You Are What You Eat

by Lori

If someone made a, "You Are What You Eat," poster of me ten years ago it would have revealed lots of pizza, fried foods, and crème Brule. In addition, it would have shown that I consumed lots of bad snack choices: tons of chocolate covered almonds, Doritos, soda-pop, sugar cookies, and mint crisp shakes. My countenance would have beamed with a message which said: eating junk food is cool! Unfortunately, I would also have made a good poster person for the saying, “A Minute on the Lips -- A Lifetime on the Hips.”

I cut out all fried food and 99% of the soda I drank and, within a few months, dropped over twenty pounds. Buoyed by my efforts, I decided sugar cookies could be cut back to one or two a month, mint crisp shakes to one every six months. Doritos went all together, and one of my very last boxes of chocolate covered almonds went to Kenya (the writer, not the country). Pizza and crème Brule had to stay – in moderation.

One problem: working at the computer all day made me susceptible to the munchies. If I wanted to continue to slim down I needed to make healthy snacking choices.

Currently, my favorites are:

Kashi Bars – the honey almond flax is wonderful
Kashi Seven Grain Crackers
Crasins
Dried Blueberries
Wasabe Almonds – thanks, Janie!

I haven’t tried the Kashi cookies yet as I could easily envision myself thinking I couldn’t eat just one – box. I keep a bag of Swedish fish on hand and, for emergencies, I've stashed a hard-to-get-to box of chocolate truffles. Water and lemon favored Propel are my beverages of choice -- a bit boring but much better than cans of pop!

If anyone has ideas for healthy snacks, I’d love to hear about them!