Snacks

Most of these snacks are between 100 and 200 calories. A snack is a mini meal and not a time of grazing where you grab and snack on a bag of chips or cookies.

• Small handful baby carrots and 2 to 3 T low fat ranch dressing.
• Small apple with 1 T peanut butter or 1 string cheese
• Fat free or light Yogurt-The Greek ones are great and have more protein. Fred Meyer has a store brand that is good and Trader Joe's brand is great.
• Protein or Fiber Bar or the Natural ones. Watch the ingredients on the bars as many of them are loaded with sugar but they are great to leave in your car in a pinch.
• 1/2 cottage cheese and cut up strawberries or blueberries and a few slivered almonds on top (Trader Joe's has bags that are cheaper.)
• Bag of 100 calorie cookies and a piece of fruit and tea. (Only if the cookies are not a trigger food)
• Almonds, Walnuts or Pecans. (I count out 20 almonds and bag them in the small snack bags to have on hand for grab and go)
• Starbucks skinny latte or Americano with 10 almonds.
• String cheese or 2 laughing cow light cheese or the Baby Bel cheeses with 18 all bran crackers or other high fiber cracker (100 cal or so)
• Fruit smoothie using 1cup fruit, 100 cal yogurt and light almond breeze milk (Available fresh in milk section or in boxes you can store, great in place of milk items because I think it is only 40 calories per cup. It is great on cereal or coffee drinks. There is a vanilla flavor one too that is great)
• Celery and Pepper sticks with 1/3 cup hummus. (Costco carries hummus in snack packs)
• 18 Soy crisps and small apple or fruit (Soy crisps are great if you love chips or salty foods, just make sure you measure them out because it is easy to eat the entire bag)
• Whole grain pretzels (100 cal. worth) (Trader Joe's has some great Pumpernickel sticks and the serving size is 8 and they are big and great for dipping) and Tziki (cucumber/cream dip 100 calories worth)(TJ's or Costco)
• Small bran muffin (200 calories or less) 
• Nile Soups (you pour the water in them) or 2 cup Progresso light soups or best of all make soup at home and divide it into small tupperwares for the week.
• Chai tea latte made with 1/2 cup Oregon chai sugar free chai tea latte (Fred Meyer in the Organic section-can be hard to find) and 1/2 cup almond breeze and 100 calorie pack Lorne Doone cookies.
• Celery stuffed with Trader Joe's Light cream cheese (tub) 2-3 T with a few chopped walnuts mixed in or just on top and then sprinkle paprika on top. (I take these to any potluck and everyone loves them!)
• Small Trader Joe's Mini Wheat Pita pocket stuffed with tuna/celery or turkey.
• Pea Pods, cucumber and tomatoes with any dip 100 calories.
• McDonalds ice cream cone 150 calories, apple dippers with caramel (100 cal) or the parfait (130 cal) 
• Wendy's small chili (220 calories)

These are a few of my favorite snacks for the afternoon. Each person should make a list of the foods that they enjoy though. Take a tour of Trader Joe's and try to keep your snack between 100 and 200 calories for everything, including your drink. Drink calories do many people in because they do not count drink calories. For some of you if you did your meal planning sheet and alloted more calories for your snack just plan for a more. It is just helpful to know that there are many great snack choices that you enjoy because when a craving hits we tend to lose our minds!

Happy Snacking (Plate it and eat at the table)! Tomorrow, I will post on some simple tricks that you can do to save between 100 to 500 calories. I do believe that the more you know the more you can eat. Kerry