Mid Morning Snack

If you google “eating every three hours”, you will find a great debate about whether eating six smaller meals a day is better than eating three larger ones.  Now, as I say in my disclaimers, I’m no expert.  I’m just saying what works better for me.  And for me, eating every three hours works.

Why? 

1)      It seems to keep my glucose spikes down and my energy up

2)      It keeps me out of the break room donuts because I have something of my own to eat

3)      It definitely keeps the hunger and panic at bay.  Why do I say “panic”?  I know from past experience that as I begin to whittle down my meals to smaller and leaner choices, I sometime finish my meal and seem to  immediately feel hungry.  Maybe it’s physical…maybe it’s mental.  But I find myself  thinking “Good grief! If I feel this way now, how am I ever going to make it to lunch!”  BUT when I incorporate in a mid-morning snack at around three hours after breakfast, I gain confidence in knowing that I’m going to get to eat something again in three hours, not six.  I CAN handle some hunger pangs for three hours.  And when lunch does come around, I’m not ravenous.

So, as I have been reworking breakfast, I’ve also been working in a mid-morning snack around three hours later.  My snack might be a small apple and peanut butter, a Kashi bar, rice cakes and peanut butter, or some protein shake.  For breakfast, I’m shooting for around 300 –350 cals and for snack  around 150-200.  I am trying to develop some choices for breakfast and snack that are more “sit down” and some that are “grab and go”, since there are days (the days I have to be at work at 5:30 am) I switch around breakfast and snack..

In the coming days I’m going to be searching around the net for other foods that I can incorporate into my morning eating habits.  But I am going to limit the number I try.  I know myself well enough that I can’t handle too many choices.  Then it just becomes too overwhelming!  So I’m going to pick and choose items that are low fat, low sugar, easy to prepare, and don’t cost a fortune. Oh...and they have to be something I'll actually eat!  I’ll let you know what I find.