Five Quick and Easy Tips on Becoming a "Healthy Grazer"

It seems that these days everyone is in such a rush that even managing to sit down and eat a meal, let alone a healthy one, feels like a luxury we cannot afford. When we finally do find the time to eat, we end up gorging ourselves on calorie-laden sweets for the instant sugar rush or greasy fast food mystery meats to save time and money.

"Feast or Famine"

This erratic eating has not only terrible consequences on our physical health, but also on our mental helath. By not having a stable and relatively constant flow of food into our stomachs, blood sugar levels plummet and spike unpredictably. This confuses the body's "feast or famine" meter and can cause weight gain, irritability, and poor work performance among other things.

Yet, it is relatively easy to move from the one meal a day program to that of "healthy grazing."

The Concept behind "Healthy Grazing"

Many weight loss experts will warn against grazing, claiming that it promotes a passive intake of calories which can add up to extra pounds around your middle. This is true of unhealthy grazing, but a simple look at the eating habits of the animal kingdom, notably primates, shows that grazing is nature's preferred method. While these animals may spend the majority of their time looking for food and sleeping, we have created a civilization that, for the most part, gives us easy access to food.

However, most of what we qualify as food tends to provide little nutritional benefit. Our natural instinct to eat when food is presented to us, since you never know when the "famine" will strike, leads many of us to overindulge in sweet and fatty foods instead of the fruit and veg that most animals hanging out in trees munch on.

How to Conquer Sporadic Overeating

By understanding the origin of our desire to overeat, it is easier to understand how to conquer the problem. It is necessary to obey your natural instinct to graze while doing so healthfully by indulging in the foods that provide the most benefit for our bodies.

To help you start your healthy grazing habit, follow these ten tips that can quickly help you to regain control over your hunger and, as a result, your moods and waistline.

Quick Tips to Become a "Healthy Grazer"

Use these tips at home and work for a more balanced eating style

1. Keep junk food out of eyesight

While excluding all junk food from your diet would be ideal, it is an unrealistic goal to completely avoid traditional snack foods cold turkey. Instead, keep all sweet and fatty junk foods out of sight, on the highest shelf of your pantry or cabinet. That way, they are there if you want them, but you will have to work to get them and have time to think twice about whether or not you really want to eat that. Soon, you will begin to forget that they are there and automatically start choosing the healthier snacks.

2. Keep fruit and veg on the frontlines

Just as you should keep your unhealthy snacks where you can't see them, you equally need to keep your fruit and veg on the frontlines where they are easily accessible. Making the healthy choice the easy choice by keeping these snacks closest at hand will get you in the habit of making the right choice. Whether in your fridge or simply in a bowl on the counter, make fruit and vegetables the first thing you will see when you wander into the kitchen for a snack.

3. Mix carbohydrate with small shots of protein

The best combination for snacks include both carbs and protein. There is a danger with overdoing protein sources, so roughly measuring your protein portions is important. For example, cheese or peanut butter are both excellent sources of protein to eat with a fruit, such as an apple. For cheese, either buy precut cubes or cut blocks into cubes after you buy them. The same idea goes for other sources like peanut butter. Keep one 1/2 or 1 Tbsp scoop handy for spooning out peanut butter. Using a knife or a flatware spoon (which are often different sizes depending on their style) can lead to too large portions. Establish a set quantity, such as two or three small cubes per piece of fruit so that you know your limits. If you want more cheese, you have to eat more apples. The fibre in your fruit source will fill you up physically and the protein will keep you full.

4. Make your grain snacks whole wheat and/or multigrain

While we all know the poor reputation that grain carbohydrate has (as opposed to fruit and vegetable carbs), whole grains do provide us with many nutritional benefits. If you are not about to deny yourself the pleasures of bread or pasta, choosing whole wheat and/or multigrain snacks are much better at keeping you full and content than white breads and pasta. A good example of a snack that will keep you full and includes both whole wheat carbs and protein is a whole wheat snack-sized pocket pita filled with a tablespoon of labneh (Lebanese yoghurt-cheese). A couple of these with some vegetable sticks would make for an excellent heavier snack-meal.

5. Eat every two to three hours

While making sure you eat things that are filling with fibre and protein, you also need to make sure when trying to graze healthfully that you remember to eat! It may seem obvious, but many people will find that they aren't as hungry as they normally would be and feel good about not "having" to eat. This is a mistake because your blood sugar will drop and you will just end up feeling starved, resulting in overeating. A good rule of thumb is to make sure to have a little something to eat every two to three hours. Whether it is just half a kiwi or a more substantial snack like the above pita and labneh mini-meal, making sure that your body has a constant supply of energy is the key to staving off hunger and becoming a successful grazer.

Overall, the key to healthy grazing is to maintain your blood sugar levels by eating fibrous and protein-filled snacks every few hours. Keep these healthy snacks easily accessible to ensure success. As your body becomes more balanced and regulated, you will find your stress levels decreased and weight loss made much easier.

Happy grazing!