Healthy Snacks To Help You Avoid Weight Gain

American's continue to struggle with over-weight and obesity problems.  This has become a major health problem for both adults and children.  A big part of the problem is that we eat unhealthy snacks in addition to over eating at  meals.  Calories we do not burn off are stored by our bodies as fat.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has developed a list of healthy snacks.  Fruits and vegetables are among these choices.  They are full of vitamins and low in calories and fat. Some crackers and cheeses also make good snacks.
More examples of healthy snacks are:

• Apples (dried or cut into wedges)
• Bananas
• Raisins
• Fruit leather (dried fruit puree)
• Carrots (regular carrots cut into strips, or baby carrots )
• Snap peas (the pods are edible)
• Nuts (but not too many)
• Dry cereal (if sugar is not listed as one of the first 2 ingredients)
• Pretzels
• String cheese
• 1/3 cup of grape nuts with 4 ounces of nonfat plain vanilla yogurt
• 8 ounce low-fat or nonfat yogurt
• Toasted English muffin with jelly
• Dozen baked potato chips
• Air popped popcorn
• 1/2 cup cherry or grape tomatoes
• 1/4 cup hummus, 3 carrot sticks

Put your snacks in single portion sized containers to keep from over-eating and so you can transport them to places like work.  Bringing your own snacks will help you avoid the always present cakes, pies, cookies, donuts and candy you find in most break rooms.

It is OK to have something not so healthy on occasion to avoid the "forbidden fruit" problem, but planning ahead and preparing and eating healthy snacks is the way to go to help maintain a healthy weight.