Is snacking bad?

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I get asked this a lot, and the answer is, as always, it depends.

A lot of us (me included) like to have the odd snack.

And once we understand how calories work, we can easily have our cake and eat it 😳!

When people first join the programme, we nearly always cut out snacks for the first week or two.

This is so that we have the chance to build an understanding of calories and how they work.

For weight-loss, as long as we are not going over our calories, we can eat at whatever intervals we like really.

And for some, that is 3 large meals each day.

For others (me included), they like to have an afternoon and evening snack as well.

So, as long as the total calories for the day stay where we need them to be, this works well.

There are, of course, times when this does not work.

If people are really hungry, because they are trying to save calories to have as snacks, and so are having less satiating portions with main meals, then this can go wrong.

Also, if the snacks are high-calorie with the types of foods being less than ideal (so, a lot of chocolate, cakes and crisps) then again, it won’t work quite as well.

So, to wrap this up; snacking is fine as long as the majority of the snacks are healthy, you are still having satiating meals that keep your hunger levels low, and they don’t take you over your calories.