Low Calorie Snacks

 

As I’ve mentioned before I’ve been on Dr. Ian Smith’s Shred Diet so I haven’t been cooking a lot lately, but I did make a few desserts over Easter weekend which I’ll share in a few weeks.  The premise of The Shred Diet is to eat four small meals every 3 to 4 hours to keep your metabolism fired up during the day.  It is a six week plan and it tells you what to eat for each meal which is nice.  The meals aren’t anything strange mostly a lot of soup and smoothies, but you get to choose what type within certain parameters. If you click the links above it will take you to a series of videos of Dr. Smith discussing the diet with Dr. Oz.

I like eating a variety of things which the diet encourages.  It also encourages a small 100 to 150 calorie snack between meals.  I’m a big snacker so this also works well for me. However, it can be tricky staying within 100 to 150 calories.  What I like about the plan is it also gives a list of snack choices.  Ideally the best snacks would be fruits and vegetables, but since I already get a lot of those in meals I like to choose other things to satisfy my sweet and salty cravings.  With swimsuit season around the corner I thought it might be helpful to share some snack ideas from the book as well as my own.

I’m not a nutritionist, but below is my list of snacks to help satisfy a sweet or salty craving.  Eating can be such a mind game sometimes.  Some of the items don’t have much nutritional value, but they fill a psychological need for me.

100 Calorie Snacks

• 53 mini pretzel sticks (I like these with a tsp of mustard and I’m not done eating in 10 seconds)
• 1 hard boiled egg
• Special K bars
• 1 Kraft chocolate pudding
• 2 graham cracker squares and 1 tsp peanut butter sprinkled with cinnamon
• 1/2 cup nonfat Greek yogurt with dash of cinnamon and 1 tsp honey
• 100 calorie microwave popcorn
• Chocolate VitaTop-these can be found in the freezer section usually by organic items
• Special K cracker chips (They come in a variety of flavors and you can have 27 for 110 calories)
• One Skinny Cow fudge bar

150 calorie snacks

• 1 mozzarella cheese stick and 7 TLC Honey Sesame crackers
• half a cucumber and 2 tbsp hummus
• apple with 1 tbsp peanut butter (I love peanut butter)
• rice cake with 1 tbsp peanut butter
• Nature Valley Oats and Honey granola bar
• One Skinny Cow Ice cream sandwich
• 45 pistachios

I’m on week five of the plan and have lost roughly 5 pounds.  I  cheat on the weekends.  Most importantly my clothes fit better and I feel better.  When mama’s happy everybody is happy. Please feel free to add to my list.   I’d love to hear what other snack ideas you may have.