Eat Out Eat Well

snacks

Do You Eat Chips and Cookies Straight from the Package?

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Pile of potato chipsIt shouldn’t come as a surprise that the size of the package your food comes in influences how much you’ll eat. The larger the package, the more you tend to eat from it.

And, if you’re eating from the bag while you watch TV or work on the computer, it’s likely that as you mindlessly move your hand from bag to mouth you don’t realize how much you’re eating or whether you’re full of not.  So you probably just keep eating until you get to the bottom of the bag – and then eat all of the crumbs, too.

  • It’s easier to stay away from chips and cookies if the bag isn’t in your line of sight – out of sight, out of mind.
  • If you do buy jumbo size packages because they’re cheaper, put the excess somewhere inconvenient so you’ll have to work to get at it –like the basement, garage, or a high shelf that you need a stepstool to access. If you have to work to get the food it might take some of the desire out of it.
  • Don’t eat straight from the package.  Divide up the contents of one large package into several smaller portions. Put your portion in a bowl, on a plate, or even on a napkin. Count out your chips, crackers, and pretzels or only eat from a single portion size bag.
  • Who can stop when there’s an open bag of salty, crunchy food right in front of you? It’s amazingly easy to just keep until the bag is empty. A dive to the bottom of a 9 ounce bag of chips (without dip) is 1,260 calories. One serving, about 15 chips, is 140 calories.
  • And, leave the broken pieces of cookies or chips in the bag.  Remarkably, pieces of cookies and broken chips have calories, too!

How Many Calories Are In Different Kinds Of Nuts?

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Hazel nuts and filbert texture or background. CG render

Nuts are full of healthy fats and protein.  They’re a great snack and can help tide you over until your next meal — but they’re also a high calorie food.

Be careful of portions — a serving size of most nuts is one ounce.

For a one ounce serving:

  • 49 shelled pistachios, 162 calories
  • 23 almonds, 169 calories
  • 21 hazelnuts, 183 calories
  • 18 cashews, 163 calories
  • 19 pecans, 201 calories
  • 14 English walnut halves, 185 calories
  • 10-12 macadamias, 203 calories
  • 39 peanuts (technically a legume), dry roasted, 170 calories

Vending Machines: What Are Your Favorite Letter/Number Combinations?

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vending-machine-graphicSooner or later you’ll have your next sharing moment with a vending machine – you share your money and the machine shares its calories.

Vending machines are everywhere – down the hall from your office or around the corner from your hotel room, in hospital waiting rooms, in train stations, and calling your name on road trips. They call your name when you’re especially vulnerable – when you’re stressed, tired, bored, anxious, and your blood sugar is traveling south – all of which means the sugar, fat, and salt junk food allure is really hard to overcome.

When a vending machine calls your name, choose wisely.  There are good, better, and best choices to be made.  You can almost always find packages of nuts, popcorn, pretzels, or dried fruit along with the packaged sweet or crunchy calories.

Be careful of choices with too much sugar, especially if you’re driving.  A big time sugar hit may give you quick energy but more than likely it will be followed by a drop in your blood sugar levels that could possibly make you sleepy, grouchy, unfocused, and hungry for more sweet and fatty food.

No Choice Is Perfect; Make The Best Choice For You

Your choice depends on what you want:  protein or sweet satisfaction; fill-you-up fiber or salty crunch.  Here are some common choices so you can compare calories, fat, carbs, and protein:

Crunchy

  • Baked! Lays Potato Chips (original), 1 package, 130 calories, 2g fat, 26g carbs, 2g Protein
  • Baked Doritos, Nacho Cheese, 1 bag (38.9g):
170 calories, 5g fat, 29g carbs, 3g protein
  • Cheez-It Baked Snack Crackers (Snack Pak):
180 calories, 9g fat, 20g carbs, 4g protein
  • Ruffles Potato Chips, 1 package (1.5 oz):
240 calories, 15g fat, 23g carbs, 3g protein
  • Cheetos, Crunchy, snack size bag (1 oz): 
150 calories, 10g fat, 13g carbs, 2g protein
  • Sun Chips Original, 1 package:
210 calories, 10g fat, 28g carbs, 3g protein
  • Snyder’s of Hanover Mini Pretzels, snack size: 160 calories, 0g fat, 35g carbs, 4g protein
  • White Cheddar Cheese Popcorn, Smartfood, 1 package: 120 calories, 8g fat, 11g carbs, 2g protein

Nuts/Seeds

  • Planters Sunflower Kernels, 1 package (1.75 oz): 290 calories, 25g fat, 9g carbs, 11g protein
  • Planters Salted Peanuts, 49g (1.75oz): 290 calories, 25g fat, 8g carbs, 13g protein

Cookies/Pastry/Bars

  • Mini Chips Ahoy!, snack pack (56g): 270 calories, 13g fat, 38g carbs, 3g protein
  • Frosted Strawberry Pop-Tarts (2 pastries): 
410 calories, 10g fat, 75g carbs, 4g protein
  • Hostess Fruit Pie, apple: 470 calories, 20g fat, 70g carbs, 4g protein
  • Fig Newtons, 1 package: 200 calories, 4g fat, 40g carbs, 2g protein
  • Quaker Chewy Low-Fat Granola Bar, Chocolate Chunk, 1 bar: 
90 calories, 2g fat, 19g carbs, 1g protein
  • Nature Valley Granola Bar, Crunchy Oats and Honey, 2 bars: 190 calories, 6g fat, 29g carbs, 4g protein

Candy


  • Skittles (original), 2.17 oz:
240 calories, 2.5g fat, 56g carbs, 0g protein
  • Twix, 2 cookies:
250 calories, 12g fat, 34g carbs, 2g protein
  • 3 Musketeers, king size:
200 calories, 6g fat, 36g carbs, 1g protein
  • Peanut M&Ms, 1 pack:
250 calories, 13g fat, 30g carbs, 5g protein
  • Snickers, regular size: 250 calories, 12g fat, 33g carbs, 4g protein

Are Your Snacks The Equivalent Of Another Meal?

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eat-snacks-graphicWe chow down on a lot of snack food — a quarter of our calories come from them!

Snacks account for more than 25% of Americans’ daily calorie intake; since the 1970s, snacks have accounted for around 580 calories a day — which basically turns them into “a full eating event,” or a fourth meal.

When And Where Do We Snack?

  • Americans average 2.3 snacks per day, snacking most frequently in the afternoon, evening and late at night.
  • Most people snack at home, 12% say they snack at work, 7% eat snacks while they travel from place to place
  • 27% of Americans snack on impulse, 28% snack because they want a treat, and 14% eat snacks when they’re stressed or anxious
  • 57% of people say it’s important that food and beverage snacks be healthy, the food and beverages mentioned the most were chips and soda.

How Many Calories?

Maybe we snack so much because multi-tasking has increased – think about how often you eat and drink while you’re doing something else.

Between 2006 and 2008, it took around 70 minutes to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Secondary eating, the kind you do while you’re working on the computer, driving, or walking down the street, doubled from 15 minutes in 2006 to nearly 30 minutes a day in 2008.

The time spent on secondary drinking jumped nearly 90% — from 45 to 85 minutes — which explains why beverages account for 50% of the calories we take in through snacking. (Ever wonder why Starbuck’s and Dunkin’ Donuts are so crowded?)

Are All Snacks Bad For You?

No.  Research doesn’t support the idea that snacking is the main cause of obesity; for some people — like young children and older adults – snacks can be an important source of nutrients and calories.

Trying to go more than four hours without something to eat can make you so hungry that you’ll eat quantities of just about anything in sight. Eating a small meal or snack every 3 to 4 hours helps keep your metabolism revved up so you burn more calories over the course of a day and will help ward off mid-morning and afternoon slumps.

Thoughtful, planned snacking can keep you from feeling outrageously hungry, really grouchy, and can put the brakes on raiding the refrigerator or going on a buying spree at the nearest bakery.

What’s A Snack?

Almost 100% of Americans snack every day, but there isn’t a standard definition of what a snack is or what motivates us to snack. We “self-define,” leaving plenty of wiggle room to blur the line between what’s a snack and what’s a meal.

A snack shouldn’t be a fourth meal.  An individual snack, like the one so many of us have mid-morning or mid-afternoon, is recommended to be between 150 and 200 calories, have at least 8 grams of protein for satiety and to keep your blood sugar stable, and at least 3 grams of fiber to fill you up. Keep the fat and sugar grams low.

Beware health halo foods – the so-called “healthy” snacks that are really a bunch of sugar and/or fat in disguise.  These include a selection of (but not all) cereals, breakfast and protein bars, yogurt-covered anything (like raisins and pretzels), sports and energy drinks, smoothies, and frozen yogurt. Check labels.  Most baked goods, chips, candy, and sugary drinks are occasional treats and not daily snacks.

If you’re not hungry, don’t snack. Ask yourself if you’re snacking because of hunger, habit, or some other reason – like boredom or anger.

Some Snack Choices

Pick snacks that taste good and you look forward to eating.

Some good choices:

  • Baby carrots (or other vegetables) and hummus.
  • Half a cup of cottage cheese with fruit or whole grain crackers.
  • An apple, orange, pear, peach, or grapes with ¼ cup of almonds or reduced-fat cheese or a low-fat cheese stick.
  • Whole-grain crackers, a slice of whole grain bread, or a banana with peanut butter.
  • Trail mix or a combination of nuts, seeds, raisins, and whole grain cereal. Be careful of portions, though – although they’re healthy, nuts are a higher calorie food.
  • A whole wheat or multi-grain English muffin with a small amount of nut or seed butter.
  • Low-fat or non-fat yogurt with raisins, a banana, or a small amount of whole grain cereal.
  • A 12 ounce skim latte or cappuccino.

This is the first post of week 4 of the lose a pound a week challenge.  How are you doing? Let us know on Facebook.

Buffet Table Woes? Keep Your Back To The Table

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Whether it’s a fancy catered affair or pizza, wings, and cold cuts laid out on the kitchen and coffee tables on game day, why give yourself extra opportunities to shovel chips and dip or salami and cheese into your mouth all night long? You’re human, so stay out of hand-to-mouth range – and don’t stare at the delicious stuff, either. You’re far less likely to mindlessly eat if you have to leave a conversation and walk across the room to get to the food.

Keeping your back to the table is one of the easiest strategies to use.  We often eat with out eyes – if we see something delicious, we want to eat it.  So, don’t look at it.  Keep your back to the tempting food as you’re having conversations or watching the game.

Hors d’oeuvres can really sucker punch you, too.  They’re small, but the calories really add up. Make up your mind how many you’ll eat ahead of time or you’ll have shoved down a thousand calories before you know it. Pick the ones you love and avoid the ones you don’t.  Why sacrifice your calories for something you don’t love?  Try to keep a mental count because when you’re talking and drinking it’s far too easy to grab from each passing tray.

This article is part of the 30 day series of blog posts called: 30 Easy Tips for Looser Pants and Excellent Energy.