8 Tips To Help Control Your Snacking

When a coach says have a piece of dark chocolate to curb your cravings…. Please 😑

I try and regularly ask my subscribers what they struggle most with and besides the what, when and how much to eat, a big issue seems to be a lack of discipline or being able to control cravings….

So what can you do?

1. Build an environment conducive with you goals

Do you have access to those sweet things, are they in your house? Usually if something is in the vicinity, it’s in reach and there’s not much effort to grab it you will eat, and keep eating it. So don’t buy it. The harder it is to get hold of a food the less likely you’re going to eat it.

2. Be strict with being balanced

An oxymoron I know but what I’m getting at is to use something like IIFYM to monitor your bad foods. Use our macro cheat sheet to help you do this here.

3. What’s your big why?

It’s not usually discipline that’s the problem but a problem with motivation, or being motivated all the time anyway. Try and ask yourself why you REALLY want to lose weight or perform better, how important is competing/winning? How important is feeling more confident in your body? What’s your ‘big why’? Write it down.

4. Get strict for 8-12 weeks

Set yourself some goals, give yourself a time frame and give it everything. It’s not forever!

5. Control hyper palatable foods

Foods that are high in salt AND fat AND sugar are very hard to control. Limiting these over a period of time can actually dampen cravings so you’re not seeking out these types of foods (1).

6. Substitutions to satisfy a craving

Look to sub in lower calories snacks and drinks in place of the hyper-palatable foods mentioned above. Although I’m not saying these are particularly healthy, it’s better to have the odd of of these than to consistently overeat.

Sweet snacks under 100 calories - popcorn, low calorie bags of crisps, snack jacks, 10 cal jelly pots, frozen grapes
Make your own crisps
Look for high protein low calorie snacks - biltong, greek yoghurt/quark/skyr, boiled eggs
Use zero calorie sweeteners, syrups and flavour drops to help give some extra flavour to your food without using up too many calories
zero calorie drinks - Opt for diet varieties if you are out or just crave a sweet drink

7. Increase your fibre content

Swap in beans/chickpeas/lentils into your lunch/evening meal as a carbohydrate source
Increase vegetables at lunch/evening meal
Add a portion of vegetables as a snack: carrot/cucumber sticks

8. Experiment with time-restricted eating

Try pushing your breakfast back a few hours or stop eating by 6pm to reduce your eating window. This is a practical strategy which is shown to be effective with controlling how much you eat.

Need more help with your nutrition and exercise?

Then check out Ignite, the 8 week transformation programme! Click the image below or shoot use a message here for more details.