Stop Mindlessly Snacking and Plan Your Meals

While snacks are delicious, it's easy to go overboard, making your fitness goals harder to achieve. Learn how to create a sustainable meal plan.

Many of us struggle to choose the right meal plan. Is it low-carb? Mediterranean or Paleo? Maybe your current plan is to graze on candy and chips all day? While that sounds delicious, it’s not going to help you reach your fitness aspirations. The perfect nutrition plan is the one that you find enjoyable and simple to maintain. Delve into these strategies to help stop mindless snacking and take advantage of planning your meals.

Healthy Meal Plans

From eating clean to intermittent fasting to reducing your carb intake, following a prescribed meal plan takes all the guesswork out of this key component of your lifestyle change. Food should give us that boost of energy that we expect out of our calories, not a sugar crash. The intent is to cut out low-satiety food and make careful choices about your eating habits. Most of us need easy rules to keep on track, and healthy meal plans offer deliberate snacks that keep blood sugar levels stable and kick-start weight loss by keeping you from wanting more food.

Meal Tracker

Snacking can make or break your diet. The right snacks will keep hunger at bay, while the wrong ones can add up to hundreds of extra calories. When you track the food you eat, the results of your excessive snacking become immediately obvious. Depending on your lifestyle, goals, and food preferences, there are a variety of healthy options to choose from. The great news is that these fit meal plans take all the effort out of planning your meals and lead to long-term healthy habits. So stop snacking and start fueling your body.

Planning Ahead

Preparation helps cement healthy habits, so you never feel hungry enough to mindlessly grab that snack-sized bag of chips. Think about times when snacking is challenging for you, like a stressful situation, then plan ahead to deal with it by having healthy snacks around. It’s an excellent idea to clean out those not-so-healthy foods from the pantry, your drawer at work, or wherever you stash them.

Cooking Light

When your goal is to improve your overall health, you will see many benefits from eating natural, whole ingredients, and foods that are rich in heart-healthy omega-3. A Mediterranean eating plan is an excellent option for benefits like anti-inflammatory properties, a reduced risk of heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and even some types of cancer. Eating foods like olive oil, fish, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains are said to boost your brain health, mood, and memory. The bonus is that these are high-satiety foods that will keep you feeling fuller for longer, too — thus lowering your desire to mindlessly graze. The same applies to all of Lifesum’s diets to lose weight, why not give one a try?

Portion Control

A traditional approach to dieting focuses on portion control, and this method is quite effective. Enjoy eating your favorite foods regularly, just in smaller portions. This is a marvelous way to encourage your body to adapt to its new healthy habits. Also, research shows that occasional fasting may contribute to a longer life by helping our cells maintain a youthful state.

Grazing on snacks is one of the quickest ways to bust your calorie count for the entire day — especially if you aren’t tracking them. These simple steps will help you to stop mindlessly snacking and lead you to plan healthy, satisfying meals.

All of the content and media on Lifesum is created and published for information purposes only. It is not intended to be used as a substitute for medical advice or treatment. Users should always consult with a doctor or other health care professional for medical advice. If you have or think you are at risk of developing an eating disorder, do not use the Lifesum app and seek immediate medical help.