Column 4, February 2008

Back-to-work nutrition, Part 2 – Snacks

Snacking gets some pretty bad publicity from time to time, but as an athlete who trains on a daily basis, and often twice a day, I personally couldn’t keep up the required nutrient levels to sustain these sessions if I didn’t snack.

It really comes down to why you snack, what you snack on and the quantity of food you consume.

Why do we snack?

Do you snack when you’re hungry? Or do you eat because society says it’s ‘time’ to? Are emotions or fatigue deciding what and when you eat? Do you miss meals, or allow yourself to become ravenous, then grab the most convenient options? Have you got stuck in a particular habit, like eating whilst studying, buying a muffin from the snack box every morning, or a chocolate bar and energy drink from the vendor mid afternoon?

All of these scenarios show a problem with your snacking behaviour.

Use your common sense and try and pick the healthy reasons to snack from the options below. Can you identify the reasons YOU snack?

Stress

Tiredness

I’ve just finished an intense hour long workout

Physical hunger

Procrastination

10am, morning tea time

Upset

Relaxation, eg. I’ve just arrived home from a hard days work

It looks yummy

I have to train at intensity in a few hours and haven’t eaten for a while

Boredom

I would hope most of you choose 4. as a healthy reason to snack. If we are physically hungry, we need to eat!. I am amazed however, at the number of us who feel our body is trying to make us fat! We continue to starve until it’s “time” to eat, but then in our ravenous state we over consume, and go for more calorie laden foods.

Trust what your body is telling you, rather than what your emotions or head are saying. If you eat in this way, you will tend to find your cravings reduce as well.

3. and 8. are two instances when it is advantages to have a snack even if we do not feel physically hungry. This ensures our muscles’ energy reserves are primed, or replaced for the following session. This is especially important for those training on a daily basis.

Eat/snack immediately after a hard training session of 60mins+, and make sure you have had a reasonable meal/snack within 3 hours before a 60min+ hard training session.

What should I snack on?

Low fat creamed rice with a handful of chopped nuts

Pretzels and salsa dip

Baby carrots with hummus

Multigrain corn thins or other high fibre, low fat (<5%) crackers with

pesto, tomato and feta

Low fat yoghurt

High fibre cereal & milk

Instant Bircher Muesli (eg. Vogels) – just add water

Fresh fruit or fruit pottles/cans in unsweetened juice

Pikelets with low fat ricotta and low sugar jam

Muesli bar/fruit & nut bar with less than 2% saturated fat

Snack sized wholemeal pitas stuffed with salad leaves, lean deli chicken and Cranberry sauce

Smoothies made with low fat milk/soy milk/yoghurt and fruit

How much should I have?

The size or calorie value of your snack depends on your size, age, sex and exercise level. An “average” woman exercising 4 times a week for an hour may require around 2250 calories (9450kj) a day, in which she may include 6 “mini meals” of 375 calories each, or 3 meals of 500 calories and 3 snacks of 250 calories. It’s really up to you.

Obviously the more exercise you do, and the more muscle you have, the greater the dietary calories required. Start reading labels closely and you will get a better feel for quantities.

Some healthy snacking tips:

Focus on your food when you snack, and sit down to eat. This way you become more aware of what and how much you’re eating. Avoid working at your desk, reading the business section of the paper…
If you’re a student who nibbles while studying, remove yourself from home and study at the library, or in a classroom far away from the kitchen cupboard.
Keep healthy food on hand so you’re not limited by the options available (ie. the vending machine, service station…). Store snacks in your car, briefcase, the fridge at work…
Incorporate foods you love in small amounts so you minimise the tendency to binge on these things. Buy in small portions and keep where you don’t see them. Eg. individually wrapped bite sized dark chocolate, kids packs of chips…
If you’re finding it hard to break the non-hunger nibbling, grab a very low cal snack like raw chopped vegetables, strawberries, rockmelon, passionfruit…
Drink plenty of water, as we can mistake thirst for hunger
Go for low Glycaemic Index (GI) options where possible, and add small amounts of lean protein (eg tuna, ricotta, turkey…) and a ‘dollop’ of healthy fats (peanut butter, avocado, pesto…) for a more sustaining snack.
Identify the emotional triggers to your snacking, and come up with ideas to counteract these that don’t involve food.
Avoid regularly consuming high sugar drinks. This includes fruit juice, as it is still laden with ‘naturally containing’ sugar, but devoid of the fibre you would get from consuming the whole fruit, and thus an easy way to overload on calories without any hunger-breaking effect.

So snack when you’re hungry. Snack to fuel for a workout, and snack to replace what exercise has depleted. Enjoy and savour your food. And I’ll see you in the same place next month!

Marnie Oberer