UNITED STATES—We are all guilty of this America, snacking when we are not hungry, but it does raise a big question: how do we curb that snacking when we are not hungry? We’re told to eat healthy things, but let’s be honest, how many of us actually choose that option? Are you grabbing a piece of fruit? Are you grabbing some veggies? How about some peanuts, almonds or cashews? Of course not.
When we want a snack we want something satisfying. We tend to go after candy, chips, fatty dips, something fried or greasy. We like things that are sweet, salty and fatty. That is just the American dream; we don’t want to eat something that tastes like nothing. I mean if you’re eating veggies, you want a dip or something to go with it. With fruit you have to be aware of how sweet it is. You cannot overindulge in the sweets because it is not good for the body.
We actually snack more than we actually eat the three meals a day that we’re supposed to (breakfast, lunch and dinner). I’ll be honest I’m only eating 2 of those 3 in a given day, usually breakfast and dinner or lunch and dinner. Back to the conversation at hand, how do you prevent yourself from snacking when you’re NOT actually hungry? That is the challenge America.
Stuffing your face when you’ve just had a satisfying meal is a bad choice because you’re likely sitting on the couch when you snack and you’re not putting your body in motion. A body that is NOT active is always a bad thing people! So instead of snacking when you know you’re not truly hungry perhaps you should exercise, journal, listen to music, do some organizing in the bedroom, the closet, the kitchen or the mail drawer, you can even do some light cleaning around the house.
The key factor is that there are things you can do to stop that urge to eat just for the sake of eating. When you start doing those other things, that notion in your brain that you were hungry suddenly disappear because you have focused your attention elsewhere. In addition, when you have snacks or tons of food just sitting around the house (various options to say the least), it tempts you to want to eat everything because you want to try out what you just purchased.
That is truly bad, but your brain sees something that looks good and as a result you want to eat it, just to say that you tried it. Not necessarily the smartest thing to do, but that is the thing with temptation; you are constantly being forced to resist temptation that surrounds you and for many people food is a big temptation. There is also a thing called discipline. Sometimes you have to be disciplined to not eat when you’re not hungry. It is not easy, but you don’t want to put on weight for the simple fact of putting on weight because you did NOT have enough discipline to just resist it.
Written By Zoe Mitchell
