Fitness,  Health,  Recipes

Crunchy Snacking – the quest for a healthy diet

 

Alright, lets talk about snacking. As stated on my previous health post, when transitioning your lifestyle, it’s important to pick a starting point. If not, it’s quite possible, you will get overwhelmed with trying to change everything at once and quit. If you’re wanting to start with changing up the way you eat, this post is especially for you. I’ll link a few other posts within this one that not only gives you snacking tips but ideas for healthy meals as well. Healthy Breakfast Ideas and Healthy Lunch Ideas

Snacking is my favoritteeeeee meal of the day! Seriously, a little treat here and there never hurt anyone, especially when approached the right way. I learned this the hard way in the past and I want to help y’all along your journey and not experience the same fails that I did. It’s really important when you want to loose weight, get fit or just become a healthy eater, that you don’t skip meals. Skipping meals slows down your metabolism which can cause you to not only come to a stand still with your weight loss but also cause you to make poor choices made out of hunger.

A great way that I’ve found to cut the flab is to replace two of your meals with protein smoothies and eat crunchy snacks in between meals. Some of my favorite crunchy snacks are; gauc with chips, apples, and Square Organics bars. These choices have become ones that I always lean towards when I eat a snack between meals.

I LOVE a good apple like a Red Delicious or Gala. I always make sure I buy organic apples because the wax coating that’s on non organic apples tastes disgusting and has lots of toxic chemicals. You could enjoy your apple alone or  dip the slices in peanut/almond butter or Greek yogurt depending on if you’re cutting out dairy. I personally love the combo of salty and sweet so I pick the nut butter every time. I also keep apples in my purse because I never know when I want a snack or the kids exclaim how hungry they are.

Chips and dip are my ultimate weakness, my dream world consists of a place where I am served hot chips with cheese dip on the reg. I recently decided to cut diary out of my diet since it is making me break out so until that world appears, I have found alternatives. Guacamole is SO good for you and so delicious. I always keep a container of the Hope Foods Guac and their spicy avocado hummus in my fridge to use in meals and eat with chips as a crunchy snack. Right now, I am crushing on blue corn chips to dip them with. You could eat either of those dips with cucumber slices, bell peppers, carrots or zucchini sticks if you want to skip chips all together.

My last go-to snack are Square Organics bars. They satisfy my sweet tooth and are unbelievably delicious. I keep a big bowl of them on my counter so I can grab one when I’m craving something sweet. These are organic protein bars that are made without inflammatory foods like gluten, dairy, soy and processed sugars. When I have the time, I like to top my smoothie, oatmeal and yogurt bowls with cut up Square Organics bars and enjoy the heaven in my mouth. You can get these from the Square Organics website and use code: littlesouthernwife for 20% off of your purchase.

Other crunchy snacks that I really like are: almonds or walnuts, crispy chickpeas, dehydrated fruits, kale chips and homemade popcorn.

I really hope that I’ve helped give you a better understanding on what crunchy snacking is and how you can incorporate it into your daily food routine. If you have any questions please send me a message! I would love to help you.

And most importantly, stay hydrated! Drinking lots of H20 does wonders to your body. Lately, I have added a drop of Young Living Lemon essential oil to my water. Have you ever tried flavoring your water with essential oils?

P.S. How adorable are these “EAT” signs from Lisset and Company? You can grab them from their website and receive 15% off of your order with code: LSW15 at checkout.