The Simplicity of Wellness Podcast
The Simplicity of Wellness podcast is about learning how to bring your body into balance so that you get leaner, stronger and healthier as you age. Each week I'll share thoughts and ideas that help my clients build the self-awareness, self-confidence and self-reliance to lose weight, shed inches, manage muscle mass and master their mind so that they can stop dieting and enjoy living at their healthy weight with optimal wellness.
The Simplicity of Wellness Podcast
Snacking Habits: The Hidden Roadblock to Your Health Goals
Questions, comments? Shoot me a text.
Ever wondered how your snacking habits might be sabotaging your health goals? Join me, Amy White, as we unravel the intricate relationship between snacking frequency and weight management. Through personal stories and client experiences, we'll explore how constant eating, often driven by hunger anxiety or convenience, can disrupt your body's natural hunger and digestion cycles. Learn how even healthy foods can become problematic when consumed excessively and discover the importance of balancing eating and fasting periods to support cellular repair and overall wellness.
We'll also dive into the idea of metabolic balance and how to build meals that keep you satiated for longer. Reflect on your own snacking patterns and consider whether you're genuinely hungry or just eating out of habit. I'll share practical strategies to help you eat for the body you want, becoming leaner, stronger, and healthier—all without making drastic changes to your lifestyle. If you're ready to reconnect with your body and enjoy the foods you love while achieving your health goals, this episode is your perfect starting point.
Free Membership Click Here For Access: Weight Loss For Women
Schedule Your Free Consult: Lose Weight For The Last Time
Weight Loss Coaching Program: Hangry to Healthy™
Website: The Simplicity of Wellness
Follow Me on Instagram
Follow Me on Youtube
Welcome to the Simplicity of Wellness podcast. I'm your host, board-certified holistic nutritionist and professional life coach, amy White. The purpose of this podcast is to share information that you can use to become leaner, stronger and healthier by losing weight, shedding inches, maintaining muscle and managing your mind, all while living your normal busy life in this modern, sugar-filled world.
Speaker 2:Hello Simplifiers, today I want to talk about snacking. What I believe snacking means, the impact of snacking on the body and an easy first step that you can take to shift yourself away from snacking. I was recently talking with a client and realized that when we were discussing the idea of snacking, we were talking about two different things. I mentioned snacking and my client immediately said she wasn't a snacker. I found this interesting because, based on what she had told me in previous conversations, she did snack. That's how she ate. In her mind, she wasn't a snacker because, to her, snacking was about eating junky food that comes in wrappers, things like chips, granola bars, candy pretzels. You know all the things that come to mind when you think about snack foods. My client wasn't wrong. She doesn't eat those things. She eats hard-boiled eggs, yogurt, jerky and other foods like that. I realized my mistake because in her mind, snacking meant eating particular foods, but to me, snacking isn't about the food being eaten. It's about how often you eat. My idea of snacking is basically eating all the time. You eat so often during the day you don't even know what it feels like to be hungry, because you never give your body time to fully digest and get hungry.
Speaker 2:There are many reasons people develop a snack habit. The number one reason that I see is hunger anxiety. I'll describe this as a fear of getting or being hungry. So people are always eating as a way to catch hunger before it happens. Why are they afraid of being hungry? That's a very good question. I think a lot of people believe or have had an experience where hunger felt terrible, worse than just a growling stomach. To them, if hunger has a chance to hit, they won't have any control and they'll just end up eating everything in sight. I also think when you're metabolically out of balance, this can be very true. Hunger can feel much worse than a growling stomach. When blood sugar is out of balance, a lack of food makes it very possible for blood sugar to swing low, causing brain fog, exhaustion and even dizzy spells and headaches. This type of reaction would probably be very scary and something most people would do anything to avoid, like eating when they aren't actually hungry.
Speaker 2:In my client's case, she eats very well. She eats whole, real foods, but she has a busy schedule, so she eats when it's convenient rather than when she's actually hungry. She also is very macro focused, which means, again, she will eat to hit specific protein, carb and fat goals, regardless of whether or not she's hungry, including before she goes to bed. If you eat when you aren't actually hungry, including before she goes to bed, if you eat when you aren't actually hungry, you are sabotaging your weight loss efforts. So, even though my client eats good, healthy, whole foods, by my definition she's a snacker. She eats regularly throughout the day, often when she's not hungry.
Speaker 2:The confusion about snacking was cleared up when I described my personal experience. I told her about what I had done the week before while I was at my cabin with the kids For three days. I basically ate all the time. I ate really good food, food that my body likes, food that typically makes me better, not worse. But even the right food can make you feel lousy when eaten in excess, which is exactly what I was doing. I never got hungry. For three days I wasn't hungry. I was consistently feeding, but never fasting. Eventually, this would have caused me to gain probably a lot of weight.
Speaker 2:Fortunately, I pulled myself together by day four because I felt terrible. I felt puffy, lethargic. I wasn't enjoying my food. I wasn't comfortable in my clothes or my bathing suit. I wasn't eating junky snacks, I was eating cottage cheese, watermelon, sliced roast, beef, ham, turkey cheddar cheese, apples, eggs, bacon, sausage all the things I normally eat but there were no meals. There was no food downtime, there was no time for my body to go through the cellular repair process referred to as autophagy. Your body needs time to repair and rebuild. Studies indicate that autophagy is an important process that protects the body against aging, cancer and neurological diseases.
Speaker 2:Snacking isn't actually good for your health. Ideally, you want to create an even ratio between feasting and fasting. Don't let the word fasting scare you. I am not suggesting you go days or even a single day without food. What I'm suggesting is you stop snacking and eat three meals a day and fast in between those meals.
Speaker 2:Not eating until you get hungry is fasting. Let your body use your food. Let your body tell you when it's ready for you to feed it again. That's what hunger is. This is also how you manage your body weight. You eat what you need and not more. When you consistently eat more than your body needs, you gain weight. That excess fuel gets stored as fat. The first thing that will happen is you will hold water. You'll get puffy. Don't get discouraged. This is not fat. It's water and easily eliminated. But the longer you overfeed, the more likely that your water weight will be joined by fat gain. So listen to your body. If you're feeling puffy, bloated and even lethargic, it's likely you're overdoing it with the food. If there is gas and heartburn, then it's also very likely you're eating the wrong food, food that doesn't actually work for your body.
Speaker 2:Quitting snacks cold turkey is not going to be the best choice for most people, especially if your metabolic hormones are out of balance. Blood sugar swings are real. They don't feel good. A body that's metabolically out of balance relies on sugar as its primary fuel. If you take that away without giving your body a replacement for that quick fuel, you'll feel terrible. Being a snacker and then quickly switching to three meals in a 24-hour period can be too much for many people. It's too big a change.
Speaker 2:My advice for an easy first step away from snacking is to first start making changes to what you're choosing to eat as your mini meals or snacks. The best way to do this is to grab my Protein-Packed Snack Challenge. It's a free challenge. Click the link in the show notes or go to the simplicity of wellnesscom forward, slash snacks and sign up. As soon as you sign up, you'll receive your first of a series of emails that will give you daily protein snack ideas and a whip this up at home protein snack recipe. Start there Make some food swaps. This is a huge step to calming your appetite and regulating your blood sugar.
Speaker 2:If you want big change, lasting change that brings your metabolic hormones and body into balance, you want to join my Hangry to Healthy 12-week program. My Hangry to Healthy program is where you'll learn how to work with your body so that you lose weight permanently. This is where you'll calm your hunger and balance your appetite and quickly let go of the hunger anxiety that's causing you to eat. Even when you're not hungry, you'll know how to eat for the body and health you want. So, to recap, snacking it's not about what you're eating so much as about how often and how much you eat. It's about not giving your body time to rest and digest, time to recover and repair through the necessary cellular repair process called autophagy. The ideal ratio for rest and digest is three meals, no snacking. Eat enough at a meal to feel full and satisfied for four hours so full and satisfied that you don't even think about food until your body prompts you for the next meal.
Speaker 2:Please understand you have control over how you want to feel, how you want to age, how you want to look. Metabolic imbalance is very fixable and the faster you address any imbalance, the easier and faster it can be corrected. When in balance, you will feel hungry two to three times a day. You won't crave sugar, you'll have good daytime energy and be able to think clearly. You'll sleep well, you'll want to exercise, you'll recognize hunger as a suggestion to eat something, but never an emergency that feels out of control.
Speaker 2:If you believe that you are metabolically balanced and want to eat only when actually hungry, I have a hunger experiment for you to try. For the next 24 hours don't eat unless you are hungry. I'm going to tell you right now. You're probably going to get angry. You're going to see some food and it's going to look really good and you're going to want to eat it, but before you take a bite, ask yourself if you're actually hungry. There's a good chance you won't be able to tell if you're hungry or not, and that's okay. If you're unsure, just set a timer for 20 minutes and then check back and ask yourself again if you're hungry. If you're still unsure, I want you to set that 20 minute timer again. Keep setting your timer and keep checking in until you can honestly say you are in fact hungry and I am not kidding when I say you're going to get frustrated and angry because you are going to find that there are foods that you see and you want to eat, but more than likely you're not actually going to be hungry.
Speaker 2:If you're metabolically balanced and you know how to build satiating meals, you'll likely find that you don't get hungry truly hungry, your body needing nutrients for about four hours, or maybe even five, depending on how big your previous meal was. Just about everyone, myself included, eats when we aren't hungry, at least some of the time. Test it out and see how often you grab a bite or want to grab a bite even when you're not truly in need of nourishment. I'm curious what your thoughts are about snacking. Are you a snacker? If so, do you ever truly feel hungry? If you have time, click the message, me link in the show notes and let me know your thoughts. As always, have a wonderful rest of your week and I will be back next Wednesday in a new episode.
Speaker 2:Do you like the idea of eating for the body you want? Is there a piece of you that's eager to learn how to become leaner, stronger and healthier without having to overhaul your entire life? If this is you, then you're in luck, because this is what I do. I can help you reconnect and work with your body so that you can enjoy the body, comfort and confidence you deserve, eating foods you love. Click the free consult link in the show notes. Let's talk about where you are, what you want and how you can get there.
