Category Archives: Healthy Snacks
Healthy Low-Cal Snacks & Snacking Tips
The Healthy Salty Snack You Can Afford to Eat
If you’re like me, and crave salty snacks, then you are always happy to discover something healthy to feed your craving. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of salty healthy snacks available beside popcorn, so imagine my sheer joy the first time I tried edamame (boiled or steamed soy beans in the pod).
My first edamame experience was at a local asian restaurant, Bangkok. After they came out, I remember thinking “what do I do with that? Do I eat the whole thing or am I supposed to pop the beans out?” Yes, Steve and I were edamame tards. After gnawing on the whole thing for a bit, shell and all, it didn’t take long to discover the stiff stems were not very chewable. We quickly figured it out and they became a part of our regular diet.
They are easy to cook too. I buy the bag of frozen edamame and steam them (which can be done traditionally or in a microwave oven for 5 minutes). Then I sprinkle soy sauce, and/or salt, on them and begin snacking!! Today I cooked them and then threw them in my cooler for the beach. They were an awesome cold snack too.
The greatest part of this salty wonder is they are truly healthy. Most people are just happy to find snacks that are just “not unhealthy”, but edamame is as healthy as it is tasty. Half a bag of edamame is only 150 calories – and a very equal balance of calories I might add! 12.5gms of protein, 6gms of fat, 11gms of carbohydrates and 5gms of fiber. Look at the graph to the left. You can see that edamame gets 31-36% of the calories from each substrate.
Another thing I like about edamame in the shell, is it takes work to get the bean out. Not that it is a big job, because it’s not a bother at all. However, it slows down how fast we typically eat snacks. I enjoy the taste more and the entire snack takes longer to eat than many other similar snacks. Any snack that can slow us down from inhaling it is a good snack!
So, instead of reaching for a bag of chips, next time you are craving something salty to snack on, go steam up some beans!
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6 Tips to Combat Diet Sabotage
How to Destroy a Diet in 2 Hours: So, you are dieting and you do good aaaaaaall day long, only to blow every salad, protein shake and healthy snack down the drain in the last 2 hours of the day. Sound familiar?
Sip-n-Chip
Why is it we feel the need to snack at night? Will our life really come unraveled if we don’t have a grip on a chip and a drink to sip? Honestly, Steve and I are amazed how much of a struggle this is – and I believe it destroys a lot of very healthy diets.
I eat squeaky clean all day long, only to blow it with popcorn, pretzels or nuts. I always have good intensions, but I always eat more than I should in the end. Could it be worse? Sure it could, but is it preventing me from getting rid of that last bit of fat? Of course it is!
Here are some of the lies we feed ourselves so we can feed ourselves.
LIES:
1. I’ve eaten so good today, I can afford it.
2. At least they are healthy snacks.
3. It’s probably not that many calories.
4. I’ll just have a few.
5. I can run it off in the morning.
TRUTH:
1. You’ve eaten so good today, that’s exactly why you should skip it! Protect your hard work!
2. You can get fat on healthy foods too. Extra calories are extra calories.
3. It’s probably a lot more calories than you want to admit.
4. You never have just a few. You will have “just a little more” and “just a little more” until you’ve eaten too much or you’ve eaten the entire thing!
5. If you are trying to lose weight, you should be running off stuff you’ve already eaten, not more stuff.
6 TIPS TO COMBAT LATE-NIGHT SABOTAGE
1. Plan to be disciplines. Decide BEFORE you get a snack-attack what you can and can’t eat.
2. Avoid alcohol, because not only is that MORE calories but it makes you stupid! The relaxation you feel from a glass of wine is just enough to make you “relaxed” about your diet – and before you know it, you want some cheese with that wine.
3. Stick to prepackaged foods if you have a problem with stopping, like 100 calorie popcorn or jello pudding.
4. Make room for 200 calories of snacks at night so you don’t completely deprive yourself. When you countcalories, you are much more in tune with your body and your food choices. Be creative – try something new like sliced cucumbers with vinegar, salt & pepper or sliced strawberries over a cup of frozen fat free Cool Whip. The thinner the slices, the longer the snack lasts.
5. Have a protein shake. If you are craving sweets, a protein shake can be tasty and super satisfying – plus it helps muscle repair overnight. I like Designer Whey protein powder because it tastes great and is low in calories.
6. Just say no to snacks and yes to your goals. It wouldn’t kill you to just sip on water instead. Sometimes it’s best to not even start snacking – because you may not stop!
Cool Cucumber Salad, by McCormick:
2 cups thinly sliced cucumbers (4 small or 2 large cucumbers)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup thinly sliced red onion
1/4 cup vinegar
1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon sugar (STEVIA)
1/2 teaspoon McCormick® Dill Weed
1/4 teaspoon McCormick® Black Pepper, Coarse Ground
Pinch McCormick® Red Pepper, Ground
See full recipe & instructions.
Bonnie’s Strawberries Parfait:
1/2 Cup Frozen Fat Free Cool Whip
6 Thinly sliced strawberries
1 Tablespoon of Grape-Nuts
The frozen cool whip has texture more like ice cream. The thinner the slices of strawberry, the more bites you get. Grape-Nuts just add a bit of crunch to it!! Trade the cool whip for vanilla greek yogurt for more protein and nutrients. Totally yummy!
PHOTOS:
Snacking Photo: Source
Pinocchio Photo: Source
Strawberries Photo: Source
Cucumber Photo: Source
Pretzel Photo: Source
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PROTEIN SNACK: NatCat’s Protein Balls
If you are like me, you are always looking for a new healthy high-protein treat. So, after my shout out on twitter, I got some twitterific recipes which I’ll be sharing periodically right here!
Meet Natalie Christman
Natalie is a fitness instructor, hair stylist, licensed massage therapist, music, dance, art, wife, sister, family and motivator.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NatcatChristman
Website: http://beachbodycoach.com/esuite/home/natcat
Natalie’s Protein Balls Recipe:
8tblsp- PB2
3tblsp- natural peanut butter
1/2c- Chocolate Protein
3tblsp- honey
1/2c- oats
Mix ingredients. If too sticky add a little more protein powder until dry and clumpy. Roll into ping pong sized balls and place on wax paper. Freeze until firm.
Thanks NatCat!!
I am SO trying these!!
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Sodium Alert: Chips vs Jerky
To jerk or not to jerk, PART 2: You Won’t Eat Jerky but you’ll eat Chips?
This blog is about helping my fellow salty snack lovers find a solution to their snacky habits, as well as answer your questions (and I have gotten a lot of questions about sodium). EVERYONE is ALWAYS asking me what to eat – so I’m telling ya.
To follow up on my PerkyJerky review, I decided to continue researching sodium content. I compared 1 oz. of PerkyJerky to 1 oz. Baked Doritos. Results were really cool so I thought I’d share them with you! NOTE: I am not even using the highest fat, highest sodium, highest calorie snack to compare PerkyJerky too …because that’s how I roll.
1. Less Sodium: Baked Doritos had 230mg of sodium. PerkyJerky only had 110mg. (PS: All jerky is not created equal. Jack Links has 480mg per serving)
2. Less Calories: Chips had 120 calories. PerkyJerky had only 50 calories! So all the taste and NO guilt!
3. More Protein: This goes without saying, but felt I should rub this in too. The chips had a measly 2gms of protein compared to 9gms in the jerky.
4. Less Carbs. Another no-brainer, but it still should be mentioned - PerkyJerky only has 2gms of carbohydrates versus 21gms of carbs in the chips.
5. Less Fat: Even though the Baked! chips are low fat, they still had 3.5gms of fat in them compared to PerkyJerky’s big fat NADA, ZILCH, ZIP, ZERO grams of fat.
Share YOUR favorite salty snacks with me (below)!
You can find PerkyJerky at 7 Eleven, Home Depot, Target, GNC, Publix…and Best Buy (odd one, but OK). 
Use their store locator to find PerkyJerky near you.
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50 Calorie Snacks: MORE Bites, LESS Calories
After a fantastic morning run with my BFF, Kristie, we started gabbing about our diets. She said “it seems like any bite you take you can just count on it being about 50 calories”. That not only cracked me up, hearing her say that in such a matter of fact way – like “that’s just the way it is” but it was SO true!
So often we think “I’ll have just one bite” or we have a bite or two while we cook and not even think twice about it. After doing the math, I realized that someone on a 1200 calorie diet is only allowed to have 24 BITES a DAY if they are not controlling the calories in each bite. This means, if you are just eating the same food but trying to eat less of it, you literally are going to eat LESS! OR you can rethink each bite so you can have MORE bites. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have MORE bites with LESS calories than MORE calories and LESS bites!
So, I did a little research for ya to see exactly how each bite we take adds up – and how we can get more bites for the same amount of calories. ENJOY!
50 CALORIE BITES
1 bite of Starbucks Blueberry Scone
1 bite of a Burger King Whopper
1 bite of 1 TGI Fridays Mozzerella Stick with Sauce
1 bite of a Subway White Macadamia Nut Cookie
1 bite of Boston Market meatloaf
1 bite of Cupcake Royale Red Velvet Cupcake
1 bite of Arby’s Pecan Sticky Bun
1 bite of a Snicker’s Bar
1 bite of a KFC Honey BBQ Wing
1 bite of an Avocado
1 bite of Banana with Peanut Butter
1 bite of Cheddar Cheese
OR you can have…
50 CALORIE LOTS-OF-BITES
1. 1 Whole 3.5oz Green Apple
2. 20 Pepperidge Farms Cheddar or Pizza Flavored Gold Fish
3. 7 Sliced Large Strawberries with 2 tablespoons of Fat Free Cool Whip
4. 1 Diet Rootbeer Float with 1/4 cup light ice cream
5. 1/2 a bag of 100 Calorie Popcorn with Butter Spray
6. 43 H.K. Anderson Ultrathin Pretzel Stix
7. 14 Watermelon Balls
8. 2 Cups of Publix Classic Salad Mix with 1/2 teaspoon of Honey Roasted Sliced Almonds & Roland Balsamic Vinegar
9. 2 tps of Whipped Peanut Butter on a whole Celery Stick
10. 1 Publix Fudge Pop
11. 14 Frozen Grapes
12. 10 Teddy Graham Cookies
13. 1 Chips Ahoy Reduced Fat Chocolate Chip Cookie
14. 10 Celery Sticks with 2 tablespoon Athenos Roasted Red Pepper Hummus
15. 1 Cup of Coffee with flavored creamer
16. 1 Cup Steamed Asparagus or Broccoli
17. 7 Special K Crackers with 1 tablespoon of Cedar’s Fresh Taboule Salad at Publix
18. 1/2 banana sliced with cinnamon, drizzle of sugar-free maple syrup & 1 tsp cool whip
19. 1 small slice of Angel Food Cake
20. 1/2 Glass of Merlot
Maintaining your weight is about eating smart – but that requires a little knowledge. NO, you don’t have to go to Nutrition school to gain that knowledge. All you have to do is know how to look it up on Google! Gain freedom in knowledge and ENJOY eating without the extra pounds of fat and tight jeans!!
Like I always say “EAT what you KNOW, KNOW what you EAT“.
Disclaimer: Of course the calories are approximate depending on how big your mouth is! ha!! If I based it on Steve‘s “bites”, you could triple these numbers!! hahaha Hope you enjoyed my blog!
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