To snack or not to snack? That is the question.

My happy, little, snacker, Samuel

This is one of those questions that has been answered by many people, many different ways.  It depends on what time period you ask it in as to what answer you get too.

I remember a time when I thought snacking was bad.  Snacking was not supposed to happen, especially if you were trying to lose weight.  In my previous life as a WW leader I would often hear new members say that they needed to stop snacking.  I would also see them pat themselves on the back because they had a good week or day with no snacking.  Wow, no snacking!  I marvel at someone who can just live on meals alone.  I enjoy snacking.  I'm sure most of us do.  That's why you're reading my blog, right?

Snacking has its purposes.  One of them is pure enjoyment.  It's fun to snack.  Snacks are often thought of as fun foods: chips, cookies, crackers, cheese, etc.  They are the foods that you would often like to have as a meal but it would be completely inappropriate so you eat a proper meal and save the fun stuff for snack time. I think snacking should be done for enjoyment once in a while.  Eating is an enjoyable act for most of us.  There is nothing wrong with enjoying it.  In fact, I highly recommend enjoying it.  When you enjoy the food you eat, you often have to eat less of it.

Another purpose is to satisfy hunger.  Many times we snack because we are just down right hungry.  And we are people who do not like to be hungry.  We treat hunger as if it is a disease and if we let ourselves be hungry we shrivel up.  I love it when I say to Bryan, "What? You haven't eaten today?  You need to eat something.  You must be hungry."  I don't know why I say it because his response is always the same.  He grabs his belly and says, "I've got plenty here.  I'll be fine for a long time with this belly."  To a certain extent, he is right. (No, not about his belly) A little hunger isn't going to hurt us.  We will be fine.  But, playing devil's advocate here, how hungry should we let ourselves get?  Isn't our body telling us we are hungry for a reason?  Shouldn't we satisfy that hunger with a snack?

A third purpose it to put off hunger.  No, this is not the same as above.  In this instance we are not yet hungry and don't want to get hungry so we have a snack for fear that we may be hungry if we don't.  I have found myself doing this on more than one occasion.  I look at the time and realize that I haven't eaten in a couple of hours and tell myself that I had better have a snack or I will find myself really hungry soon.  So what?  What if I become hungry?  Well, one of the things that I have learned from my past is that if I become too hungry, I eat anything and everything I can find when I finally eat.  That can be very dangerous.  That is why I have become such "snacker."

My last purpose to snacking is the purpose I have found myself in lately.  It's something to do.  Isn't that sad?  I used to snack to keep myself from being hungry and eating everything in sight.  I have now moved from that to snacking because it's more fun than doing the dishes or laundry.  I ask myself what I should do now.  If I haven't eaten recently or feel like eating something, I decide that I should eat.  Afterall, snacking is good for me if it keeps me from being too hungry later, right?  I may have taken this to the extreme.  What I find is that I am spending so much of my daily budget on snacks that my meals aren't satisfying enough.  I want more.

I need to snack less.  What has brought this to my attention is my kids.  I am finding that we are always pressed for time and feel too behind in life, too often.  When looking at what we use our time for I am finding that we use way too much of our time for eating and preparing food.  My kids are around me for most of their lives and they are picking up my habits.  Yikes!  Scary!  When I tell them to do their math they ask for a snack.  When I say, "No, do your math." They say, "But Mom, I'm hungry."  I've fallen for that one way too many times.  We are snacking less in our house over the past 2 days.  They are getting more work done as a result and so am I.

Snacking is not bad and certainly has its place.  The key is to find its place and put it there.

Have a great day,
Corinna

"Better is a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble with it.  Better is a dinner of vegetables where love is than a fatted ox and hatred with it.  Those who are hot-tempered stir up strife, but those who are slow to anger calm contention." -Proverbs 15: 16-18