What fruit, veg and snacks are best!?

chelseaallen1613

I’m new to all this! Only on day 2! My main goal is weight loss! So I need food recommendations! Usually I’d survive off rubbish (crisps, chocolate, processed foods etc) help!

yirara

Why not for now continue eating the way you do, but log your food. Then make small changes, like replace something that has an awful lot of calories with something else. See if it makes you happy and full. If not try something else. Or keep it and try something else. There's no solution that fits everyone as everybody is different.

AnnPT77

I agree with yirara.

I'd add this: It sounds like you have an idea about which foods are "rubbish". I'll bet that means you also have some ideas about which foods are "healthy".

If you specifically want to increase fruit and veggie intake, start by eating more of the ones you currently enjoy. If you're open minded, start trying a new one now and then. If you like it (and it's affordable, practical, filling. . . .), keep it in your regular rotation.

If you're logging your food, you can look at your diary and see which foods make you think "now that I know how many calories that has, I can see that it isn't tasty, nutritious or filling enough to eat as often (or in such big portions)". Cut down on those foods - portion size or frequency - to make calorie room for the new ones. Keep chipping away at that, and you'll make good progress.

This doesn't have to be an instant thing. In fact, there are advantages to gradually remodeling your eating style. For one, greatly increasing fiber all at once can lead to digestive distress (varied types), so gradually increases in fiber may be more manageable and comfortable. For two, the gradual process IMO makes it more likely that we'll establish and practice new habits that stick longer term. (Radical, extreme changes often seem to crash and burn. )

That said, back to "rubbish" vs. "healthy". Personally, I think those ideas don't really apply to individual foods. I think those ideas apply to overall ways of eating. If you eat a treat food now and then, in a calorie-appropriate way, it doesn't cancel out the broccoli and salmon (or whatever nutritious things) you ate earlier in the day. IMO, it's about balance, the way we mostly eat, on average over a day or few.

Best wishes!

littlegreenparrot1

Best for what?
It depends on what your trying to achieve and what your preferences are. Doesn't matter how great kale is I'm not going to eat the fecker Generally speaking for health variety is thought to be a good thing.

I'm quite lazy and have a sweet tooth, so if I have a bowl of grapes, blueberries or similar in the afternoon it helps keep me off the chocolate in the vending machine.

At lunchtime I'll often have chopped carrot/cucumber/pepper sticks and and dip them into hummous.
Dinner tonight will be leafy salad, sweet potato wedges and chicken.
But I like all this stuff and have been thinking about how to increase fruit and veg for a long time.

Its often easier to start by adding stuff before you take others away, otherwise you might end up just feeling deprived. So just pick a thing to start with, one snack a day will be a piece of fruit for example and start from there.

Just as an aside - if your trying new things and aren't keen on them to start with try them in different ways before you write them off. I much prefer a cooked apple to a raw one, chopped and cooked with cinnamon is still good for me same might apply to lots of other things.

westrich20940

My fav fruit/veggie snacks:

apple w/peanut butter - I also often add chia/flax/hemp seeds to the peanut butter.
Carrots/cucumbers/bell peppers with ranch or hummus
Banana w/peanut butter - same thing
Any berry with yogurt (can add chia/flax/hemp hearts....)
Stuff (veg/fruit) with cottage cheese
I also often eat fruit with just tajin on it.

Hobartlemagne

Ultimately, if you want to lose weight you're going to regularly need to feel hungry.
For me, that meant quitting snacks. That was tough since I used to eat a snack anytime I felt the smallest trace of hunger.

lisakatz2

Hobartlemagne wrote: »

Ultimately, if you want to lose weight you're going to regularly need to feel hungry.
For me, that meant quitting snacks. That was tough since I used to eat a snack anytime I felt the smallest trace of hunger.

I disagree with this. There is a difference between "hungry" and "smallest trace of hungry". If you're hungry, eat a light, healthy snack with some protein, fat, and carb in it. I like to stick to 200 calories, max.

Going (too) hungry inevitably leads to binges.

Traquette

As long as the calories are accounted for, the "best snack" is the snack you love !
Make sure your meals are complete so you don't rely too much on snacks too.

If you have time you can homemake a few of them, making them "healthier" or "low calorie" since you control the ingredients you put into.

Sweet potato chips (in microwave, it's so easy to do)
Energy balls or bars
Any fruit / nuts combination
Vegetables and light dip of your liking
Yogurt and fruit

Like stated before me, try adding those vegetables and fruit before you take everything out, and try new ones or new ways to enjoy them. If you don't like celery, don't punish yourself eating it !

COGypsy

I make myself eat a piece of fruit, usually with salt, every morning with my breakfast. I also only allow vegetables as an afternoon snack. My variety is pretty basic. I usually buy one of those veggie trays, tiny tomatoes, and a bag of pickling cucumbers. The rotation also includes carrot chips (carrots sliced on the bias with a "wavy" blade) and snow peas. If something else looks good, I'll order that. Other than cucumbers, I lean almost exclusively to what's already washed and cut, but that's just me.

A good bit of my senses of smell and taste didn't come back after I had COVID and most vegetables taste pretty bland now, so I eat those in the afternoon with some kind of dip. I like to flavor a light ranch with different things like Cajun blackening seasoning or buffalo seasoning. I also like to use things like vinaigrettes or Caesar dressing to dip as well. I do the hummus or guac thing sometimes, but I find them a little heavy to eat in the afternoon if I'm going to plan to be ready to eat before the middle of the night. Sometimes just a little salt is all it takes to perk things up. Cucumbers get sliced and marinated in rice wine vinegar with chili flakes, so those are an option as well.

AnnPT77

Hobartlemagne wrote: »

Ultimately, if you want to lose weight you're going to regularly need to feel hungry.
For me, that meant quitting snacks. That was tough since I used to eat a snack anytime I felt the smallest trace of hunger.

The bolded was not my experience . . . mostly.

For me, with a decades-long history of hedonism and broken hunger cues, some factors were:

* Learning to feel a difference between a craving or desire, vs. hunger.
* Learning which foods/nutrients, eaten on which timing(s) kept me reasonably full the majority of the time.
* Analyzing my diary when I felt more hungry or less hungry, and trying to understand why. (It wasn't always food: Sometimes it was about sleep, exercise type or intensity, etc. . . . let alone the habit, boredom, emotional factors that could amp up those cravings that weren't about a fuel/nutrition need to eat.)

It took some time, diary analysis, and thought to figure those things out - maybe the first 2-4 weeks, paying close attention.

I did snack all through weight loss, and the years of maintenance since. During weight loss, it was a tool. If I was feeling hungry, but it wasn't close to a meal time yet, I would usually choose a snack that would be filling to me. (For me, string cheese, some crispy chickpeas, a hard-boiled egg - usually a protein source, but something nutritious - that was what worked best.)

I found that if I let myself get hungry well before the next planned meal, odds of over-eating at that meal went up. I'm not saying those patterns are true for everyone: I think it's individual. But my best guess would be that many people have personal patterns they can figure out.

For sure, as the quoted poster said, some people will do best eliminating snacks. No argument there. But I don't think hunger is universally essential in order to lose weight, at least not after a fairly short learning/adaptation time period.

Hobartlemagne

I'm envious of those of you losing weight without feeling hungry.
I don't claim my way is the best for everyone. I'm just one data point in the big mix.
If I satisfy all hunger, my eating ALWAYS gets out of control. If I feel totally starved for the last 1hr before a scheduled meal featuring a measured portion, then I know I'm doing it right. My scale agrees with me.