UKC

Hi,
trying to lose weight. I am eating less, cut out Alcohol and moving around more.
One thing I have heard is eating too little can actually make your body store fat and that little and often is the way ahead. Can anyone suggest some suitable snacks for mid morning and say twice in the afternoon to trick the body that it is not being starved.
Cheers sjc

In reply to sjc: Walnuts and almonds. Green tea speeds up the metabolism. Most nutritionists say you need to make sure you have breakfast to kick start the metabolism in the morning.

In reply to sjc: If you are trying to lose weight them why snack? When do you actually expect to burn body fat if you snack? It isn't going to happen during your three square meals a day. Body fat reduction is tricky in the chronically fed.

In reply to sjc: I am terrible for snacking as if I have breakfast early I def get the munchies before lunch and ditto mid-afternoon. Have been trying to cut out sweet stuff recently, so have been having 1-2rivita (the seedy ones) with low-fat peanut butter spread really thinly. Ok, so peanut butter isn't the lowest in fat, but it is good fats, and I reckon I have no more than a tablespoon in total - this fills me up and over a few weeks def lost a lot of my sweet tooth so didn't crave snacks so much.

Also having a huge bowl of beany/lentil soup at lunch helps keep me going til dinner.

In reply to sjc: apples, carrots, celery...

In reply to sjc: I thought the reality was that you 'kick start your metabolism' by the amount of extra energy you need to digest the food you have just eaten (digesting food in itself requires energy to be expended) - and you will burn that energy doing the digesting regardless of when the food is eaten. So basically the whole kick starting thing is a myth.

In reply to Nick Harvey:

This idea of meal frequency stoking the metabolic fire is a bit of a myth.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9155494

In reply to sjc: Losing weight is very simple and you can ignore all the nonsense you read or hear that says otherwise:

1. Eat less.

2. Or Exercise more.

3. Or eat less and exercise more.

It's as simple as that. The only other permutation is eat more and exercise a LOT more.

Ask yourself, what would you do to make yourself eat more? Compelling yourself to eat more is very simple and you can ignore all the nonsense you read or hear that says otherwise:

1. Eat less. Nothing like skipping meals to make you hungry.

2. Or Exercise more. Ever heard of working up an appetite?

3. Or eat less and exercise more.

It's as simple as that. The only other permutation is eat more and exercise a LOT more.

However, eating real foods and engaging in vigorous, intense exercise will get you leaner.

In reply to sjc:

I'm all in to low calorie snacking to help keep your sugar levels on a more even keel - especially when trying to diet. I also make sure I eat smaller and more distributed meals during the day in line with how my body processes its calories. That helps to prevent that 3 meals a day binge/crash type of effect.

Snacks I find that work are almonds or a couple of rough oatmeal biscuits (with honey on if I have a sweet craving). Also try a glass of water / cup of tea as it can make you feel full, and so help stave off excessive snacking. Apparently walnuts are supposed to have a natural chemical in them that reduces feelings of hunger, and you could try a sugary tea such as liquorice (as this is quite sugary, it make sate your appetite).

In reply to Shani: The reason to snack is that your body is far more inteligent than you. If you deprive your body of food even for a short amount of time it expects it to happen again after the next meal. Therefor it overcompensates by storing extra fat to the detriment of anyone trying to loose weight by eating less in a short space of time.

To the OP; Everything in moderation, don't cut out "unhealthy" food all together just have less of that and more of the good stuff. When I'm feeling healthy I go for fruit, nuts, oat bars and the like.
Find what works for you and stick with that

In reply to sjc:

I recently went on a wholefoods diet when I was told my cholesterol was high, and in three months (aside from getting my cholesterol back into the healthy range) I dropped from 66kg (a weight around which I'd previously been for some time) to 62kg.

At no point was I trying to eat less than my appetite demanded, just nothing processed, and replaced a lot of the meat in my diet with fish and vegetables.

For snacks I had fresh fruit, veg (carrots in particular), mixed nuts/seeds/dried fruit, or occasionally a small sushi pack from the tesco across the road.

In reply to Cameron94:

That is quite a specific claim. I don't want to get in to a battle of google-fu, but do you have a reference for this as it contrasts this research?:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9155494

Even on the face of it I don't believe your claim as it would suggest those that sleep for longer would put on more weight than those that sleep for shorter periods.

In reply to Shani:
I'm not going to weigh in on either side of that debate, but even the pubmed article is pretty equivocal on the question (and states that many studies are invalid). Doesn't mean nibbling works, just means it's not very well quantified.

(I don't know if there are any good animial studies, but I would suspect that the livestock industry (e.g. pork) has a pretty good handle on how feeding patterns affect mammalian biology including weight gain and fat vs. muscle)

In reply to DrP:
Cheers for that. Liqourice tea, never had that and it sounds good, I shall defoe give that a go.

In reply to Cameron94:

The reason we snack is that our wills are weak and our desires greedier and lazier than our bodies would like.

AM breakfast like kings and 'little and often' are increasingly debunked myths. People like myths though!

In reply to catt:

I wouldn't understate the utility of some of these myths to tweak the software our systems run on. For example, setting up some reward structures whether it's lots of little pay-offs or one big one... depends what works for the individual. Sense of control may be important too.

For me I try to ensure hunger doesn't happen at moments of greatest "opportunity for sin" (better to be hungry at home in evening, with nothing sugary in house, than at mid morning in the office beside the vending machine: therefore breakfast is a good idea, lunch too, "fast" in the evening)

In reply to michaelc:



for many breakfast actually makes them hungrier quicker (believed to be linked into cortisol levels being higher in the morning)

In reply to lost1977:

That's not my experience, at least.

And depends a bit on what you have for your breakfast. Back in the day (early 20s) I used to have a full cooked "English Breakfast" one or two mornings a week.

Wouldn't even think to eat again until 5/6 o'clock.

In reply to michaelc:


Are you our oldest poster?

In reply to sjc:

what about oat cakes or water biscuits? maybe a thinnnn slice of cheese on top.

So basically, many different methods work and some people find one easier than the others?

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:

Well the OP wanted a strategy "to trick the body that it is not being starved". The body does not enter 'starvation moode' until about three days without food.

Managing hunger over shorter periods requires you develop metabolic flexibility (allowing you to burn fat) - which will be inhibited by grazing throughout the day.

In reply to Shani:

I thought he just wanted snack ideas. I'm trying - in a half-arsed kind of way - to get into IF but thought that no one was really answering the OP's question. But of course I didn't either.

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:

My solution was to snack on bodyfat! The way to do that that is to express metabolic flexibility.

In reply to Shani:

So, pork scratchings then?

In reply to sjc: I snack on raisins and unsalted mixed nuts/apple/pear between meals.Wake up with Muesli and coffee, sweet potato with tuna for lunch and then something decently sized for dinner.I have managed to loose quite a bit of weight and I am still full of energy after cycling 22 miles per day and climbing at the wall every other night. If I am doing extra running I introduce a few more carbs into my diet.