It's day 3...and I'm finally convinced; this diet is less of a "torture" than I initially thought it would be. Breakfast is my favorite meal. I usually get myself a good bowl of fat free yogurt and yummy fresh fruit on top. After a couple of hours....I get restless and need to munch! Not because I'm hungry; but *shrug* ....eating is fun! *laughs*
Here's some of the snacks I've set aside as tidbits for everyone to snack on throughout the day.
- We each have a jar of dried fruit and a mixture of nuts to last us 5 days.
Seems there's barely a nut out there whose health benefits aren't being touted these days. That's because while nuts are relatively high in fat, they're high in unsaturated fats, including omega-3s, and also high in fiber. In recent years numerous studies have linked eating nuts to better heart health and improved cholesterol levels.
What About Calories?Yes, nuts are calorie-dense. But studies show that people who eat nuts actually tend to be thinner than those who don't, perhaps because nuts are so filling that eating them helps you eat less of other foods. But don't go overboard. Aim for 1 to 2 ounces of nuts (1 ounce is about 7 shelled walnuts) as a daily average, and try to eat them instead of other sources of calories, rather than as an addition. (Readers Digest)
- Light yogurt with canned fruit in natural fruit juice.
Calcium, the body's most abundant mineral, plays a critical role in bone health, but it does much more than that. Calcium permits cells to divide, regulates muscle contraction and relaxation, keeps the heart beating and the brain working, plays an important role in the movement of protein and nutrients inside cells, helps control blood pressure, and is essential for blood clotting. Calcium also seems to protect against heart attacks and certain types of cancers.Both men and women over age 50 should be eating 1,200 mg of calcium a day. The chart below shows the calcium content of some common foods. (Readers Digest)
Yogurt 1 8-oz. container 400 mg Low-fat milk 1 8-oz. glass 300 mg
Green beans 1 cup 60 mg Orange 1 50 mg
- Cold vegetable sticks and cherry tomatoes for something to munch on. I love these crisp and cold in the fridge.
- Quick Oats with dried fruit and berries. (which everyone is too lazy to make on their own! Haha)
In the lexicon of weight loss, the term "good carbs" refers to complex carbohydrates. These are foods like whole grains, nuts, beans, and seeds that are composed largely of complex sugar molecules that require lots of time and energy to digest into the simple sugars your body needs for fuel.
One of the biggest benefits of foods rich in complex carbs is that they also contain large amounts of fiber. Fiber, in basic terms, is the indigestible parts of plant foods. It is the husk on the grain of wheat, the thin strands in celery, the crunch in the apple, the casings on edible seeds. Fiber protects you from heart disease, cancer, and digestive problems. Depending on the type of fiber (yes, there are more than one!), it lowers cholesterol, helps with weight control, and regulates blood sugar.
Snack on dried fruit every day. Tasty, chewy, satisfying, easy to eat on the go -- and loaded with fiber. Try dried apricots, dates, figs, peaches, pears, and bananas.
(Readers Digest)
- 97% fat free Fruit and snack bars
....honestly; these are probably the worst tasting of all the other snacks we have! *sigh* wish I never bought them. They aren't cheap either! $ 4.50 for 6 bars?! *gasp*
- Light crackers topped with low fat tzatziki and tuna flakes in springwater.
Not only are fish and seafood wonderful, low-fat replacements for higher-fat meats, but they're the best source of omega-3 fatty acids you'll find.You don't have to get fancy; tuna -- even canned -- is perfectly fine. In fact, in one study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, people who ate 8 ounces or more of fish per week -- mostly from canned tuna -- lowered their risk of a having a fatal heart attack by 40 percent over those who didn't eat fish regularly. But buy your tuna packed in water; when you drain oil-packed tuna, you also drain as much as one-quarter of the omega-3 fatty acids; draining water-packed tuna removes just 3 percent. (Readers Digest)