Eat. Nourish. Glow. by Amelia Freer

Author:Amelia Freer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2014-11-09T16:00:00+00:00

How to go snack free

I don’t advise clients to go cold turkey with snacks. It’s essential to get a few things in place first to make the smooth transition. Sometimes I will start by giving clients healthy snacks and once their blood sugar has stabilised, then I begin to remove the snacks and really clean up their diet. Here’s how to do it …

It must start with eating the right meals. Skipping meals or eating processed, high-sugar junk food is like taking away the scaffolding too soon. With the best will in the world, it’s not laying down the right foundations to make this change. You won’t be able to do it if you eat too little at mealtimes – if you just have sugar or carbs at breakfast, you won’t be able to last without snacking until lunchtime – this means a green juice as much as it means Special K. You need fat and protein with your breakfast as well as vegetables and a portion of fruit. I’m not meaning to overeat until you are stuffed, but a proper breakfast. Every meal should be made up of these three things – fat, protein and plants. A meal purely consisting of refined carbohydrates, like a bowl of pasta, will cause havoc with your blood sugar levels and leave you hungry (most likely for sugar) an hour later and make giving up snacking near impossible. Don’t go fat free either – if you are having salad for lunch or dinner you need some good fat such as avocado or seeds with it (along with protein of course). If you eat the right thing at mealtimes your blood sugar levels will remain steady several hours after eating.

Start slowly. It’s very hard to stop all snacks straight away unless your diet is very good. If a new client comes to see me and they are eating cereal for breakfast and a sandwich for lunch, followed by a pasta or rice dish for dinner, I work on their meals first and worry about cutting out snacks later. Clients – and readers – like this are far better off eating little and often until they improve their meals. Only then should they attempt to give up snacking.

Before you snack, ask yourself why you are doing it. This goes back to the core of this book – mindfulness. Being mindful and ask yourself if you are really hungry and need that snack or if you are simply eating to suppress and avoid another emotion.

Don’t be scared of feeling hungry. I’m not advocating feeling faint and starving, of course not, this is equally detrimental to our health, but being a little hungry and ready for your meals is not a bad thing. It’s merely our minds that are uncomfortable with this state. I never go hungry, but I’m not scared of feeling the first gentle pang of hunger either. It’s very normal now to be unaware of what genuine hunger even feels like because we have got so used to the state of being completely full, most of the time.

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