Snack prepping is very popular and for good reasons. The act of preparing snacks ahead of time for the week or month implements a routine in your life that saves time, money, and also your health. When you snack prep, you have control of what you eat because you can customize your portion sizes and ingredients to your liking. This empowers you to make sure you are eating your required food groups daily, controlling your portions to reduce weight gain, and decreasing your sugar intake to prevent sugar crashes. Overall, snack prepping will become a good habit that will benefit your health and life in many ways.
You’ll Eat More Fruits and Vegetables!
When you snack prep, it becomes easier to incorporate certain foods into your diet that you may have been neglecting yourself of. Two of these food groups include fruits and vegetables. Incorporating them into your weekly snack prep will help to improve your health.
Fresh fruits are full of vitamins and antioxidants which help keep your body healthy. Antioxidants and vitamin C are responsible for eliminating harmful free radicals from your body that can cause illnesses and diseases. You can easily incorporate fruits into your snack prep by adding fresh fruit to your salads or dehydrated fruit into your trail mix.
Fresh vegetables are packed with nutrients and fiber and low in calories. The fiber will keep your system clear, and the nutrients will maintain important processes in the body, such as digestion. Nutrients are used by the body for energy as well as cell repair. In addition, since fresh vegetables are low in calories, you can munch on them without gaining much weight. We are recommended to eat around two cups of vegetables a day, so easily incorporate vegetables into your snack prep for the day by prepping about 12 baby carrots and three broccoli spears.
You Can Lose Weight!
Speaking of losing weight, snack prepping makes it easier to manage your weight for multiple reasons. First, you are able to monitor what you eat daily which makes it easy to control your calorie consumption. You can even incorporate snacks that are naturally low in fat or sugar. Second, if you already have snacks prepared, then you are less tempted to purchase an unhealthy snack. Third, you can choose to prepare snack foods that are filling.
As we all know, a big cause of snacking is hunger. This can easily cause us to overeat and consume way too many calories. However, if filling snacks that are full of protein are eaten instead, this will decrease or completely eliminate your unhealthy snacking habits. Great examples of filling snacks are nuts and seeds. As a result, you will gain less weight because you are hungry less often which will cause you to eat fewer calories over time.
You Can Monitor Sugar Consumption!
With our lives being so busy, the demand for energy is the highest it’s ever been. This leads us to eat sugary snacks that taste great but have a nasty payoff in the end. The high sugar content gives us a high boost in energy quickly, but the crash is just as intense. When you snack prep, you can easily avoid sugar crashes by choosing to eat snacks that contain energy sources that provide steadier levels of energy.
In essence, sugar isn’t bad, it just needs to be monitored and eaten in moderation. Instead of eating candy fruit snacks, take the time to snack prep fresh fruit for the week. Put down the banana almond smoothie and pick up a handful of almonds. Once you start doing this often, you’ll see how well your energy levels improve and become more stable and reliable.
All in All
Snack prepping will become a habit that will bring about a healthier lifestyle and mindset. When you start snack prepping, you will start seeing your health improve. After taking control of what you eat and seeing how easy it is, you’ll be less tempted to make unhealthy snack purchases. If you’re ready to change the way you snack, read our article about snack storage bags that are perfect for snack prep.
Sources
Baertlein, ByLisa, et al. “Healthy Snacking Benefits.” EverydayHealth.com, https://www.everydayhealth.com/diet-nutrition/meal-planning/healthy-snacking-benefits.aspx.
Derrer, David T. “Your Better Diet: Top 5 Changes to Make.” WebMD, WebMD, 15 Apr. 2013, https://www.webmd.com/health-insurance/features/diet-changes#1.