Snacks!

Snacks are almost just as important to your weekly meal planning as the lunches and dinners you make! Snacks hold you over between meals.  They also keep you from making poor choices - when you're not hungry you less likely to reach for that vending machine snack of chips or candy bars.  Many, if not most, magazines, websites, and blogs will suggest 100 calorie snacks (assuming that you're consuming 1,800-2,200 calories a day with your meals consisting of 350-500 calories.)  My opinion - snacks should be enough to satisfy you but not so much that they detract from your next meal.  

Some of my favorite snacks include: 

• fair trade almonds
• bananas
• apples
• mixed nuts/trail mix/other dried fruit and nut mixes
• hard boiled eggs
• peanut butter & celery (or apple slices)
• hummus and peta chips (one serving of each)
• a slice of toast with peanut butter, honey, butter and jam
• granola bars
• smoothie

Other snacks include a serving cheese, yogurt, rice cakes with topping, etc. 

In my opinion, it's important to keep yourself to the serving size - make it easy to measure out.  I want some chips and hummus because dinner isn't ready and I'm very hungry.  For example, the serving size may be two table spoons of hummus and 15 chips.  I measure those out, putting them on a plate - that portion should be enough to hold me over.  It's not dinner (sometimes it is, but not in this case.)  Measuring out your food prevents you from over eating and also starts training you to think of snacks (and other foods) in portions.