Rules: If you eat the kind of breakfast we recommend, you probably won’t be hungry all morning and should be fine until lunch. But many people start having problems until sometime after lunch.
The stress, boredom, happiness, etc start setting in for many people by mid afternoon. Ask yourself, “Am I feeling that gnawing hunger feeling in my belly?” If the answer is no, choose to do something else, like have a bottle of water or a cup of coffee or green tea, or get up from your desk and go for a walk while you call a friend or co-worker, or walk up and down a few flights of stairs. If the answer is yes, choose a smart snack.
I recommend one color and one protein. 9 examples of a healthy snack for when you are truly hungry:
- A glass or can of Low Sodium V8 juice (freshen it up with a squeeze of lime, over ice, maybe even with a stalk of celery)
- A handful of nuts (the right serving size for nuts is one handful, but you must be able to close your fist around the nuts)
- Apple with peanut butter (one tablespoon) smeared on the apple slices
- Carrots (half a cup) dipped in hummus
- Grapes (12)
- Cheese stick (2% mozzarella)
- Non-fat, unsweetened Greek yogurt (mix in a few berries)
- Cup of coffee (black counts as a healthy color when its coffee, but not when it's meat burned black!)
- Cup of green tea
Get yourself a special cup (or a few cups). For the women out there, go and buy yourself a special cup from which to drink your coffee and tea. I bought myself a fancy cup with a pretty green and violet floral pattern. When I drink coffee or tea from this cup it seems more extraordinary which makes me feel special and more enthused about making a point to drink at least 2 cups of coffee per day. I have a hard time drinking as much tea as I should, so I take two CardioTabs CardioTea capsules every day.
By the way, this special cup can be helpful to makes as well. Men find a cup that is the right size and shape and maybe has something on it that makes it special to you - maybe your favorite sports team, or a picture of someone you love.
In Good Health,
Joan O'Keefe, RD
Photo Credit: Creative Commons Pixabay