Healthful Snacks for Weight Loss When you are trying to lose weight, eating wise is very crucial. Nutritionists and dieticians often recommend controlling portion sizes for weight watchers. Controlling portion sizes during meals may cause you to fall prey to hunger pangs in between meals. Eating less at each meal may end you up feeling starved all day long. But that’s not a good thing. It may cause you to lose your motivation soon and give up on weight loss. To prevent that, experts often recommend snacking between meals. Now, snacking is actually a tricky thing. If you don’t choose your in-between-meals snacks discerningly, you may do yourself more harm than good. Often we tend to grab food items like chips, muffins, pastries, fried chivdas, fried peanuts, fried chana, chocolates, vadas, samosas etc for snacks. But these food items are out-and-out unhealthy. They are fat and sugar laden and add empty calories to your system. Being processed, these unhealthy snacks may please your palate for the moment but may increase cravings at the end of the day! You may get tempted to consume more and more of these and may ultimately end up adding several Kilos to your body instead of dropping. Healthy snacking thus is pertinent to healthy weight loss. If you can choose your snacks wisely, you are actually on the right track. Taking healthy snacks in between small meals may help you suppress your appetite, boost metabolism and stop yourself from overeating during meals. All these factors cumulatively contribute to successful pounds shedding. If you are looking for some healthful snacks for weight loss, read on… Fruit salad A bowl of mixed fruit salad is the best healthful snack for weight loss. For the salad, you can use peeled and diced fruits like Kiwi fruit, Apples, Banana, Water Melon, Grapes, Guava, Cherries, Chikoos, Ripe Papaya, Avocados, Pears, Peaches etc. Mixed fruit salad is nutrient-dense, fiber-dense and pretty low in calories. That makes it ideal for weight management snacking. If you want to enjoy a different kind of fruit salad, you can refrigerate the salad and enjoy it frozen. Egg salad Eggs are a rich source of protein and the egg salad can make a wholesome filling snack for weight loss. To make egg salad, you need to hard boil eggs. Once eggs are boiled, remove shell and make slices of the boiled eggs. Add chopped raw onion, diced raw tomatoes and toss the egg salad with a pinch of rock salt, black pepper powder and chaat masala. Roasted Chickpeas Chickpeas or Kabuli Chana makes an ideal weight loss snack. ½ a cup of chickpeas contain 5 grams protein & 5 grams fiber. These attributes curb appetite and stop you from day long binging. The nutty aroma and somewhat meaty texture of Chickpeas are loved by many. Dry roasting the chickpeas make them tastier and super crunchy. Dates Dates are a nutrient-rich fruit. Though high in sugar and calories, dates can support weight loss by curbing your appetite and improving your power of digestion. The sweetness and chewy texture of dates appeal to many who have a sweet tooth but cannot take sugary foods due to metabolic disorders like diabetes, obesity etc.
Masala skimmed milk Skimmed Milk is milk from which the fat content has been removed. The milk contains only traces of fat; i.e. 0.1%. Skimmed milk flavored with Masalas may be used as a filling in-between-meal snack. To prepare masala skimmed milk, you need to boil the skimmed milk first. Once you see bubbles appearing in the milk, add saffron and powdered nuts such as almonds, pistachios, cashew. Next add cardamom powder and let the milk boil on low flame for 5 minutes more. Once you get a slightly thickened milk consistency, remove from flame and let it cool down. Refrigerate it if you want to get a super-tasty and refreshing masala milk. Coconut Water Coconut Water is nutrient-rich, low in calories (46 Calories in 1 cup) and fiber loaded. 1 cup of water contains nearly 3 grams fiber. Coconut water also contains protein. 1 cup of this wonder drink contains about 2 grams of protein. All these attributes facilitate fast and easy pounds dropping. Taking coconut water in between meals is thus good for people who intend to drop their pounds. Muesli bar Mueslis are loaded with fiber and healthy fats that keep hunger away. You can prepare muesli bar at home and use it for healthy snacking. To prepare muesli bar at home you need to first select muesli of the best brand. Before choosing, read the labels properly as some muesli available in the market are pretty high in added sugars and may sabotage your efforts to drop the pounds. To prepare muesli bar at home, you first need to add 1 tsp ghee to a skillet and add jaggery. Stir the jaggery with spatula until it all melts. Next, add the muesli and keep stirring to mix muesli completely with jaggery. Cook on low flame until you get a sticky dry mix of muesli and jaggery. Remove from flame and empty skillet on a tray to which you have attached a baking sheet. Spread the muesli-jaggery mix evenly all across the tray and press with palm to flatten the mixture. Wait until it cools down to room temperature. When it does, remove the baking sheet from the tray along with the solidified Muesli mix. Use a sharp knife to cut the muesli-jaggery mix into bars. Store the muesli bars in airtight container and grab one every time you feel hunger pangs. Ragi biscuits Ragi or Finger millet is pretty high in nutrients and is considered a weight loss super food. You can consume biscuits made out of ragi as a healthful snack in between meals. To make the biscuit, you’ll need to combine Ragi flour with Whole wheat flour, powdered jaggery, baking powder, a pinch of cardamom powder, ½ a cup of skimmed milk and moderate amount of ghee. Once the dough is ready, you need to make small balls out of the dough and flatten each ball by pressing with your palm to make small discs. The biscuits need to be prepared in oven. Once the biscuits are done, you’ll get aromatic, delicious, flaky ragi biscuits to snack with.