laughing cow wrapped in slice of ham when properly hungry. Really hits the spot.

Sweet chilli rice crackers
Skinny whip bars (mint or strawberry)
Fibre one bars (chocolate or carrot cake is my favourite- microwave for about 30 seconds to make it like a gooey desert)

Apart from those I have cheese sticks, laughing cow light triangles, raw carrots, fruit, baby cucumbers, humous and celery.

I have ryvita rye and various toppings for it in a fridge.
Quark and egg (or just eggwhite) with salt, pepper and herbs. Or sauerkraut with salami slice. Tzaziky. Quark and slices of tomato. And so on.

Most my snacks are yogurt and fruit. Strawberries, blueberries, sour cherries, apple and cinnamon, apple and rhubarb, grapefruit, pear....

Hummus and veg.

When I git some snacks before marked as diet ones, they just never satisfied me. This does. Small portion and I am fine till main meal.

Sugar snap peas, carrots

And remembering that I've never heard of anyone without a major medical problem dying of hunger between decent meals

I love a snack but honestly you need to cut them out due to impact on insulin. Eat lunch and dinner, drink she’d loads of water-see scales go down. If only I followed my own advice. Miso soup is good.

Just to agree that I wish I had understood the effect of insulin on my weightloss endeavours in my 40s. So much effort, so little success. Every snack raises insulin. Insulin inhibits weightloss. You can't appreciate this fact until you research it for yourself (Dr Jason Fung, Gin Stevens etc) and give your body a 2-3 week trial of no snacks. Then you are a convert.

@longcoffeebreak

And remembering that I've never heard of anyone without a major medical problem dying of hunger between decent meals

It depends on a type of snack. Grazing is an issue. A snack of size of the mela is an issue. However, if you have 7 or 8 hours between meals it may actually work to have something very small in the middle. It certainly stopped me from eating out of allocated times. Still really hungry for dinner. It also depends on size of lunch.

Seriously hate the sneering about snack no matter what it is

@SchrodingersImmigrant
I'm not sneering, but trying to eat cake type things or whatever between meals when trying to lose weight is likely to just set up a craving for more. Unless you are actually hungry or there is a big gap between meals it's perhaps better and more helpful in the long term to try and look at why you are craving.

Many people with weight issues are not eating for hunger, so if you just try and replace cake with low cal cake it's like an alcoholic drinking low alcohol beer or wine if you ask me. It's only a matter of time before you go back to the hard stuff

@schrodersimmigrant - I think everyone should eat what they want, and if the OP wants carrots and humours or babybel between meals, then fine, that's her choice. But I do believe the concept of a 'diet snack' is a relic of low calorie, low fat diet plans of the 1980s, when dieters didn't feel satiated by their meals. Nowadays we know better and that fat and protein isn't the enemy. If we eat 1, 2 or 3 satisfying meals per day, what reason is there to fit in a snack too?

Oatcakes with nut butter or cheese. Greek yoghurt with fruit or nuts. Stewed Apple with cinnamon from the fridge.

It's not just you. It's just your post was there to quote. Sorry.

It'ss not like an alcoholic. Even if it was though, you are supposed to lower, lower, lower till you are on 1. Going cold turkey is not safe.

However, it is still a habit. Even if it's not physically addictive. It's a habit of eating. Especially for grazers. I used to listen to this "don't snack ever" (or no alcohol, ever. Fuck that...). I didn't last 2 days🤦 I grew up with 5 "meals" it has good logic behind it and I got fat after losing that habit (along eith losing sight of portions).
If you are used to graze, being really hungry, as you will be whether physically or just mentally, will make you snap. Or you will get to the dinner with the "hungry eyes" and plate up and scoff more than you would otherwise.

However, if you have a light lunch, 7.5 hours left to dinner, then let's say grilled grapefruit at 3.30(not as posh as it sounds😁 it's cut grapefruit under oven grill with sprinkle of cinnamon) with few spoons of yogurt, it's good for you, nutritious AND it will stop the "I can't do this hunger" and turn it into "I can do this hunger".

Snacks can absolute work. Grazing absolutely doesn't.

It evolves. You don't eventually need the snack. You amy fo still. No shame
As long as it is accounted for in overall day.

Declaring, not just you, it's all over, NO snacks ever is just not helpful. Declaring no grazing would be though.

Also. Natural snacks. Not overproccessed😁

I understand taht all thsi insulin work, fasting etc works for many, but it does get many to fail because breaking the habit IS bloody hard. People don't realise that often the success lies not in compelte overhall, but in the way to get to the overhall.

You know when you say "7.5 hours until dinner" wouldn't that just be lunch? 7.5 hours is a big (intentional) gap with no meal.

Not if your lunch is just before 12 and dinner just after 7.
I have small breakfast at 8:30, light lunch at between 11:30-12 and then I have dinner 7, 7:15 something like that.

It is a big gap. That's why I said that sometimes a snack is actually beneficial. It's always on all diet threads "no snacking" but no one ever asks first about gaps between meals. Maybe "snack" means culturaly something different to English than me. It just bugged me for a while.

Sorry for the blow up

My sil recently lost 15kg by swapping all her snacks to fruit. She ate lots of fruit inbetween 3 meals. She ate all fruit, including bananas and ate normal healthy meals. She was able to reduce her portions because of snacks. No cutting out carbs or anything else.
So it can work.

It's not healthy but a few measured portions of something like a nice dark chocolate (especially a nutty one!) or cheese really scratches that itch for me, and the fat/protein then keeps me full.

After lots of experimenting what works for me is using most of my calorie allowance on satiating, balanced meals as cutting carbs is what made me want to snack, and snacks like hummus can be a huge calorie hog.

That I said I did used to enjoy cottage cheese or nut butter on an oatcake, crispy chickpeas, hummus/tzatziki and crudites. A single serving of multi pack crisps is not a huge amount of calories. However I can't have just one bag

The general advice is, if you snack on fruit, eat it with a source of fat to prevent a blood sugar spike. It also fills you up in a way that I refuse to believe just eating fruit does. Apple slices with almond butter, banana with some almonds, etc.

Sorry, I realised saying my current snacks of dark choc/cheese as being "not healthy" is incorrect. It is best to not think of foods (generally) as healthy or unhealthy. Especially when it comes to weight loss, where the answer is basically to just not eat "too much" of anything!

The general advice is, if you snack on fruit, eat it with a source of fat to prevent a blood sugar spike.

This wouldn't be an issue for a healthy person, however...😁
Apple is made sooooo much better by a piece of stilton so I agree😂 Or manchego. Or brie. Or comte... I eat "lots" of cheese😂

Tinned fruit is great. I keep it in the fridge. I think it's around 170 calories for the whole tin.

I sometimes have toast with a bit of spread. Around 200 calories.

Smoothies or Vegetable juice. A big glass can be very filling if you sip it.

A sweet potato cut into slices, generous amounts of paprika applied. Oven for 30 minutes. A dollop of cottage cheese goes nice with it. Not the lowest calorie, but very filling.

Nuts in shells is a good one. It takes time to crack the nuts, slowing down your intake. I can't control myself around shelled ones!

If I'm really struggling, I'll sometimes have my meal early (lunch at 10:30/11 - yes seriously!). I'll then have a snack mid afternoon. It works for me and stops me from obsessing about the hungers cues.

I don't really snack. I've lost 2 stone of baby weight over last few months. If I'm hungry I have a drink of water and a cup of tea and just wait till dinner. For me experiencing hunger is a normal response so I don't fight it. Occasionally I'd have a satsuma if it's ages till next meal.

Everyone is different, if you can snack and continue on your weight loss plan that's great, hopefully lots of ideas on here for you