The Difficulty of Snacks

For many of us, snacks can be a problem.  Even when I eat snacks that I feel are negative in effect (i.e. won't add to a weight problem), such as protein, I'm still eating a snack, and often late at night, just before I go to bed.  I've tried to make any snacks that I eat something such as cashews with a small cheese and, perhaps a few olives along with it.  And, there is often if not always, the ubiquitous soft drink.  I liked having a Coke Zero before I went to bed.

I made a couple of decisions regarding snacks, and I honestly did not know if I could live with them.  If we don't try, we are doomed to failure; you miss 100% of the shots you never take.  And, as Jelly Bean Jones always says, "The girl you don't ask out, ain't going with you anyway."  I set a loose goal of no snacks after my evening meal.  Once I had gotten past three days without any snacks or real food, I seemed to be able to do it.  How?  I have no clue.  I've tried a hundred times before to do this very thing, cut out snacks after my evening meal.

In my past, it has been such a struggle for me and a few times I have gotten a couple of days without a snack and then I would get hungry at night and get something.  I always thought it was not a problem and it filled me, keeping me from waking up hungry during the night.

I have gone over two weeks without a snack.  Except for hot green tea and I may add a teaspoon or two of honey to it.  My goal is to consume less than 20 grams of carbohydrates each day.  Many carbohydrates are a tad hidden from us.  They are not, really, but we either don't read labels or know how to.  For example, I had a female friend online, whom I never met in person, but she was eating a lot of yogurt daily.  She insisted she was on a low carbohydrate diet but, she was eating three or four of the cups of yogurt and each one had two servings.  The yogurt she bought had about 22 grams per serving but some yogurts have up to 46 or more grams of carbohydrates, either in a cup or as a serving.  Here are some values I found on a web site:

http://www.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition/food/yogurt/carbohydrate

Also, I thought I had to have the Coke Zero or Sprite Zero.  Zero means they have no calories and the company claims that they have the same taste.  I thought the taste was good, not like the early diet drinks that always tasted like medicine to me.  It doesn't matter the sweetener, Splenda, Truvia, Sweet n' Low, Equal, etc, we are still adding something that is not quite natural.

Also, I've drunk coffee with cream/creamer and Splenda for a long time.  I often said that I liked coffee but I did not like the taste of it.  I began to drink it black when my last 50 package of Splenda was exhausted and, lo and behold, I've learned to like black coffee.  I'm cheating a bit because in the middle of all of this, for Christmas, my dear sister-in-law, during her courageous battle with ovarian cancer, bought us a Keurig coffee maker.  We did not and do not have the space for it but, before I mothballed it, since it was a gift, and from someone struggling with money and life, I set it up and began to use it.  I love it.  Charlotte does not, but perhaps she'll get used to it.  The jury is still out.

Here is what I have done then:  I am following my diet plan daily, eliminated soft drinks of all kinds, learned to drink coffee black and ice tea without sweetener and I exercise daily with long walks.

I am doing well and losing weight by my goal plan.  It is now 225 days until my goal target of 160 lbs. by October 1, 2013.

Stephen Joe "Red Boots" Payne