Six Healthy Snacks that Will Curb Your Cravings
By TLB Contributing Writer: Boris
Whether you’ve chosen a ketogenic diet or simply need to watch your caloric intake, snacking is the most common way that dieters run a caloric surplus.
Much of this issue stems from poor snacking. Small meals throughout the day isn’t anything dangerous—and can help you switch to smaller meals during the day over large dumps of carbohydrates and calories. However, choosing the right snack for the day can make the difference between an effective diet and another week of plateauing on your goal weight.
We’ll need to choose snacks that can keep us full longer and preferably keep us under our carbohydrate goals. For the Keto diet, keeping under fifty carbohydrates is the most commonly-cited number, so we’ll be keeping that in mind for our recommendations.
If you want to ward off hunger pains and keep working towards your goal weight, here are six snacks that will curb your cravings.
1) Nuts
Peanuts, walnuts, and similar foods are often high in monounsaturated fats and low in sugars. This combination makes snacking on nuts, trail mixes, and even peanut butter a healthy and viable alternative to sugary snacks for those working on achieving ketosis.
For peanut butter fans, we also recommend specialty-made low carb peanut butter cookies to get your fix of nuts and sweets without worrying about relapsing on ketosis.
Be careful with nuts, however—as not every nut is the same. For example, a single one hundred gram serving of peanuts will run you up to seventeen grams of carbs. If you’re hoping to keep under fifty grams throughout the day, you’ll need to go easy on the peanuts and make sure you’re supplementing your other snacks with low-carb alternatives.
2) Beef Jerky
Beef jerky and jerky from other meats are delicious alternatives to common snack foods.
The simple process of making beef jerky often means that the only ingredients you’ll find are beef, seasonings, and salt. With that in mind, you’ll be able to eat large quantities of beef jerky without worrying too much about your carbohydrate limit.
Be careful not to overindulge, however, on flavored beef jerky. Variations on classic jerky like Teriyaki will cause you to run far over your daily added sugar limit. Read the nutrition facts of your chosen jerky brand carefully to make sure you’ve kept within limits.
If possible, eat either locally-sourced beef jerky or consider making your own to keep a tight hold over any extraneous ingredients.
3) Bacon
Bacon, much like beef jerky, is a common solution to the issue of snacking. What makes bacon especially popular is its versatility. With many of our other recommended snacks, adding a little bit of bacon can take a basic snack and turn it into its mini-meal.
Bacon is high in fat and low in total carbohydrates, which fits perfectly in line with the requirements of the ketogenic diet. At the same time, the calorie count is low enough to allow a modest amount of bacon per day for most diets.
The only real caveat with bacon comes from the sodium content. While ketogenic diets often don’t have restrictive sodium counts, you’ll need to keep a tight hold on running high above the daily nutritional recommendations for sodium intake.
Be sure to also keep water close by and drink in large quantities to offset the effects of sodium and keep your body from dehydrating.
4) Hard-Boiled Eggs
Eggs are another great snack food that contains a fair amount of fat with almost no carbohydrates. To best facilitate a clean snack that you can take on the go, we recommend going with a hard-boiled egg.
Hard-boiled eggs keep a relatively low caloric count and pair well with bacon and even beef jerky. Their ease of mobility also makes them choice snacks for hikers and travelers. We recommend boiling up to a dozen eggs and using them throughout the week to keep you from giving into hunger cravings.
Like with a few of our other snacks, you can easily run over your calorie count on hard-boiled eggs, which is especially important to manage when attempting to transition to the ketogenic diet and ketosis. Pair eggs with calorie-light snacks on this list for the best results.
5) Dark Chocolate
Although chocolate is often mentioned alongside other sugary treats on a list of foods never to eat on a ketogenic diet, certain types of dark chocolate will provide a welcome dessert after meals.
Unlike other snacks on our list, you’ll need to keep a firm lock on how you source your dark chocolate. Many store-bought variations on this classic treat will run high in sugar and carbohydrate counts. You’ll either want to source your dark chocolate or do your research on the least-sweetened dark chocolate in your area.
Provided you can get your hands on a few bars; dark chocolate is a welcome reward at the end of a long day of stringent dieting. Dark chocolate also helps those who struggle with the loss of added sugars and may provide a good incentive to get through the day without other sugary treats.
6) String Cheese
Finally, string cheese and other cheese snacks work great for Keto dieters on the go.
Cheese is a great source of simple fats without coming with the issue of carbohydrates, and you’ll often find that daily calcium needs can be met with just a few packages of string cheese.
The main issue with string cheese comes from an increase in sodium, so be sure to keep water on hand and count out your level of sodium per day.
As an added bonus, string cheese can be paired with bacon in the morning or hard-boiled eggs during an afternoon hike. The versatility of individually packaged cheese is often what makes it one of the first recommendations for anyone starting out on a Keto diet.
Conclusion
So whichever snack works best for your dietary needs, be sure to plan ahead and have enough on hand to get you through the day. The smarter your snacking, the more reliable your diet will be.
Please leave a comment with your favorites in the section below.
••••
Click on the image below to visit TLB Project on twitter …
Leave a Reply