What would you qualify as a healthy snack?

Friend foods? Lol fried foods, so you can add bananas and fruits, or some protein bars, dark chocolates, smoothie shakes, peanut bar, sandwiches with fresh tomatoes, chicken breasts and cucumbers, and the most important one water

 

I love to eat greek yougurt and put inside Cranberry, Dark Chocolate 75% or more. Don't exagerate with overthinking on what you should eat as a healty snack, Just leave junk food like Mars, Snickers, and other shit food. I mean I can eat them, but not all the day. Same for Drinks, with water i also drink Sparkly Lemon water (Not sprite), or Tea, but i don't really care about them. Stop drink fanta, coca cola, pepsi, etc...

 

A piece of fruit is a good snack, but I quite often find that it doesn't satisfy my cravings for sweets. I make a protein smoothie (1.5 scoop of protein powder, 1 banana, 1 tea spoon of pure cocoa powder, a little bit of cinnamon and some water) and it tastes like a milk shake. It's about 300 cal, but if you want to lower that number, you can add other fruits and spices: strawberries and mint, for example.

As a side note, since I started to track my calories and macro nutrients, I've notices I don't want to snack as much as I used to. Maybe you don't eat enough of food during your meals, maybe you don't eat enough of carbs, proteins or fats. Also think about switching to more volume of food, keeping the calories the same: eat more greens, if you eat meat, go for leaner options, etc.

And if you are only starting dieting, don't think too much of it. Just avoid blatantly unhealthy foods, and when you hit the wall and stop noticing any improvements in your physique, only then try to ameliorate your diet.

 

I guess the best thing is to find a balance between healthy homemade food and the convenience of a 'snack' that you can eat on the go, whenever you feel like, etc.
If, like me, you are at home all day you can make a little extra on each meal and keep it in the fridge for a convenient 'snack' the next day. That way I am eating 'proper' food all day, but no 'snack' food. I also have a bowl of fresh fruit to satisfy my 'sugar' cravings in a more healthy way. Don't go overboard though, even with fruit, aim to 'fill up' on savoury then enjoy a little sweetness just for the joy.

 

Greg Doucette's Anabolic French Toast.

 

The one and only!

 

Since we're talking "snacking," I'm assuming we're talking about bulking, right? For snacks when bulking, I go for sandwiches. I tend to go for balanced foods, so I do peanut butter and banana sandwiches or canned chicken/tuna sandwiches.

I never bother counting the macros, but peanut butter has plenty of fat and protein, and decent carbs in the banana and bread. For the canned Tuna Sandwiches, I mix mayo in the meat for the fat, and extra carbs from peas.

Balanced snacks. No need to spend $100 for Douchette's cook book.

 

1. Greg has the recipe for his french toast on his YouTube channel. It will coast you ah zeeerrroo dollars to learn how to make them.
2. You don't need to bulk to build muscles. You need to bulk to gain fat. In the last case eating a peanut butter sandwich will be a good idea, otherwise, it's better to change peanut butter for a peanut powder. It has better protein/calories ration than the usual peanut butter.
3. Counting macros is indeed an unnecessary thing to do as long as you don't have to follow a special diet that can lead to some unbalances. For example, I'm a vegan and I tend to not get enough protein if I eat without thinking.

 

You don't need to, but it helps. To refer another youtuber, Dr. Mike Israetel: You can have all the best builders and engineers, but if the pieces don't come, you can't build that skyscraper. You can have the best program ever made, and work as hard as possible, but if you don't get that nourishment and keep it coming, those muscles won't grow to their potential. That's why it's best to bulk up and get as much muscle as possible then cut the fat away after, otherwise you might be leaving gains on the table.

 

To each their own. I would rather not to cut, I don't want to diet too hard. And you will leave some gains on the table during your cut stage any way, unless you are going to bulk for the rest of you life. Any way, intensity of the training is what matters the most.

 

I agree with everything said here (especially "to each their own" ). However I want to add that, yes, intensity is what matters most. And the easiest way to increase intensity when resistance training is to increase the weight used. And the easiest way to get stronger and use bigger weights is by gaining fat. I mean, look at Eddie Hall when he won World's Strongest Man in 2017. Fat as shit. He immediately retired and got himself ripped. Now he looks fucking amazing with his shirt off, but I guarantee you he will NEVER top his previous world record deadlift of +1,100 lbs every again. The same can be said with every other strong man. Martins Licis had been getting fatter and fatter every year until he finally won World's Strongest Man in 2019 (of course Thor was injured, but...). Shivlyakov's been bloating up too. That's just how to get stronger.

Really, just wanted to make the point that body fat helps INCREASE intensity of resistance training, which is why it helps gains muscle mass. It's just another reason why bulking is, in my opinion, a good thing. Plus, very few people see me without my shirt on in winter, so it's not like I give a shit whether my 6 pack starts fading due to +13 BF%. Ascetics is not my big concern outside of summer. And this summer was a fucking flop thanks to the virus, anyway.

 

Ok so between my breakfast(3 whole eggs and dates after calisthenics and cardio) and lunch(slightly high calorie lunch) , I eat some peanuts , some I mean some . Between lunch and dinner(simple low calorie dinner), I eat 2 whole oranges and 1 whole banana, that has also worked very well for my muscle mass . Try this out if you have the resources.

 

Fruit / Veg
Nuts
Seeds
Yoghurt
Oats
Protein Shakes
Wholemeal Toast

 

Willpower is all you need to replace sugary foods. Straight up willpower in the beginning. After some time has passed you will notice that whole fresh foods will taste so much better than you thought. It is thereafter that you will be able to explore all kinds of healthy snacks. You won't be put off as much by trying all different types of fresh food snacks. Nothing but fresh vegetables and fruit for snacks (more vegetables).

 

Some (30g) mixed nuts unsalted and not roasted are a great snack for some healthy fats.

 

This.

Just get through the beginning withdrawals of quitting sugar and then the rest will be a cake walk, pun intended, as long as you keep making concious choices of making sure you never eat something with sugar or fast food.

I never crave any sugary things or even fast food anymore. The things I crave are things like chicken, rice, broccoli with a peanut sauce.. sweet potatoes with a steak and asparagus... scrambled eggs with red peppers and garlic... porridge with oats cinnamon and milk.... ok getting hungry now

As it pertains to snacks... I mean you don't really need snacks. Just cut it out and eat proper meals. If you're having a snack just because you "want to eat something" then that's no bueno imo.

If you want a snack because that is the only opportunity for you to hit your caloric surplus then yeah sure, snack it up. Cashews or walnuts are great. Don't go for the dried fruits as it's sugary as fuck and will keep you on the crave train for sugar.

One way to test yourself and kickstart a new tasty and healthy diet is to do a prolonged water fast. The first water fast I ever did was for 5 days but usually it's recommended that you'll try for just a day or two as a beginner.

You will grow a newfound love for anything food-wise after a 5-7 day water fast. Oats mixed with water, nothing else - will be fucking awesome. So it gives you a new appreciation for simple foods and a nice clean slate to start over from. If you decide to try this, read up on it properly before.

 

My go-tos are apples, grapes and raisins for sweets, and pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds when I crave something salty. Sometimes I'll allow myself some good milk chocolate or a couple handfuls of pretzels (which are far less unhealthy than chips, Cheetos, etc.).

Even with healthy options, portion control is key. Look at the label, see what the serving size is, and stick with that. For example, the milk chocolate I eat doesn't mean I get to eat the whole bar in one sitting. The serving size is 3 squares (1/5 of the bar) so I stick to that. For pretzels I'll eat a serving size of ~20 pieces, not the whole bag. Raisins and nuts are pretty calorie dense too (and expensive) so a little goes a long way.

 

A probably unpopular opinion: good old air and water. Snacks are pretty darn unhealthy. If you have carb cravings, there is a possibility of carb addiction. Researching it and trying out clean keto / clean carnivore coupled with intermittent fasting for 90 days stands a high chance to help with that.

 

If you want to quit sugar you need a drink that is healthy, tasty, non expensive, and always around. For me I would always drink kombucha, la Croix, and I drank a lot of milk, milk was super tasty so any time I had a urge for something tasty I drank milk instead. Also consider cooking for yourself, I would make all my meals when I still lived at home, in the morning I would drink my pre blended vegetable juice and drink green tea, then have a big pot of brown rice and chicken slow cooked in butter and garlic salt, afterwords I would mix them and add lots of garlic salt. In the afternoon I would make salmon cooked the same way and mix it with spinach eggs, I would snack throughout the day on things like bananas, rice cakes with sun butter and honey, honestly there are lots of options. Back home when I ate like this I never had food craving either until at night when my cravings exploded, staying on consistent meal plan helps a lot, in the military I am always freaking hungry because my lifestyle is different now. It may sound surprising when I say I never got tired of eating the same meals every day either, infact I was always looking forward to that next meal because I loved my cooking so much and also the food schedule I was on was perfectly spaced out.