Snacking and Weight Gain

Snacking is often a taboo for dieters. This is said to contribute to weight gain. But this is only partially true. Snacking is sometimes also included in a diet program.

Weight gains’ central idea falls on ‘calorie deficit’. Calorie deficit means consuming calories that is below the required calorie requirement according to some attributes. These attributes are gender, age, current weight and height.

Snacking, as mentioned before, does not instantly mean weight gain. This all depends on the type of food being eaten during meals; the amount of the snack; it also depends on the activities in between snacking; and, how often is the snacking.

The type of food depends whether the snack is calorie dense, or not. Some of the best ‘snacks’ should be low- fat food but, remember, they may be low in fat contents but the key word is ‘low’ not zero. Fats usually contain twice the amount of calories in protein and carbohydrates. Your snacks should contain right combination of proteins and carbohydrates, and a little fat. This also goes for a full meal. Remember to only drink water on top of your snack.

Snacking also depends on how ‘large’ is the meal portion. There are meals that are considered snack-size, this could be helpful. Another suggestion is to find 100-calorie snacks; this is useful in monitoring how many calories you consume.

An activity in between snacks is also important. This determines whether the calories from the previous meals are already consumed. There are times when you ‘feel’ hungry for just sitting around. The best advice for this is to just take flavored water. This has very few calories and at the same time can satisfy the ‘hunger’.

There is no right time for snacking. But the usual practice is after two hours from a full meal. Thus, anything more than that can be dangerous since there is not enough time to burn off the calories of the previous meals.

Snacking does not have to make one guilty. It is all just a matter of deciding for the right snacks. Moreover, a rule of thumb is stay away from sweets, and sodas, or better yet stays away from the vending machine.

Therefore, snacking does not really mean weight gain altogether. This is also incorporated in diet programs because it satisfies small hunger that causes overeating during regular meal. Snacking also keeps the metabolism rate higher, thus keep burning calories faster.