Tips How Not to Snack Your Way Through the Stay at Home Order
Maintain a Schedule
Color-coded schedules aren’t just for the new homeschoolers. Creating a daily time for meals and snacks can help you avoid grabbing that bag of chips when you are bored and need a mindless activity.
Meal planning can also help to ensure that you have the right ingredients for lunches and dinners, and you may be more likely to pick out something random to eat if you know that it corresponds to a specific meal you have planned for tomorrow.
Use a Bowl or Container
Starting a Netflix binge makes it really easy to binge on unhealthy snacks too. Instead of bringing a whole bag of cheese puffs or package of candy over to the couch, pour your snack into a small bowl that will limit you from chowing down on an entire package without realizing you’ve done so.
Order Healthy Snacks Instead
When you place your grocery order to pick up, try to be intentional about the snacks that you choose. Grocery stores may be low on toilet paper and cleaning supplies, but most still have regular produce and it’s starting to be the best season for ripe vegetables and fruits.
Choosing to buy healthy snacks that fill you up will give you more value for your dollar and, instead of purchasing the empty calories from junk food that will leave you hungry again in an hour. If you really need a bag of chips or box of cookies, then limit yourself to just one package or try a baked chip or healthier cookie swap.
Tie a Ribbon on It
If you find yourself wandering toward the fridge or the pantry every 15 minutes looking for something to snack on, try tying a ribbon on the doors (so that you would have to untie it to open them). The point isn’t necessarily to make it too difficult to get into, but to make you more aware of how often you are going to look for more food. Hopefully you’ll find it more of a hassle to untie the ribbon and look for something else to do.
Take a Walk
Getting outdoors will be the saving grace for many of us stuck at home, and thankfully the weather is finally starting to cooperate. Taking a walk through your neighborhood or a local park (while maintaining a six-foot radius from others) will both give you something to take your mind off snacking, and work off any extra snacking pounds that you may want to lose. Other fun outdoor activities that don’t require being in close proximity include a game of soccer, a nature scavenger hunt or working on your landscaping.