how to deal with snacking

Let’s speedrun how to deal with snacking today.

First of all there’s nothing wrong with snacking. Snacking is merely eating a smaller portion of food compared to your meals in between your meal timings. There’s nothing good or bad about it. Some people need a snack to help them along with their day, some don’t and only eat during their main meals. Either isn’t better or worse for weight loss or health. They’re just preferences.

“How do I stop snacking, I stack too much.” is a question I get on a daily basis.

Quick answer is you don’t. You don’t need to stop snacking to reach your goals. Of course you gotta look into your current progress too right? As in if you’re snacking regularly but still losing weight and making progress towards your goals over time, you have nothing to worry about. Just keep doing what you’re doing cos it’s obviously working.

Stop treating snacking like some kind of taboo.

It isn’t at all. Far from it.

But on the other hand if you’re having trouble making progress towards your goals, snacking isn’t the first thing you wanna look at either but you wanna review your diet as a whole first. When dealing with weight loss you gotta look at your diet as a whole and not place blame on any one type of food, meal or snack you’re eating cos it’s everything combined that counts.

An example would be say you’re slightly overeating but have a snacking habit, you could always eat less during your meals but have your snacks stay the same. That way the overall amount of food you’re eating is still less. On the other hand lets say you just get an uncontrollable urge to snack all the time perhaps you wanna look at minimizing snacking by maximizing your meals, cos if you’re eating too little for your meals it may be the cause for you to have higher levels of hunger and cravings to deal with.

The whole deal with snacks, meals for weight loss is really just a balancing act. It’s not about avoiding anything but figuring out a schedule/system that works for you. Say you deal with late night snacking and find it hard to quit, well 1 way of dealing with it would be saving 200-300kcal throughout the day so you can snack late at night and still be on point with your goals. Or you could push your dinner back a little later and eat a bigger dinner so you feel fuller throughout the night and the urge to snack becomes a lot more controllable.

Losing weight is all about eating less than your body expends consistently. It’s about being in a consistent calorie deficit. You can achieve a calorie deficit by any kind of meal or snack schedule you prefer, there’s no right or wrong way as long as it helps you stay on track.

Using an example of say 1500kcal. Having 2 meals a day and zero snacking of 750kcal a meal is 1500kcal. Having 3 meals a day of 400kcal and 3 snacks of 100kcal throughout the day is also 1500kcal in total. Skipping breakfast, eating a small lunch (300kcal), big dinner (1000kcal), and late night snack (200kcal) is still 1500kcal.

At the end of the day, it comes down to lifestyle, preferences, and portions.

Snacking isn’t something bad, it’s not something you gotta get rid of, it’s just something you gotta be aware of, account for, and plan.

Hope you’ve been well!

Till the next one~

—Po