WELLTHY Generation Podcast!

34. How to Snack Smarter: 5 Ways Mindless Snacking Affect Your Hormones

May 23, 2024 • Naihomy Jerez • Episode 34

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Let's talk about how snack time becomes a pivotal moment for your hormonal balance. Ever found yourself in the endless loop of munching on chips but still feeling unfulfilled? This chat reveals the hidden impact of  small bites on your hormonal health. With tangible experiences and practical advice, I guide you through the maze of snacking choices, highlighting the difference between a snack that truly nourishes and a treat that only satisfies momentarily. Together, we tackle the common pitfalls of workplace snacking and the social habit of grazing, arming you with the knowledge to choose foods that support your well-being.

As your coach to support you with balanced eating, I draw from my personal stash of tips for keeping your hormones in check while you live your life. Discover the convenience of prepping grab-and-go sections in your fridge and learn about smart, on-the-go options like high-protein snacks. Recognizing the impact of constant, sugary indulgences on our insulin levels, I emphasize the importance of selecting snacks that keep us satiated and energetic without the sugar and energy rollercoaster. This discussion is not just about curbing cravings; it's about empowering you with smarter, hormone-friendly snacking strategies for a healthier you.

Wrapping up our session, I go into the transformative power of nutrition in supporting hormonal balance. We talk hydration, healthy fats, and the role of fiber in our diets, not as buzzwords, but as fundamental building blocks for a diet that respects our hormonal function. By sharing stories of client transformations and the importance of a structured routine, I aim to inspire you to create meals that stabilize both your mood and your hormones. I encourage you to pass on this wisdom for balanced snacking to friends and followers, encouraging a community dedicated to healthier living.

Thank you so much for listening!
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Speaker 1:

Hey friends, welcome back to Wealthy Generation Podcast that is, w-e-l-l-t-h-y wealthy Today. This episode is for you. If you say that you are a snacker, if you are deep into that snacker identity, you're a person that says I love snacks, this is how I eat, I snack all the time, and so on and so forth. I'm just here to tell you right off the bat that snacking around is not helping your hormones at all, and we're going to go through five different ways that snacking is disrupting your hormones and what to do instead. Okay, so you you want to take notes, you want to listen to this a few times and you want to send this to your friends who you snack with, because usually you're doing these things together. Okay, so what's a snacker? Usually you're grazing right, like you're not having one specific meal. You are having like a little bit of food over here, a little bit of food over there, and you're eating little bits here and there. If you're picking food off of other people's plates, or like you're just eating the leftovers that your kid is leaving. My friend, we need to work on this because this is truly messing up your hormones. So the first thing I want to go over to is what's a snack versus what's a treat. This I have really taught to my kids what's a snack versus what's a treat Because when you start to identify and put food in specific categories, it becomes very helpful to identify what you need at that moment instead of it being all lumped into one. So if you've ever been my client and filled out my health history questionnaire, there's a question on there to the effect of you know what are your favorite snacks? And it's kind of a trick question because every single time somebody fills this out, they say that their favorite snacks are ice cream, chips, cookies. What else do they write? Pastries, and every single thing I mentioned for me are not snacks. Those are all treats. Okay, and this might not be a formal definition. If you go Googling this, I don't know if this is exactly what you're going to find, but this is how I've created definitions for these words. This is how I've created definitions for these words, especially to help my clients and my kids understand what the difference is.

Speaker 1:

So for me, a snack is something that has some sort of nutritional value to it. It will keep you full for at least an hour or two, until you're able to get to your next official meal. Okay, it is like a little bridge. If you're very busy, if you can't get to a meal on time, if something happened and your plans got shifted and you need a snack, then it's supposed to have some sort of nutritional value that will hold you over for an hour or two.

Speaker 1:

Now, a treat for me is fun food. It is sweets, it is chips. It has basically no nutritional value, but they're a treat, they're fun to eat. Let's live a little. Let's have some chips, let's have some cookies, let's have some ice cream.

Speaker 1:

But when you consider treats as snacks, then you're consistently eating chips and cookies and ice cream and pastries and cake and all of these things that are candies that are not serving you. And the first thing you say is oh, I need a snack, let me grab these chips. Oh, I need a snack, let me grab these I don't know bag of cookies, right? Or these bag of crackers, right? And what's happening in your body is one you're not getting full at all. You're just having this quick little hit of something that goes in your brain that your tongue really enjoys and there's no nutritional value there, and you're not full for long. So this is why, every 30 minutes, you're probably grabbing a new snack aka treat, because most of the time that's what's around.

Speaker 1:

And if you're a snacker, I feel like most of the time, or you see yourself as a snacker you don't even have your own snacks. Like, let's be real, you don't even have your own snacks. Let's be real, you don't even have your own snacks. So you are grabbing whatever's at the work pantry. I know when I worked in corporate we had a big kitchen pantry where there was a ton of snacks and AKA treats there. So you just go grab what's there.

Speaker 1:

You grow your coworker and you ask them what they have. You go to the you know what's it called Like the employee room, and all of a sudden there's leftover food there. Or there's that coworker that goes around selling you all of the extra leftover cupcakes that people didn't eat from the birthday party they had. Or you are grabbing the stuff that you have for your kids. Or you are running into a drive-through or a bodega or something like that to grab something quick. And if you are aware, you know, if you are aware of the kinds of foods you need to be having, even if you go to a bodega or a drive-thru, you know what to grab. But if you don't, when you walk into these places like a bodega or a drive-thru or whatever, or like, let's say, the pantry at your job, you're most likely grabbing a treat. Pantry at your job, you're most likely grabbing a treat.

Speaker 1:

All right, and they're not the same thing. So, remember, I consider a snack usually something that has at least two of two macronutrients. So the macronutrients are the carbohydrates, the proteins and the fats, and there's fiber mixed in there somewhere. So if you don't know what they are, we can DM me or we can go through them at another time. Carbohydrates is usually things like potatoes and crackers, things that are starchy, sugars. Proteins are usually things like meat, yogurt, fish, and fats are things like avocado, olives, olive oil, ghee, butter, things like that. So it has at least two of those components together and hopefully it's the main things in these dishes are, or snacks is a protein or a fat paired and never a carbohydrate on its own. So never really a, let's say, granola bar that's just full of oats and sugar on its own.

Speaker 1:

That is a treat that will spike your blood sugar. That will not make you fall, it will make you crash, and then in 30 minutes you'll be hungry again Once your body's done dealing with all that you put in the body right. So it's really important to know these things so that you help your body manage the hormones. So again, the point of a snack pair it right, make sure it's a protein with some sort of fat attached to it. And I'll give you some examples.

Speaker 1:

A good one is fruit, because oftentimes people are like oh, I'm going to have fruit as a snack. Great, I love that you're going for a whole fruit. But what happens with fruit as well is that, left alone, some of them are very, very sugary and it's not really going to give you that fullness that you're looking for. But if you pair the fruit with a protein or a fat, then the fruit goes much longer way for you. So it'll give you some of that sugar, it'll give you some fiber, it'll give you some vitamins and minerals, but instead of it, your body's digesting it super fast. So if you pair it with some fat or protein, it will slow down, and I'll give you some examples. So, for example, a lot of people will reach for an apple or will reach for a banana. Right, those are two very popular fruits that people are just gravitate to.

Speaker 1:

If you pair your apple or banana with a handful of almonds, let's say, or you put nut butter on them, like almond butter or peanut butter, like choose your favorite butter, that's clean, please, no added sugars or oils. Or you have an apple with two sticks of mozzarella cheese or your banana, right, you are creating these pairings. The almonds, or like the nuts, have fat and some protein. The cheese has some protein and usually fat as well. So just in those two examples you're creating pairings.

Speaker 1:

Let's say, you have a cup of cottage cheese, super high in protein that can be considered a snack, and you put some blueberries on top. Or a cup of Greek yogurt that's plain and you put some berries. Or, honestly, I really love cottage cheese and Greek yogurt and things like that. With mango, it tastes delicious. If you're having a slice of toast hopefully is's good quality and you put nut butter and a fruit on top, believe it or not, a toast with nut butter and mango amazing. Toast with nut butter and golden kiwis amazing, not just bananas and blueberries and things like that it really, really really does taste good.

Speaker 1:

And, honestly, those are the exact snacks that I have at home that are super easy and fast, because sometimes, between my calls I do not have that much time to prepare an actual lunch, so I use the power of snacking in a very smart way to keep me full and satisfied for a few hours until I'm done with my client calls and I can actually get an appropriate lunch. So I just ran through a few, which was, let's say, cottage cheese or Greek yogurt with fruits, one whole fruit, let's say whatever you want apple, banana, orange. It also depends on the person, right? Kiwis, mangoes. Some fruits are way higher in sugar than others, so we want to be mindful. So when I say I use mango, I don't generally eat the whole thing at once.

Speaker 1:

What I like to do with mango is I cut up the whole mango, I put half away in the fridge and I eat half and I pair that with Greek yogurt or cottage cheese or put it on toast with nut butter, things like that. So always when you think of the fruit is a carbohydrate and what are you going to pair that with? Is it cheese sticks? Is it a palm full of nuts? Is it nut butter? Even pairing things with avocado, like if you've ever paired, let's say, mango with avocado together in like a little salad similar to a salsa, it's delicious, and the avocado is a healthy fat, and the mango is nice and juicy, carby, and these things are full of fiber, right, we'll get into more of why that's important, but this is the kind of pairings that I'm talking about when it comes to snacks and eating them in a way that's going to protect your hormone health. Okay, so, oh, and I just quickly wanted to mention I think I'm getting into like the solution part of things, before I even explain why snacking is disrupting your hormones, but maybe you'll have like an opposite effect where you'll see with these tips, why your hormones get disrupted when you eat things that are really treats and not snacks. What was I going to say? There was one more thing. Oh, yes, yes, yes, I was going to mention because a lot of the snacks I mentioned are refrigerated, right, and you might be like well, I don't know where I'm going to store this. So, first, if you work from home, you can totally have these options in the refrigerator for you.

Speaker 1:

I love creating little grab and go sections in my own fridge. When I worked in the office, I used to have a little cabinet in my desk, at my desk, with a nut butter, some almond flour crackers and I think that was mostly it. Yeah, I would have to go back and look at the pictures, but I think I also had like some cookies and different things in there for when I wanted a treat that was cleaner, on the cleaner ends, but essentially I had like nut butter and things like that. There was a refrigerator at work so I could bring my own things if I needed and luckily, uh, the company I worked for had things in the refrigerator like cheese sticks, like hard boiled eggs, like plain Greek yogurt and things like that. So I would use those things and that's another thing that can be actually high protein too and considered a snack. Hard boiled eggs are great. It's a protein and it does have fat. And if you don't want to boil your own eggs and peel them, because it is a real pain in the ass to do that, they do sell already hard boiled eggs that are pre-packaged. That will make your life easy and you can just grab and go create that as a snack.

Speaker 1:

So a few things. Is, if you're traveling around one you can have a little tiny, cooler bag in whatever you have with you. Especially if you drive, it's super easy to bring that with you in a little cooler bag, which I often do, and I'm a New York city girl through and through. I'm often in the subway walking around, not in my car, so I'll have these things in my backpack. But in the event where you're like Naomi, that's cool, but really I can't do refrigerated items.

Speaker 1:

There are snacks that two in particular, I believe two that I carry around. One is beef jerky sticks that are grass fed, no sugar added, super clean. One stick of those is about 10 grams of protein. And I have these bars, meal replacement bars that my friend recommended to me a very long time ago, that are called sans s-a-n-s. Um, I know bars at the supermarket can be super intimidating. I stopped buying any because I could not find any that were low in sugar and high in protein and just super clean. Um, and these were actually not in the supermarket for a very long time. Now they're at Whole Foods and they are super clean. They have a great amount of protein inside I think it's about 15 grams it has fats and it has carbohydrates, so all three macros in this one super clean bar.

Speaker 1:

And there has been times where I've had to lean in this at this bar. There was one time we were shopping and we were like an hour away from eating and I was walking around and I was already hungry and I was like, well, this is a good time to eat this bar, because I didn't want to buy any treats that was mostly what there was in this place and I'm like, no, I'm good, I'll have my bar. I have them when I travel. When my kids are complaining that they're hungry, I whip out this bar and they usually share it, so on and so forth. So those are two things I like to have. Another thing that is easy to carry around and you don't need to refrigerate it is actual nuts, right, like you can have clean nuts with you and they're easy to snack on.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so now let's get into five different ways that your snacking is actually disrupting your hormones. All right, so number one is your body is always digesting food. When your body is always digesting food, guess which hormone comes into play? Insulin. Insulin is the hormone that helps remove sugar from your bloodstream and it stores it if it's too much. So not only are you consistently snacking, but you're probably consistently snacking on foods that are considered treats. So not only is your body working to digest food. It's also trying to process high amounts of sugar with the cookies and the cake and the ice cream and so on and so forth. So it's such a double whammy where your digestive system is always working and is trying to manage what you put in there.

Speaker 1:

It is very stressful on the body to continuously have to digest food. It is a big, big project and undertaking for your body to digest food. Why, like what diet does this reflect on? Like intermittent fasting, right, it's like give your body a break from digesting food and let it figure itself out, let it find other energy sources. Right? One of the goals, let's say, with intermittent fasting and when things like keto and things like that, is mostly to give your body the opportunity to use its fat reserves as energy, instead of using glucose all the time its main source of energy, instead of using glucose all the time its main source of energy.

Speaker 1:

But guess what happens when you consistently eat? It spoils the body to never have to tap in to those fat stores because you're always spoon feeding it, you're always snacking, you're always giving your body energy and its favorite source of energy. So guess what happens to the body? It's like oh all right, let's go. She or they are always giving me what I need, so why would I have to go do hard work over there? That creates what's called metabolically inflexible, or something that's called metabolic flexibility, where your body is no longer able to go from using sugar, glucose, carbohydrates as its main source of energy and it does not go into its fat stores.

Speaker 1:

Now, if you're always, always also overfeeding your body and giving it too much energy that it's not using, because most of the time what's happening is that we're pretty sedentary anyway, your body has to find where it's going to store all of this. Your body does not have unlimited resources. It needs to figure things out and it just doesn't do away with things. So then it starts storing it in your fat cells right, it starts storing, storing, storing. All of a sudden, you feel like you're getting away. You're getting pudgy and all these things and it's not going away, right. And then when you try to do something about it, it becomes very difficult for your body to get rid of it, and one of the reasons why is because, one, is used to you giving it food all the time and, two, it does not know how to go into its fast stores to burn. Well, burn is kind of like not the right terminology but to use up that energy to help you be right.

Speaker 1:

And now your insulin becomes dysregulated and you start to get all of the signs of insulin dysregulation. If you don't have your snack, you'll be hangry, you'll get migraines. You're tired all the time, so you're reaching for sugar and coffee migraines. You're tired all the time, so you're reaching for sugar and coffee. And then there goes the train of insulin dysregulation which also affects your sex hormones, like estrogen and progesterone and testosterone and everything. Everything starts to go downhill from there, and this is why this was the main hormone I wanted to start with, because it is such a big deal. And this also goes for you.

Speaker 1:

If you're the type of person that sits with your meals for two and three hours and you're just sitting there and you're picking at your food. Picking at your food, picking at your food. Doesn't know when it's actually full, because you're like feeding it, but you never really become full, so it doesn't really understand. There are actually two hormones called leptin and ghrelin that manage your hunger and your satiety levels. I haven't really spoken about them on this podcast at all, but it doesn't allow for your hunger and fullness hormones to work properly, because you're always picking at your food and your body gets very confused. So one really good thing that you can do for your body is just really try and finish your food when you start eating, and this is something I do often.

Speaker 1:

I don't really like tasting things, I don't really like picking like once I'm done eating, I'm done eating. So that way I don't know if you've ever heard like oh, wait 15 minutes to see if you're still hungry. That's strategic, so that your body can get the sign and see how full you are, so that your brain and your hormones can actually let you know I need more food and I don't. So if you're picking at your food all the time, your body's going to be so confused and, like I said with the insulin, is going to keep having to digest every single bite that you have. So please make intentional time to eat At least. I know sometimes we're so busy and we're rushing, but at least one meal a day where you actually feel into your body and see what it is to feel full and how the food feels All right. So you got a bonus there because of the hunger hormones and, yeah, they're important. They're there for a reason, but one of the main things was insulin. They're important, they're there for a reason, but one of the main things was insulin.

Speaker 1:

Number two is dopamine. Right, when you're snacking, especially if you're introducing treats to it, your brain is always getting that little hit. It's like, oh that little hit of sugar, oh that little hit of carbs over here, that little hit of quick energy. And if you're not eating enough, because you're always snacking, your brain is always going to be looking for that as well and calling for that, because what happens is is that is looking for that little hit of energy that it always gets, especially when it moves further away from being metabolically flexible and being able to go into your fat stores. So we have to be mindful of why do we want to eat? What we want to eat especially now, if you know is a treat. So is it because your brain is asking for this? Because there's a dopamine hit? Is that the reason why so intentionality becomes super important as to why you're eating these foods anyways? Like, is it your brain asking for these things Because it's a quick way to get a high, basically? And sugar does that when you eat a snack in a balanced way, the way I explained at the beginning of the episode.

Speaker 1:

When you're doing protein and you're doing fats, you really don't feel that urge and that pull to want more. You are pretty satisfied. You actually feel pretty full. It's just that it gets digested quicker. You're probably not eating as large of a portion and then, yeah, you'll need another meal later on. But if the snacks that you're having are very carb heavy or they're sugary treats, then all of a sudden your brain is going to be hooked on that and is going to want more. All right, especially when you're probably in stressful situations. You're probably trying to self-soothe which I was going to get into later anyway and you want some sort of enjoyment in your life and your brain knows that it can get that through food. Especially when your brain is aware of the type of food that you give it, then it's like oh yeah, oh yeah, let me get this person to eat this so I can feel good for a second.

Speaker 1:

All right, so the next way that snacking is disrupting your hormones I believe I'm getting into number three here is that when you're snacking all the time, you're not getting the variety of nutrients, vitamins, minerals and the kinds of foods that your body needs to create hormones in the first place. So all of it is kind of a mess, because your body does not have the tools, like the raw materials from your food, that it needs to create your hormones, and you become deficient in a lot of vitamins and minerals, which makes it really hard for your body to do its job. And no supplementation when you're not eating well is not enough anyway. Right, your body needs, for example, some vitamins are water soluble and other vitamins are fat soluble. So if you're not hydrating that's another thing, right.

Speaker 1:

If you're not hydrating, if you're not giving your body good, healthy fats, then it's really hard for some vitamins and minerals to be absorbed in your body. Similar like one of them that's fat soluble is vitamin D, which a lot of us are deficient in, which is one of the main vitamins that our body uses to create hormones, especially estrogen, right? So if all you're doing is eating sugary snacks, like you ate treats all day, or you're not eating adequate amount of fats, then it becomes very hard for your body to absorb these vitamins and make these hormones. Another thing is that you're probably consuming very, very, very low fiber from fruits and vegetables, good complex carbohydrate sources, things like sweet potato whole grain. If you're able to eat grains like rice and pastas sometimes they're very high in fiber, but mostly, mostly, mostly fruits and vegetables you want to be getting your fiber um through that. So if you're snacking, you might not be getting this, and fiber is super important to keep your gut nice and clean. And a lot of hormones something like estrogen that's already lived its course, gets eliminated through your liver and through your gut. So if you're not doing that, you run the risk of all of these estrogens getting turned back on and then leading estrogen dominance. And if you want to hear more about this topic, I invite you to listen to episodes 31 and 32, where I give 14 tips on how to balance your hormones and I go more into detail in about these particular hormones estrogen, insulin and you can learn more about them there. But yeah, so if you're not having proper meals with whole foods and you're always snacking and it's mostly treats, it's really hard for you to get your nutrients in your vitamins, your minerals, your fiber that are precursors and very important for hormone creation and hormone elimination so that your body is working effectively All right.

Speaker 1:

Another thing that messes with snacking especially late night snacking is melatonin. Okay, melatonin is your sleep hormone. It helps you go to sleep, but what happens is that my snackers are always like, ooh, I always want to snack at night, like I always have this craving for snacks and snack this, snack that, and then it interferes with your sleep, right? So the thing is that if you're not eating well throughout the day, right, you're skipping breakfast, you're snacking through lunch, you barely have dinner, or you have dinner, right, you finally have a meal, and then you're hungry an hour or two afterwards and then it's really close to bedtime. And then you start like with this mind drama, because you know it's close to bedtime, you know they say it's not good for you to eat soon before bed, but you're actually hungry.

Speaker 1:

The thing is that you cannot really fool your body that much and it will ask for what it needs. So your body knows it has not received the appropriate allotment of, maybe, calories or vitamins and minerals that it needed throughout the day and now it's like, well, I want more, I want more. So then it will make you want to snack, because it will make you want to eat, because you actually have not given your body what it needed throughout the day. It's been on this sugar rollercoaster up and down the whole time. And now you're tired and you're probably up past your bedtime and your body's like, hey, if we're going to stay up and if it's still kind of daytime outside because the lights are on and all that, then I'm going to need more energy so I can help you out.

Speaker 1:

And now, all of a sudden, there's this cycle that begins from the night before to actually throw you in this roller coaster and this loop again. You really want to be mindful of this. And also, if your melatonin is low and you suffer from that because your cortisol which is the fifth hormone I'm going to get into is high late at night, then you will crave more food. You will crave more because if you need more energy, because your cortisol is up your cortisol is your stress hormone, right? So if your body needs more energy to support you and you haven't given it what it needs your body hasn't felt that it's full it will consistently remind you to give it more so that it can help you out. And this is so important because I want you to know that your body is so smart. Your body is always trying to protect you and your body is always trying to figure out how to stay in balance. So all this late night snacking is not because oh my gosh, my body, oh my gosh, I can't. It's because you haven't been giving it what it needs from the start. So it's so smart, is going to ask you for that. So it's not that you don't have willpower, and it's not that your body is broken or whatever. It's just that if you don't give it what it needs, starting in the morning all the way through the night, then it is going to ask of these things for you.

Speaker 1:

This week I started with a new client, and last week too. So week meeting number one for one of them and meeting number two for another. And one thing that I've been really working through with the both of them is figuring out their schedule, like from the moment you wake you wake up to when you go to sleep, just filling in all the blanks, all of the time slots of what's going on, because how you treat the morning and how you treat the night really goes on a back loop with each other and that really influences your hormones from one day to the next and it really influences your hunger levels as well. How are you resting? When are you going to sleep? What are you having in the morning? And it might sound a little bit overwhelming, but when you're working with someone like me, we start to strategize little by little.

Speaker 1:

And one thing that my new client, which our first call was today, said is like oh, this seems manageable, like this, this seems like I can do it. And that's always the point, because the point is not for me to add more overwhelm and stress to you. That actually defeats the purpose, but it is to start to make very strategic and time friendly, like choices and decisions and eating, because it really will impact, uh, your snacking and how you're feeling and your energy levels. So snacking is not necessarily going to be giving you more energy. Um, so we were in melatonin and cortisol. The late night snacking is not necessarily because, um, not necessarily because you can't control yourself. It's probably because you haven't eaten throughout the day. And that's something that I encountered with someone I spoke to as well, where they were like oh, you know, I just eat most of my food at night, yeah, and throughout the day she wouldn't eat anything, but then that would impact her sleep and she couldn't sleep well. And then in the morning, guess what? Her cortisol was very elevated and it remained elevated.

Speaker 1:

And two, you probably self-soothe with eating that may seem like snacking, and you try and make yourself feel better, make your emotions feel better. Right, you might be emotional, you might be stressed out, overwhelmed, and then you grab snacks and you're like, oh, I'm just snacking, I'm just stressed out and all that. Using food to self-soothe is okay if you know that that's what you're doing, right and you're doing with intentionality. But most of the time we don't even realize we're doing it and we're just reaching for food to have an activity to do. We're reaching for food Guess what? Because it gives us that little bit of dopamine hit that we're looking for to help us feel better. All right, Knowing how to manage your stress and when you are stressed out, and having a variety of tools to help you manage your emotions can help you snack less, especially when you're using snacking as self-soothing and you're just looking for that little bit of dopamine to help you feel better. Looking for that little bit of dopamine to help you feel better.

Speaker 1:

There are some tools that my clients have used who were emotional eaters before, like grounding just laying on the ground, not even going outside and laying in grass, but just laying on the ground, calling a friend, drawing, getting some movement in stretching, hydrating, hydrating, hydrating. There's oftentimes where our body has a very difficult time trying to differentiate between dehydration and hunger. So if you are dehydrated, you might think that you need food, but essentially you might be dehydrated. So always making sure that you have ample amounts of liquid you are staying hydrated can be helpful too in cutting down snacking. All right, so we already went over, I guess before this, the type of snacks that are more aligned with what it is that you're looking for, in case you do need a snack.

Speaker 1:

But another way to curb snacking is to really start in the morning. So I just want to give you a few tips as to what you can do throughout your day to help cut down on snacking without you even knowing it. So number one and this advice can work for men, but it really really works for women If your main hormones are estrogen dominant, right, like if you're getting a period, then this is for you, right? So number one is to have high protein breakfast within an hour of waking up. It will really help balance out your cortisol and balance out your blood sugar. Okay, and by that I don't mean you need to sit down and have a bunch of eggs or make chicken or something like that If you don't have the time for that. I certainly don't have the time for that every single day.

Speaker 1:

So what I do have within an hour of waking up is a protein shake, and by a protein shake I mean protein powder and water. I do not like to use the blender. That just takes way too much time in my opinion, especially when I'm running out the door in the morning. So I'll have my lemon water with salt for a nice rehydration, help my body absorb. Then I'll have protein powder with water and probably two hours later, because of stuff I have to get done in the morning, I'll have an actual high protein breakfast and then, my friend, I'll have coffee. So if you need to have coffee in the morning or you feel like you do at least have it after your breakfast, whether that's actual food or a protein shake that you're having, that will help set the tone for the rest of the day, because if you start the day on a sugar rollercoaster, it's going to be very, very, very, very hard to get it back together throughout the rest of the day. So you will continue to be on this up and down of craving sugars and different kinds of foods and snacking and all that. So that's one of the best ways.

Speaker 1:

Two is to keep hydrated. Right, as I said, it's very difficult for your body to differentiate the two In every meal, let's say lunch, or if you're having snack, again adding, if it's a snack, at least 15 to 20 grams of protein and if it is an actual meal, between 30 to 40 grams of protein. Right, it may be different for everybody. This is just very general. There's actually an equation out there to understand how much you should be intaking, and it also depends on how much you're moving, which we didn't even talk about here, but it also depends on how much you're moving, okay, and then it's really important for you to have some sort of nighttime routine that helps you relax, help the cortisol settle down and help the melatonin go up, right, so that you can relax and this is essential for the next day how well you sleep. And if you are having balanced meals and snacks throughout the day balanced meals and snacks throughout the day then after you have your dinner, you most likely will not be hungry again until the morning time, and that's usually always the goal to be so balanced throughout the day that most likely at night, after you have your dinner, you will not be hungry again.

Speaker 1:

So making sure that you're protecting the light that goes into your eyes with blue light blocker glasses, dimming the lights on devices, dimming the lights at home, making sure that, hopefully, you're not reading, watching the news that's so stressful or scrolling through social media and seeing things that are triggering what else? Reading your work emails, really trying to not add more thoughts to the mind that it has to figure out. And if you have a racing mind where you're very busy and you have all these things that you know you need to take care of and they're stressing you out and they're running through your mind all the time, then just write them down on a pen and paper. It doesn't have to be organized, it doesn't need to look pretty, but at least they'll give your brain that little bit of safety, knowing that it's there, you're not going to forget it, it's going to be there in the morning, and just knowing that is out of your mind can be super, super, super helpful. All right, so this play between melatonin and cortisol is important, especially at night, and you can start setting the tone even for the next day, the night before.

Speaker 1:

Remember it just goes on, this constant loop, constant loop. And if this is one of the first episodes you're listening to and you haven't heard to, episode 31 and 32, where I go on a lot more tips on melatonin and how it works and why you want to do those things right. Another thing is, if you are eating late at night, then also your body's working to digest this and your temperature's kind of up in your body when your body's digesting food and it's working. So if it's working extra hard, especially to digest things that take a long time, then it's going to be harder for you to fall asleep, right and stay asleep. So, because your body's not relaxing, your temperature is up and actually when your melatonin starts to rise, your body starts to cool down a little bit. Getting ready for bed. All right, those are all my tips.

Speaker 1:

If you are a self-identified snacker, I hope this was helpful for you and you can use some of these tools to, if you are going to slap snack, do it in a much more balanced way to help your hormones out and you won't feel as fatigued, as tired, as annoyed, dysregulated, kind of in a bad mood. Those are all things that can happen when you are on this endless loop, and if you are a snacker and do not know how to get out of that and how to build your meals so that they are supporting your hormones a lot more, then I invite you to go ahead and book a consultation call with the link in the show notes. If this was helpful, go ahead and share it with your friend. Go ahead, screenshot it and share it on Instagram. Tag me, I'll be happy to say hello and repost and, if anything, happy snacking, happy having treats when appropriate, and I will see you next week. Bye.