Snacking in College Can Help You Lose Weight

The freshman 15 plagues many new students, and even returning ones. Some students deal with the unwanted appearance of spare tires and love handles by embarking on crash diets and ill-fated exercise regimes. However, there is another way to combat the flab – regular snacking.

The idea of eating more to lose weight understandably sounds preposterous, but it is actually a good way to shed pounds. Of course, there are stipulations. For one, the snacks cannot be of the regular college dorm room variety. This means that while you can snack throughout the day, in order to get slim and trim doing so, you need to make sure that those snacks do not consist of chips, soda products, sugary sweets, and nearly any other kind of processed, packaged food that you can acquire at your local gas station. Instead, you must eradicate all of those processed foods from your cabinets and desk drawers if you are to become a healthy snacker. Restock your dorm with healthier fare so that the next time you get the munchies while reading your latest psychology text, you can feel guilt-free about chowing down.

Regular snacking throughout the day keeps your body fueled and fights off hanger pangs. It also ensures that you do not become enticed by the smells and sights of unhealthy foods. When your stomach is empty, temptations to eat are much stronger, making you more likely to give into unhealthy cravings. However, regular snacking will keep your stomach relatively full so that you will not feel compelled to eat a hamburger the next time you see someone else eating one. In addition, healthy foods like carrot sticks, granola, and fruit will provide you with nutrients that will keep you healthy, something that unhealthy foods do not do. This means that while you are still taking in calories, you will also be taking in valuable nutrients as well, giving you more "bang for your buck," calorie-wise. The full-stomach feeling will also prevent you from binge eating during your regular meals. Those who starve themselves between meals often end up overeating during their meals. This causes them to rack up more calories than if they had just snacked throughout the day.

Healthy snacking is a great way to suppress your appetite so that you do not easily give into unhealthy cravings or overeat. It will also set you up with a healthier diet, which when coupled with moderate exercise, will have you shedding pounds in no time.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 9th, 2010 at 7:56 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.