Snack Fail
I’m realizing the double-edge sword of snacking
May 22, 2015
Late Nighter
So, I’m up late once again. Time ticking by. I just finished an amazing 900 kcal burn of a day, only to have it ruined by over-snacking. How you ask? Well, I bought veggie chips and Snapeas, thinking it would curb my appetite. It didn’t. Instead it came with salt and a lot of guilt. So I worked it off, not hard.
Burn Rate
Found that it takes 1min of cardio burn = 10kcal at about 120HR. 60mins = 600 calories. Not bad huh? That’s part of why my original plan worked. As long as I kept jogging, even if it was lazy, the pounds would shed and the only x-factor was making sure I didn’t over eat on my next meal.
The Best Defense
I’m realizing the real goal isn’t so much to burn as much as you can from what you ate, it’s fighting the need to overeat in the first place. How does it happen?
TOP CAUSES
• Not enough sleep
• Not enough to eat
• Stress
• Not praying
This pretty much covers it. Snacking was suppose to curb in case I didnt have enough to eat. But if the other reasons are still in affect, then the snacking backfires. That’s ok. I discovered there are still safer ways to snack in case it’s needed. Even stress eating has it’s place when planned right. The key to a healthy eating lifestyle is have the strategy to handle the everyday situations of life as you are.
One key ingredient I think is just having one. A mistake was to buy a bunch of things to snack on, it gave me way too much variety and ate most of it. I think by limiting what I snack on or rather how much of it, I end up really treating it as that, a snack. So, here are the ones I found works versus those that don’t
The Snack List
SAFE LIST
• Brad’s Kale chips — only 200kcals if you eat the whole thing. Bonus that it has +100% vitamins
• Lite Whip Topping — Love it, can’t have enough of it, low calorie, though not meant to really be a snack
• Veggie Chips — not the best on the list, but low enough compared to the others that I feel it’s warranted.
• Wasabi Peas
• Raspberry Protein Pie (My Recipe)
DANGER LIST
• Plantain Chips
• Anything from a vending machine
• Snapeas
• Nuts (overall but not always, here exceptions can and should be made)
An Adventure in Food
It has to be seen that way. An Adventure. Going out and scouring the earth far and wide for the perfect snacks. You’re not always going to find everything you want. But I bet once this list grows, it’ll be very easy to make better choices, and guard against those extra unneeded calories for the long-term. Defense in dieting is the best offense. I’m finding it harder otherwise.
But I gotta say, the biggest one is so far under control, the food addiction. It’s not as bad as it used to be. As long as I don’t start thinking I’m invincible and can eat a ton of Mc Donald’s and goodness knows what else, it should really start to work.
30-Week challenge
By my calculations, if I can realistically lose 1lbs. a week, that means I can take on the personal 30 week challenge for those 30lbs. Sounds great right? So far it hasn’t been working. The crunch hours, the overcommitted lifestyle, the stress of church, it’s too much, man. But if I can focus and turn this challenge into a fun experiment, it just might work. 30 weeks, 30 pounds. It might just work, or at least it would be interesting to try.
HR Watch Fluke: Polar M400
It’s a great watch but as soon as I charged it today it totally flaked. Now it won’t charge. That’s the third Heart-rate monitor watch I’ve bought since I started in less than a year. I think I’m going to have to accept the fact that heart rate monitors as a whole, if used daily, just die quickly. Spending the money only means it doesn’t get worse at tracking one’s heart rate but I think from here-on I’d like to be able to get one from Best Buy, get the warranty on it, and trade when it conks out. Seriously?
