This Is The Perfect Snack If You’re On A Fat Loss Journey. I Know Because It Kept Me Full While Losing 60 Lbs.
Crunchy. Salty. Sweet. The holy trinity.
If you buy something we link to, The Candidly may earn a commission. Gifted items will be called out (gifted), and affiliate links will include an asterisk (*). We have to eat, after all.
by Audie Metcalf
You’re sick to death of me talking about my 60 lb weight loss by now, but if it’s new to you, please consult my credentials with lots of before and after photos here, here, here, and here.
Or if you hate clicking into other things here’s some before and afters:
There is only one thing on this earth that will actually make you lose weight and that is a calorie deficit. Nothing else. If you’re on a GLP-1, the reason you’re losing weight is because you’re in a calorie deficit. If you do intermittent fasting and it’s working for you, it’s because you’re in a calorie deficit. If you eat a Mediterranean diet and you notice the scale is going down, it’s because you’re in a calorie deficit. If you’re doing WW and you’re losing weight, it’s because you’re in a calorie deficit. There are lots of ways to get into a calorie deficit, but it’s the single, only way to lose weight, period. Simple, yes?
Yes. It’s simple. But it’s not easy.
Being hungry every day when you’re in a calorie deficit is why most of us can’t stay in a calorie deficit. That’s it. That’s the main rub. And to stay in a calorie deficit, you need to make sure that all your meals and snacks and basically everything going into your mouth is the most filling thing it can be—unless you’re on a GLP-1, whose main function acts to control your appetite, so a lot of the “food noise” we hear about is controlled by nature of simply not being that hungry.
But for me, who is not on a GLP-1, and who is eating around 1500 cals a day to maintain my weight loss, I need to make absolutely sure that even my snacks are smartly designed for optimal fullness. Or I might get in my car, and it might find its way to a McDonald’s, and I might devour a double cheeseburger with extra pickles “made fresh” along with a 10-piece and a large fry because, let’s be honest, someone has figured out how to hack our brains and create the perfect poison to activate everything in our brains to become addicted to food (or “food”), so none of this is our fault really, but it is our responsibility, so I have to have many, many, many, many satisfying and crunchy and salty and sweet snacks at the ready. So here it is:
Is this plate as delicious as a Large Fry? Absolutely not. And by the way it’s not like I “can’t” have a Large Fry because I can. A Large Fry is 510 calories so I could easily fit that into my daily deficit. But … if I ate a Large Fry, I would be starving in an hour and then I would have another snack and by the time I got to dinner it would be incredibly hard to stay in that deficit. That’s the entire reasoning for why we need to “eat healthy” for weight loss. It’s about controlling hunger. And real foods like protein and fiber help keep us full. And this snack plate isn’t even that perfectly healthy. So let’s walk through what’s on my plate and why it works so well:
1. Two Wasa Crispbread crackers
If I don’t have the crunch of something like a cracker every day, it’s not a life worth living. But once you look at the calories of most crackers relative to the portion size, it’s impossible. These are huge and only 35 cals each.
Nutrition: These provide whole grain carbs and fiber.
2. Whipped cream cheese & jam
Whipped CC IS one of my biggest weight loss hacks of all time. Condiments like butter and oil and salad dressing are astronomically high in calories and for me they were the single thing standing in my way of being able to lose weight. But WCC is only 50 cals for 2 tablespoons. Do I want more like 8 tablespoons and do I want those on a pillowy egg bagel? I sure do. But this whole game is a daily trade off. So this helps that desire in a much smarter way. I also slather with some jam—I often buy low sugar jam but I have this Bonne Maman so I’m using it. I used about a half tbsp which is 25 cals.
(The WCC is a fat though not “healthy fats” just more “delicious fats”—like I said, this isn’t perfect. To make it perfect you could swap this for avocado)
Nutrition: none
3. Trader Joe’s Grilled Lemon Pepper Chicken
I have tried every single premade chicken “product” available in Southern California. And this is the most delicious one. It’s SO lemony, and I do a half serving which is around 100 cals. The “perfect” way is to make a whole chicken on Sunday and “snack on it throughout the week!” but I’m sorry I’m just not doing that. On Sunday’s I need to lie down and drool so I can write long articles for you on Fridays.
Nutrition: 15 grams protein
4. Half an Apple
I beg of you. Eat an apple every day. They’re extremely filling, wildly healthy, and if you can find a HUNNYZ (I find mine at Bristol farms, Gelson’s, and Sprouts) your life will be forever changed. Once you’ve experienced a Hunnyz you’ll realize Honeycrisp, our collective favorite for so many years, are deeply inferior.
Nutrition: 50 cals, fiber, vit c, potassium, antioxidant
Snack plate calories total: around 300
I have lots more where this came from. Should we do a low cal, ultra-filling snack series?! Or are you sick of this by now? Let me know in our DMs. I check them constantly like a crazy person.
Audie Metcalf is the Editor-in-chief of The Candidly, and lives in LA with her family. You can find more of her articles here.
At The Candidly, we try a lot of stuff so you don’t have to. We only recommend things we truly love, and that we think you’ll love, too. All products are chosen independently by our creative team, and all details reflect the price and availability of products at the time of publication. If you buy something we link to, The Candidly may earn a commission.
We have to eat.
