How do you stop snacking !

chogila

I am fairly active but when it comes to eating, I have brake failure ! . What wud u recommend as I am sure that is the road to a reduced bulk ! Do share ur suggestions !! Stay safe

krog874

Chogila, when you find out let me know. My biggest deal breaker... snacks !! Roger

brianpperkins131

There are two ways of approaching this. One is to eliminate things you snack on from your home and workplace. The other is to accept that you snack and plan them into your intake ... slightly less caloric meals to balance out the intake of planned snacks.

gisem17

By "snacking" and "break failure," are we talking about binge eating? For someone suspected of having Binge Eating Disorder (BED), the number one, most highly recommended recommendation is to have them talk to thier doctor or therapist.
If you are determined to beat this on your own, first be kind to yourself. Setbacks will happen, learn what you can from them then let them go. Second, try to identify what causes binge episodes and come up with action plans to deal with those situations in healthy ways.
What is working for me, probably wont work for anyone else (I am unique that way and so are you). If you are going to beat this, you have to know yourself well enough to understand what is happening and love yourself enough to address it.
Good luck and best wishes for success.

NovusDies

One of the easiest things to overlook is that your plan has enough food in it. If you try to create too much of a calorie deficit it can easily backfire. You mentioned you are active. Are you eating enough to fuel your activity? MFP is set up for you to eat back exercise calories. Also, have you chosen an appropriate rate of loss?



If you are eating enough then the answer either needs to be controlling what you eat as a snack (replace higher calorie items with lower calorie ones like vegetables, planning for the snacks in advance, or controlling your hunger better with meals and cutting out all snacking.

freda666

chogila wrote: »

I am fairly active but when it comes to eating, I have brake failure ! . What wud u recommend as I am sure that is the road to a reduced bulk ! Do share ur suggestions !! Stay safe

First, I do not have "snacks" in the house unless I have purchased them for a planned treat.

Then, I plan my food for the day before I eat it and I find that works for me.

slw37

I have smaller meals and include snacks in my daily allowance. I'm a snacker and I'm not giving it up. This works for me so just find what works for you.

Jthanmyfitnesspal

Changing a habit is an act of sheer will. One way to do it is to write a "contract with yourself."

- Delineate the habit as specifically as possible. What precise behavior do you want to change?
- Do you have any triggers?
- Are there things that you know would help? (e.g., not having certain foods in the house.)
- Write down all the reasons you want to change
- Pick a start date
- Create a success chart and hang it somewhere you can see (e.g., on the fridge)
- Once started, when you hit a craving, read your contract, review your reasons, are they still valid?

Oliveciabatta

I've just gone cold turkey as mindlessly snacking when I wasn't even hungry just stressed was the main cause of my weight gain. I dont need it and its easier if I just don't have snack things around the house.

cwolfman13

My snacks are mostly planned. I also learned a long time ago that there were just certain snack foods that I could not keep in the house...once I bite into a Dorito it's game over, so I only buy that stuff when it's an occasion, like we're going camping or something.

springlering62

Whoa! Those are blasphemous words. Why would you ever want to quit snacking?

I was the Queen of Snacks. Many thousand calories a day of them.

I remain the Queen of Snacks. Many hundred calories a day of them, thoughtfully planned, scheduled, weighed, and eaten.

I couldn’t wrap my head around life without snacks. Nor would I want to. Self sacrifice and self punishment aren’t a long term plan for success.

There are so many yummy healthy low calorie snacks out there. My go-to snacks are jerky, cottage cheese and fruit with a splash of sweet fruit balsamic, Greek yogurt mixed with sugar free pudding, sugar free jello, Nugo bars, apples, hot air popcorn, cupcakes made with kefir (just those two ingredients), dill pickles, creamy chai lattes, fruit, chicken sausage on a peice of low cal white bread or a low cal tortilla, half a dark chocolate bar, a leftover buttermilk pancake with a swish of maple butter, and, right now, my new love: pumpkin pudding.

Ikeeptrying2

I learned long ago that not snacking is not sustainable long term so I account for it in my overall plan.

Keep in mind what like will be like for you once you hit your ultimate target weight. For me, 'living' with snacks is/was part of that. If you think you will be able to not snack - then adjust accordingly.

dandanes

plan snacks in advance. I eat breakfast at 7. Banana at 9 - 9:30. cup of grapes before or after the banana. After lunch I might have a small snickers bar. or if I get really hungry. I open a can of corn or peas. The point is, I plan on eating it so it's part of the end of day calorie total.

AlexandraFindsHerself1971

I plan my snacks. Currently things are a bit disordered as I just added in exercise and am going to have to figure out how many calories I need to eat back, and that will affect the composition of my snacks.

One thing that helps is.... GO TO BED ON TIME. (giggle) Seriously. If you are getting enough sleep your leptin levels go in the proper direction for weight loss, and if you are sleep deficient you are going to be fighting your body to lose any weight at all. Also, if you go to bed at, say, 10 pm (which is my bedtime) you aren't sitting there at 11:30 trying to resist your urge to snack.

I can tell, after nearly a year of doing this, when I am munchy (which I ignore or do things to divert my attention away from) versus when I'm actually hungry, which I feed, regardless of time of day. But I feed it with a preplanned snack like a cup of yogurt or a cheese stick and three crackers, and force myself to drink water after the snack and wait 20 minutes before eating more.

AnnPT77

In addition to the above, think about why you snack. Hunger? Habit? Stress? Boredom?

If the reason isn't hunger, the answer isn't food.

If it's habit, the best way to break an undesired habit is not sheer force of will, it's replacing it with a new habit. Take a short walk, do some stretching, ideally some non-eating thing, but you could also drink a hot herbal tea or other zero-calorie beverage.

Stress? Consider other stress management strategies: Hot aromatherapy bubblebath, stretching, meditation, prayer, exercise, music - something you personally find soothing.

Boredom? Perfect time to take up a new hobby, or resume an old one. Particularly good are things that require clean hands (sketching, needlework, playing a musical instrument . . . ) or create dirty ones (painting, carpentry, gardening . . . ).

The task in hand is not to think of current habits - habits that don't support your goals and desires - as insurmountable obstacles, but rather as challenges to use the things you personally can control (or at least influence) to make a change in your life. The results from this, and the skills you build from doing it, can be huge life enhancers.

Best wishes!

PremGandhi

Dude, just don't buy them in the first place.

Dogmom1978

I am a snacker. I have carrot sticks, bananas, apples, and cucumber available to snack as I see fit.

I bring a set number with me for the day, I plan and add them to my calories. I know I like to munch throughout the day, so I just make sure I have choices that won’t derail my weight loss plan.

jrh_this_better_work

AnnPT77 wrote: »

In addition to the above, think about why you snack. Hunger? Habit? Stress? Boredom?

If the reason isn't hunger, the answer isn't food.

<other good info, but wanted to highlight the line above

THIS! This was an eye opener for me. I may make a t-shirt out of it, giving AnnPT77 the credit of course!

angmarie28

As others have also said, I too am a snacker. . It was a very hard habit to change, because It has been a big part of me my entire life. When Id go anywhere with my mom, we would stop at the gas station and she would buy a large bag of chips, and together we would eat said bag of chips on our way home. Its actually amazing I never got real heavy, when me and my husband first started dating, he was astounded by my ability to down an entire bag of chips in one sitting. When I first started this, I had to quit buying chips all together, then when I started buying them again for my husband, they had to be flavors I didnt care for, like BBQ. Now I buy individual bags, and i dont eat them all that often.

I tried not snacking anymore and in turn I ATE ALL THE SNACKS. I just had to learn a new way to snack. So instead of chips, cheez itz, and anything loaded in sugar and carbs, I started snacking on things like pickles, light buttered popcorn, light and fit greek yogurt, jerky, flavored rice cakes, light cheese sticks, celery with a light laughing cow cheese wedge, pretzel sticks (also good with laughing cow cheese wedges), funyons (when Im craving chips, they are a little lower in calories) or even my old favorites on occasion, but individually packaged, so I dont accidentally over do it.

angmarie28

And another thing is I learned that once I start eating, sometimes it is hard to stop, Eating triggers my hunger it seems and Im like a bottomless pit, so I have to stay very aware of my eating, and not to over do it. Intermittent fasting has helped me with this because I eat 12 to 8, then I go to bed, so Im not eating all day, Im able to eat and snack more during that time, and thus able to eat enough to fill full.

raymax4

chogila wrote: »

I am fairly active but when it comes to eating, I have brake failure ! . What wud u recommend as I am sure that is the road to a reduced bulk ! Do share ur suggestions !! Stay safe

when I started I decided I had ti weigh and log every thing before I ate it. it cut out all the picking up things and putting them in my mouth. if I did not want to stop to weight it, it wad not really worth it. this cut the endless grazing