It's not easy to try and lose weight. The psychological associations with food are endless, putting ourselves last so that we may satisfy our families is par for the course, and finding the time to prepare loving, wholesome meals and exercise on top of everything else we must find the time to do is exacerbating or almost impossible.
What is there, then, to be done?
Since I am a "nervous" eater (not a technically correct term but somehow, well, it feels right) I tend to eat when I'm stressed out about things and I especially love crunchy foods which seem to calm me down. Well, the act of eating the food does, not the actual food itself.
So my solution to wanting a healthier weight and lifestyle and to continue to be able to nervously eat to calm down and actually get full and healthy while doing it is have extremely crunchy yet nutritionally packed snacks available to me most of the day.
These snacks include:
* Crackers. Okay, you're thinking saltines, you're thinking buttery, you're thinking, blech, that's not a healthy snack, that's 10 pounds! But I'm not referring to "regular" crackers. I am suggesting whole grain health food store crackers and not eating entire packages of them but just, say, four of them, and even using hummus to spread upon them to make them more filling and nutritious. Ak-Mak, Wasa, and flaxseed are wonderful whole grain choices.
* Carrots are so crunchy they practically take your breath away, and the little baby carrots are easy to grab by the handful and place into your yearning mouth. You will fool yourself into thinking you are eating quite a lot and get that satisfying, aggression releasing crunch without the unnecessary processed food component.
* Nuts are the classic snack. Of course cashews are very high in fat and too many nuts can give you a stomachache. But there are so many types: Brazil, walnuts, pecans, and raw almonds are especially high in nutritional value and can be very filling and wonderful, as well as crunchy.
So keep these with you at work, keep your cupboard supplied and crunch those carrots when you feel the need for a snack; you'll thank yourself the next day.
Aimee Boyle lives, works and writes in CT with her beautiful family. She is a regular contributor to EmpowHER.