The Secret Of The 100 Calorie Snack

October 3, 2008 · 66 views · Filed Under Diet

The Secret of the 100 Calorie Snack! When it comes to losing weight, there is only one golden rule - you HAVE to eat fewer calories each day than your body burns - then your body burns the fat to make up the difference and you lose weight.Â Sounds easy, right? But unless you have mastered the secret of the 100 calorie snack, the chances are pretty high that you are going to fall off that low calorie wagon pretty quickly…

So - you have decided to lose weight. Let’s ignore the issues of exercise and so on for now, our regular daily goal is to adjust your diet to #1 - get your metabolism firing as strongly as possible and #2 - reduce your calorie intake to as low as sensibly possible. This opens up the biggest possible “calorie gap”, so your body burns as much fat as possible. So what’s that got to do with the 100 calorie snack?

One of the keys to keeping your metabolism firing strongly and steadily is to keep feeding it regularly and in small amounts. For anyone who has ever been in charge of a campfire - if you put too much fuel on, the fire gets smothered. Too little, and it cannot burn for long. But if you keep adding small amounts of fuel regularly, then the fire stays burning steadily. Well - your metabolic fire is just the same! So what does that look like?

First off - make yourself a daily plan. Literally! In this busy world, if you do not have a plan to run the day, then the day will run you and eating will fall by the wayside! So lay out a schedule for your day - when you will eat and what you will eat. And in making this plan - you should aim to eat something about every 3-4 hours - this is where that 100 calorie snack comes in!

Let’s assume 3 main meals in the day, plus 3 snacks - mid morning, mid afternoon and evening. So if you eat 400 calories per meal (that’s about 2 cups of cereal, a sandwich, etc) then that is 1200 calories. Now all you need then is to pick a healthy, low calorie food for your snacks - but this is where many people (me included!) fall down!! Picking a 100 calorie snack is not necessarily what you think it is!

Take nuts for example - uncooked, unsalted, high protein healthy nuts. Did you realise that just one bag could contain over 500 calories?? That’s more than breakfast!! Or a bag of chips - even healthy chips are 120 calories or more. I’m not saying you cannot eat these things as snacks, but you need to understand where your calories are coming from in the day!

The average adult needs around 2,000 calories to stay at the same weight. More if they are exercising vigorously. To lose weight, you need to reduce that calorie intake so your body burns fat. To lose a couple of pounds per week, you should aim to cut your calorie intake to about 1,500 calories per day - your results will vary, but this is a good rule of thumb to start with. So if we have about 400 calories per meal, that makes 1,200 calories for the day, leaving room for three 100 calorie snacks.

So here’s my “top ten” 100 calorie snack ideas - there are lots more, but this should get you started:

One apple, raw with skin
Either six saltine crackers or two graham cracker squares with 2 teaspoons of peanut or other nut butter.
Spoon 3 tablespoons of non-fat sour cream over a small baked potato.
1/2 cup of applesauce and 1 piece of toast cut into four sticks for dunking.
25-30 grapes
One hard boiled egg
One 1/2 cup of fat-free ice cream
A half sandwich made of 1 slice reduced-calorie bread, a thin layer of mustard, 2 teaspoons of apple sauce and 1 slice of deli-style thin-sliced turkey
An 8 oz. low-fat yogurt or a small container of low-fat pudding
A cup of coffee and a small biscotti

Experiment with flavours and you will be amazed and how many 100 calorie snack ideas you can come up with! Remember, dieting doesn’t mean depriving yourself - it just means being smart about what and when you eat!

Having lost 50lbs himself, Gary is keen to share his secrets with as many people as will listen, so that they can do the same! Get your copy of Strip That Fat here.

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