Did you know that 100% of people polled say they like potato chips?
Ok, that’s not actually a fact. But it’s got to be pretty close to fact. I mean, when was the last time you heard someone say: “sorry, I don’t like chips”. The answer is never.
At their best, a healthy snack can be a well-balanced mini meal. At their worst, a snack can be a full-blown kids birthday party complete with pizza, cupcakes and chips before dinner ever rolls around.
But only if we let it.
Great snacking is 20% self-control and 80% advanced planning.
To be a great at healthy snacking, most of your time should go into figuring out what your snack will be and getting that snack set up.
Only a little bit of your time should be using your will power to stay away from more than just that snack.
THE TRICK TO HEALTHY SNACKING
Here’s the most reliable trick I’ve ever learned to get snacking under control:
Only keep single servings around.
Actual individual single serving packages.
Go to the store once a day if you have to and buy a single snack size of whatever you’re going to treat yourself with for the day.
Don’t buy 4 of them. Buy 1 of them.
That single serving is your snack for the day. Period.
That means no more family packs, or variety packs of lunch bag singles. Definitely no more buying in bulk, and absolutely no more stocking up during a sale.
Saving $1.57 on a second bag of chips when you buy in bulk is NOT worth the 4 extra pounds you might gain from eating all of them this week.
Your health is worth more than $1.57 in potato chip savings.
Nothing gets kept on hand in the house. All that’s done.
The idea here is no different from checking the nutrition facts label for serving sizes.
When you know how many cookies are in a serving, then you take out the 3 cookies that fit the serving size, and put the rest of the package away for another day.
Use this guide to help keep your portions in check using a nutrition facts label, if you just got a little lost with the whole portions and nutrition facts label talk.
But putting the rest of the pack away for later is not an easy thing to do. It comes right back to that whole portion control thing.
Because “later” is such a very flexible idea and it can trick us into doing things we know we shouldn’t.
5 seconds from now will be later. It just won’t be a better time to have another serving of ice cream.
That’s why single servings work.
It’s way easier to control your will power when you only have 1 pack of cookies with a pre-determined number of cookies, around you in the first place. You can let your self-control run wild with the cookies in that one pack.
Eat, every, single, one. Clean out that package and feel good about every bite.
Why? Because once they’re gone, they’re gone.
If you want a few more cookies that means you have to up, get dressed, go all the way to the store and spend more money. Suddenly the 4 cookies in that one pack starts looking like the best way to play it.
Planning for your snacks with single servings will save you a whole lot of regret. Because once the marathon session of that show you’ve been binge watching kicks in, remembering how many chips you ate 2 hours ago will be the last thing on your mind.
Make your life easier by planning ahead. You’ll always make better snacking choices and you’ll never lose track of what you ate again.