Practice "Safe Snacks" for Fat Loss

In our house, the hour before bedtime is known as “Crinkle, Crinkle” time. That’s the time of night, after a healthy dinner, my husband and I tend to mosey over to the kitchen cabinet in search of snacks. And the “crinkle, crinkle” sounds of our favorite treats give us away (why don’t they make quieter chip and cookie containers I’ll never know!). 

I hear from clients all the time that they too struggle from “free range snacking” at night. We eat well (plentiful and healthful) all day. And we’re proud of that! And maybe we also get in some awesome cardio or weightlifting too. And we feel good about it (as we should!). And we enjoy a yummy, healthy dinner. GREAT! And then, while relaxing on the couch the “Crinkle, Crinkles” call. It can kind of sneak up on you. And before you know it, it’s easy to have eaten way more than you intended leading to a caloric surplus which can add up and result in noticeable weight gain, indigestion, poor sleep and frustration. This happened to me a few months ago and it took some real strategic thinking to course correct. There are LOADS of strategies out there. And I tried a few that didn’t work for me. Here’s what worked. 

Since I was free range eating (i.e. open Trader Joe’s pretzel nugget bag in hand standing over the kitchen sink) I didn’t really know how much I was snacking. So for a few weeks I simply tracked my food. Then I sat down and reviewed trends and noticed how many calories I was eating versus burning (I used MyFitnessPal to track what I ate and my wearable Whoop to tell me what I burn). That helped me come up with a reasonable daily goal moving forward. You can read more about food logging here and in my free nutrition guide. 

I decided what my non-negotiables were. I knew I needed/wanted something with peanut butter right before bed. And I usually make three trips to the cabinet after dinner. So I tried an experiment. After dinner I plated (measured and put into fun little bowls) three snacks that fit my overall calorie goal for the day based on everything I eat in a day. I picked a savory/salty snack, a sweet snack and a peanut butter snack. And I left them on the counter. After dinner, while laying down relaxing I would get the urge to go “Crinkle Crinkle” and when I walked in the kitchen I would eat one of my snacks and go sit back down. I did that three times and went to bed. 

The first day or two took a little adjustment. I was used to feeling STUFFED. But quickly it started to work and after two weeks I dropped about three pounds of fat and my digestion and sleep improved. And I started to feel much better. And it makes me happy and was kind of fun. I feel pretty great being able to eat pretzel nuggets, chocolate chip cookies, brown bites, cheese puffs, popcorn and peanut butter pie bars and still lose fat and perform well in my runs and workouts. AND to remember that satisfied feels much better than stuffed. 

Side note, I was telling one of my clients about my fun nighttime snacks and he said “JJ, you are practicing SAFE SNACKS!” Boom.