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How to Stop Snacking Step By Step

If you frequently snack between meals, you have a lot of reason to be excited. You are probably taking in hundreds of calories from your snacks, and changing this one habit could mean seeing weight loss, pronto! (The average American takes in about a quarter of their calories as snacks between meals!) But if you’re feeling daunted by the idea of no snacking, take it easy. We’ll help you through it one step at a time.

Morning

First, let’s look at the breakfast-to-lunch chunk of the day. If you typically have breakfast, and start snacking mid-morning without being hungry first, try taking a day to wait and see when you actually get hungry after your normal breakfast. Maybe you’ll surprise yourself and be able to cruise right to lunch! Maybe you’ll find your breakfast isn’t substantial enough as it is, so you’ll want to add something to it to help it get you all the way to lunch time. Not sure what to add? You could increase the portions of what you already eat, or you could simply eat the snack you used to eat later together with breakfast. If you’re feeling drowsy, you might have been in the habit of snacking to boost your energy a bit. Instead, try drinking some water, having a caffeinated beverage or getting up and moving a bit. A few arm circles or 2 minute stretch break can loosen up morning stiffness and help you think more clearly.

Afternoon

Once you’re getting from breakfast to lunch without snacking in between, we can look at lunch-to-dinner. Try taking an experimental approach to seeing when you actually get hungry after lunch. Is your stomach beginning to growl at 4pm? Perhaps you aren’t literally hungry mid-afternoon, but have a slump in energy, and grab a snack for a mental and physical pick-me-up. Whatever you notice when you try to go from lunch to dinner without snacking, it’s good data!

If you are finding you are hungry between lunch and dinner, there are a couple things you can consider trying. One, try adding food to your lunch to see if it will hold you over until 30-60 minutes before dinnertime. (You can have the snack you used to eat in the afternoon with your lunch, or just bump portions a bit). Alternately, you can plan on having a meal in the mid-afternoon to help you make it to dinner, but you will want to make sure you are hungry for it, as well as hungry again by dinnertime, so you won’t want that afternoon meal to be too large or too close to dinner. You can choose either method. The former technique tends to work best if your lunch and dinner aren’t too far apart, say, 6 hours or so. However, if you have a late dinner or work out between lunch and dinner the afternoon feeding might be easiest for you.

Let’s say you aren’t feeling belly-centered hunger, but you really want that snack! Ask yourself what you’re feeling. You may notice you are feeling tired, bored, or mentally fatigued. Responding to these needs is a healthy idea, so don’t feel that you must ignore them. Just try responding differently, such as with a walk, water, a quick phone call, or chat with a coworker. If hunger isn’t the problem, food is not the best solution. [There’s plenty more on this topic in the Hunger Mastery skill, so make sure to check it out!]

Evening

The Dinner-to-bedtime interval is the home stretch! For many people this is also a tough time where snacking is habitual. In the evenings we’re unwinding after the day’s responsibilities have wrapped up, the kids may be in bed and it’s finally “me time.” Having snacks or desserts can feel like part of the enjoyment of those after dinner hours, but they certainly aren’t essential to having a lovely evening! Again, there are two strategies you can use to approach this time of the day, and the best one for you will depend on your preferences and schedule. You can get satisfied at dinner and be done eating for the day, or you can plan on eating again before bedtime. Planning an evening meal between dinner and bedtime tends to work best when you eat an early dinner, so you have time to get hungry again. (In keeping with three or four total eating occasions, we don’t recommend eating between lunch and dinner and again between dinner and bedtime. If you feel like you need to eat 5 times, increasing meal size to have more satiety between meals would be the better bet).

To help re-script your evenings without the snacking or grazing habit, make a deliberate plan to do enjoyable things other than eat! Perhaps there is a show or movie or sporting event you want to watch. Maybe it would be nice to kick back, light a candle and read. You might try a meditation app, do some stretching on the floor, head outside for a walk, or talk with your spouse about how you day was. There are lots of ways of unwind and enjoy those hours, and you’ll be making progress towards your health and weight loss goals as well.

Adjusting Your Grocery Shopping

In addition to feeling more satisfied on fewer calories when you adopt a “meals, not snacks” pattern of eating, you may also find your grocery shopping changes a bit. Some foods that we think of as snacks (such as crackers, pretzels, chips, granola bars, and nuts) naturally decrease in the diet when we omit snacking. Many of our clients comment that they simply don’t buy potato chips, salted nuts or pretzels anymore, now that they’ve stopped snacking. You certainly can add them to your meals if you enjoy these or other particular foods, but if one doesn’t seem to fit into your new meal pattern as much, it’s one fewer thing you need to buy.

Give yourself time develop the skill of eating 3 or 4 times a day, it takes most people at least 2 weeks to get pretty consistent. And don’t sweat it if every so often you have a 2 meal or 5 meal day, it’s what you do consistently that determines your weight and health, so don’t worry about being perfect. You won’t be, and neither will will anyone else. Just do your best.

References

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14. Zurlo, F., Lillioja, S., Esposito-Del Puente, A., Nyomba, B. L., Raz, I., Saad, M. F., ... & Ravussin, E. (1990). Low ratio of fat to carbohydrate oxidation as predictor of weight gain: study of 24-h RQ. American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology And Metabolism, 259(5), E650-E657.

15. Chapelot, D., Marmonier, C., Aubert, R., Allègre, C., Gausseres, N., Fantino, M., & Louis-Sylvestre, J. (2006). Consequence of omitting or adding a meal in man on body composition, food intake, and metabolism. Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.), 14(2), 215–27.

Eating 3 or 4 Meals Daily