Easy On-The-Go Snack Ideas
Y’all! Life is busy! I wrote a few days ago that my husband and I have stepped into a new phase of house ownership and with that has come a strange sense of nourishment. I am working all the time (so is he), but we both feel full, inspired, and happy. I imagine this is similar to what having a kid feels like: sleep deprived, almost cranky (but you still laugh easily), sparatic eating schedule (“who has time for eating?” says the nutritionist), you just want to crawl into your bed for two full days, but you are too excited about your daily activities to even get to bed before midnight.
I write all this to say that I’m feeling filled with inspiration, creativity, joy, love, and nourishment. My body is sore, I’m tired, I’m working towards better balance, but I feel like every sweat, workout, and work-day is something that feeds back to creating me into the person that I want to be. And that’s a dang good feeling.
Speaking of busy though, I know this is one of the most common challenges my clients face. What do you eat when your so busy that you don’t have time to eat? The answer I always give is, ‘its all in the meal prep.’ But what I also find is that it is easy to meal prep our meals for the week. What we always skip over is the snacks.
I know some people say that you should only eat three meals a day. Not me. I think there are many reasons that you actually should eat snacks. In instances of adrenal fatigue or high stress, snacks are pretty crucial, having high cortisol levels in general are times when I would encourage snacking. Other reasons are for muscle growth, post-workout snacks, thyroid issues, some instances of stalled weight loss, being hungry a couple hours before meal tie… the list goes on.
So what do you snack on? That doesn’t give us free reign to eat total junk. We still need to stick to whole foods in between meals, but that’s difficult because whole foods spoil fast and usually need to be prepared. When you live an active lifestyle, you need options that can carry with you for hours, in the sun, in the heat, and in a bag that’s getting smashed around. The following are mine and my clients’s favorite things to snack on in between meals.
Quick and Easy Snack Ideas
1. Fruit, fruit, fruit, and more fruit.
This is my favorite go-to snack for on the run. It’s nature’s perfect whole- “pre-packaged” food. Some people say, eat fruit with protein, other people say that fruit should be eaten on it’s own because poor food combining can lead to the fermentation of fruit in the stomach. I say, it depends on you and your body. But you can’t go wrong snacking on fruit.
2. Trail Mix
I absolutely love to make my own trail mix. I will link a couple recipes at the end of this post, but in the meantime, here’s the basics:
DIY Trail Mix Guide:
Dried fruit: dried cherries, raisins, golden raisins, mulberries, dates, dried apricots, dried papaya, dried pineapple.
Nuts: almonds, walnuts, pecans, macadamie nuts, cashews
Seeds: Sunflower seeds, hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds
A sweet treat: coconut shavings, cinnamon, chocolate chips, cocoa nibs.
3. Celery with Peanut Butter/Almond Butter
Classic. The kid in me still totally loves ant’s on a log.
4. Coconut Date Rolls
I have to be careful with these things, but I absolutely love them, especially when I am on the go, on a hike, run or climbing. These are awesome little power bites and you can pick them up at Whole Foods. (Larabars are also great!)
5. Hard-boiled Eggs
Need I say more? Quick, easy, delicious and a whole food that comes in its own wrapper.
6. Sandwiches
My husband and I both need a lot of calories. His total estimated daily caloric expenditure is about 3900! Mine is around 2600-2700 calories per day. That’s per day, just to maintain our weights. It’s no wonder we can’t keep our grocery bill down. We eat to maintain and build muscle, so this means a couple of extra snacks on top of our daily needs. In order to get this much food in, sandwiches are a huge help. Almond butter and banana sandwiches are my personal favorite. We also love to stuff as many vegetables as we can into a sandwich with pesto and hummus, these include: red pepper, greens, cucumber, tomato, pickles, sprouts, avocado, carrots, beets, etc. Wraps are also great because you can jam pack them with veggies. Be picky with you’re bread. This is a whole other post, but there are so many options and it’s important to choose quality. There are many great gluten free options, artisan sourdough breads are also much easier on the stomach.
7. Cheese and elk sausage
In my husband’s words: “Best snack ever”!
8. Tuna Fish with avocado and cucumber/crackers
I love to mix tuna with mashed avocado instead of mayonnaise. I also like to dice celery, red onion and red pepper into the mixture. You could make this into a sandwich or eat it with crackers or cucumbers.
9. Smoothies
Last but not least, smoothies are one of my favorite snacks. I add something for the texture, either an avocado or a banana, something for flavor, berries, mango, etc. and then greens and booster foods. Blend and done.
I love to pre-make my snacks for the week and have something that feels like a treat on hand. Here are two of my favorite options:
10. Coconut Macaroons
dessert version: http://gourmandeinthekitchen.com/honey-coconut-macaroons-chocolate-sauce-recipe/
everyday version: https://www.eatingvibrantly.com/raw-date-coconut-macaroons/
11. Power Balls
I love Julie's over at Paleomg: http://paleomg.com/lemon-poppyseed-energy-balls/
Then, there's 21 options here: http://paleogrubs.com/bliss-balls-recipes