A friend of yours may tell you that you shouldn’t snack between meals; someone else may tell you that you should. Who’s right?

Do you know the difference between snacking and having a snack? In my definition:

• Snacking is continuously eating or picking at food throughout the day.
• Having a snack entails a set time frame for a smaller meal, or snack.

For instance, Janie eats all of the time, but will tell you that she just snacks. Instead of having a set time for each of her meals and a set snack time each day, she will just “snack” or “graze” throughout her day. However, John has a scheduled snack each day around 4 pm before he heads to the gym.

Which is better for you: Snacking or Having a Snack?

It is actually good for you to eat scheduled snacks (i.e., “have a snack”) if the length of time between two meals is greater than 4-5 hours at a time. For example, if you eat breakfast at 6 am and lunch isn’t until noon, then consider eating a snack around 9:30 or 10 am.

I usually have an afternoon snack on my way out the door at work, because I eat lunch around 1 pm and dinner isn’t until 7 pm—so, around 4:30 or 5 pm, I eat a snack. On a similar note, if you eat dinner at 5 pm, and don’t head to bed until 9 pm or later, it might be good to eat a small snack about an hour before you go to sleep.

With that in mind, what are good snacks to eat?

• Peanut butter and crackers
• Low-fat cheese and crackers
• Granola bars (like Kashi and Fiber One)
• ½ bagel and lite cream cheese
• Small bowl of cereal and low-fat/skim milk
• Piece of fruit
• Celery and peanut butter
• Handful of nuts
• Small bag of lite potato chips/pretzels
• Canned fruit and cottage cheese

However, don’t get into the habit of snacking (i.e., “grazing”) throughout the day. It can throw off the routine of eating and you may not get the nutrients you need. One of the things that you may have noticed from the MyPyramid Plan is that it doesn’t actually tell you what to eat and when. It gives you flexibility throughout the day and the time to schedule in a snack if you need it.

In conclusion, if you are going a length of time without eating, schedule a snack in between a meal. Your body will thank you for the energy boost!

That’s right! Today is the first annual Registered Dietitian Day, so if you see your friendly dietitian today, wish him or her a happy day! And no, I didn’t make this day up.

On this day, think of taking care of your nutritional health and schedule an appointment with a registered dietitian. Many times, we schedule check-ups to make sure that our cholesterol, blood pressure, and blood glucose is within normal range, our “female” or “male” parts are working normally, and that our teeth are shiny and clean. But how many of us schedule check-ups to make sure that our diets are healthy and will lead us to lifelong health and wellness? Probably not many of us!

Today, why not schedule your diet check-up with a registered dietitian (RD)? Some insurance companies now cover your visit to a dietitian, or you may be able to pay using your “flex spending” account.

So, why schedule a check-up with an RD?

The following points taken from the American Dietetic Association website

1. You have cardiovascular disease (like high cholesterol), high blood pressure, or diabetes.
2. You are thinking of getting or have had gastric bypass surgery. This changes the amount of food you can safely eat at a time, and you may be missing important nutrients from your diet.
3. You have digestive problems like Crohn’s disease, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, gastric reflux, ulcerative colitis, irregular bowel movements, etc. An RD can help you avoid trigger foods that may exacerbate your symptoms.
4. You are pregnant or are trying to get pregnant. It will be important for you to take a multivitamin and eat foods high in folate.
5. You need guidance and confidence in breastfeeding your baby and want to know the best diet for you and the best feeding guidelines for your baby. Calcium, iron, vitamin D, omega-3 fatty acids, and fluids become an important part of your diet when you are breastfeeding.
6. You, your teenager, or your child has issues with food and healthy eating. An RD is helpful if you think you or your child has an eating disorder like anorexia nervosa, bulimia, or binge eating disorder.
7. You or your child want or need to lose or gain weight.
8. You are caring for an aging parent. Your parent may not be getting the nutrients he/she needs, the amount of medicines that he/she is taking may interact with some foods, and your parent may not be getting the fluids he/she needs.
9. You want to eat smarter. You want to know if the latest diet is healthy, if what you hear in the media about a food or nutrient is really true, etc.
10. You want to improve your performance in sports. If you are an athlete or if you work out regularly, you may want to talk with an RD to find out how you can optimize that workout!

Whatever your reason, take some time today to look up a registered dietitian in your area and schedule that appointment! And don’t forget to schedule one for your child and your elderly parent as well. Just as physicians specialize in different areas, so do RDs. So the RD that you see for your diet may not be the same person to counsel you on your child’s diet or your parent’s diet.

The theme of National Nutrition Month® is “Nutrition: It’s a Matter of Fact”. The past few days, we have been discussing the key messages to this month’s theme. Another key message is:

Look at the big picture: No single food or meal makes or breaks a healthful diet. Your total diet is the most important focus for healthful eating.

Let me give you an example: Jake has been following the MyPyramid Plan now for the past week. He has been eating foods from each food group and has been doing pretty well with portion control. This morning, he goes out to breakfast with his guy buddies before they play golf. He orders a “Grand Slam Breakfast” from Denny’s Restaurant because he’s hungry and loves the food that is served with it. He then feels guilty because he ate “huge” portions that weren’t part of the MyPyramid Plan, nor was the food “heart healthy”. He decides to give up his meal plan and starts eating whatever he wants again, in whatever quantities he’s hungry for at the time.

Does this ever sound like you, where you give up your “diet” because you ate poorly for one meal, or you ate one food that you didn’t think was good for you? How many times have you said “Oh, forget my diet because I just had ……..”?

Well today’s message is such: Do you really think that one unhealthy meal for one day, or one unhealthy food at one meal really breaks your diet? It doesn’t! It’s ok to vary your diet sometimes and to eat something that’s not so healthy for you once in a while. The real key is what your TOTAL diet is like over a longer period. If, at every meal you eat unhealthy foods, then that isn’t good. But if you eat 1 unhealthy meal out of 20 other meals that week, well that’s not bad at all! That’s an unhealthy meal 5% of the time, and let’s face it 5% really isn’t a big number!

I’m not saying that you should eat poorly every day, but I think that allowing yourself one night every week or every couple of weeks of eating something not so healthy is OK. By giving yourself variety in choices, you can stick to a healthy diet more easily. And by allowing yourself some foods that you think are not healthy, you will be even more motivated to stick to a diet.

After all, how many of us defied our parents when they said “don’t do that?” It made us want to do it more, didn’t it? Well, it’s the same with food. The more we tell ourselves we can’t eat something, the more we want it. So that’s why the “everything in moderation” idea works so well, and why no single food or meal makes or breaks a healthy diet.

In the words of Scarlett O’Hara from Gone With the Wind, “Tomorrow is another day.” So, if you mess up today, just pick yourself back up at your next opportunity!

March is National Nutrition Month® and Building Nutrition will be posting daily on various nutrition topics. Be sure to subscribe to our RSS Feed or our email newsletters to stay up-to-date.

As you may remember, the nutrition theme for this month is “Nutrition: It’s a Matter of Fact“. For the past few days we have been discussing the top 10 Nutrition Facts.

Fact number 4 is: Balancing physical activity and a healthful diet is your best recipe for managing weight and promoting overall health and fitness.

As simple as that may sound, it really IS important to balance physical activity and diet. Yes, you CAN manage your weight by eating whatever you want and working off the calories through exercise, just as you can manage your weight by eating healthfully and not working out. However, for lifelong health–to lessen your risk of a chronic disease and to fit into those same pants over the years–it really is key to work out and eat healthy.

I’m not saying that you have to run a marathon or complete a triathlon, but engaging in 30-60 minutes of moderate physical activity each day can help your mood, your energy level, and your health. And don’t think that this exercise must be confined to a gym.

Check out MyPyramid.Gov’s tidbits on how to incorporate physical activity into your daily life. Remember, you don’t necessarily have to do 30 minutes of activity at one time: taking a 15 minute walk in the morning and again at night can count toward your daily total. As well, check out my post regarding the meal plan at MyPyramid.Gov to see a meal plan to help you maintain your weight and eat healthfully.

Welcome to another happy day of National Nutrition Month®! As you may remember, the theme for this month is “Nutrition: It’s a Matter of Fact“. One key point to the month is that you should follow sound advice and science when eating healthy. A great place to find good advice is MyPyramid.gov and the revised “Food Guide Pyramid”.

The MyPyramid Meal Plan is designed for healthy individuals over the age of 2 years. If you have a health condition, it is best to talk to your doctor and dietitian to find out what diet is best for you before embarking on this meal plan.

What can the MyPyramid.Gov website do for you?

1. Tell you how many calories (roughly) that you need each day.
2. Give you a meal plan that tells you how many fruits, vegetables, grains, meats/beans, and milk you need each day and provide you with information on serving sizes and examples for each food group.
3. Link you to a tracking system that you can use to type in every food item you eat in a day. Pretty cool if you ask me!
4. Give you some information on physical activity.

There is also information on the website for kids and pregnant and breastfeeding women.

So, let’s check it out!

Here are instructions for using the MyPyramid.gov website

1. Go to the MyPyramid.Gov
2. Click on the link to the right of the page for MyPyramid Plan.
3. Enter your age, sex, weight, height, and activity level (to get an estimate of how many calories you need a day). Once you do this, it will tell you, on estimate, how many calories you need each day, and how many servings of grains, fruit, vegetables, meat/beans, and milk you need each day. If you are overweight, it will kindly tell you so and it will then give you a meal plan for how to eat to lose weight.
4. For an example, click on the “tips” link to the right of the grains. You will see some examples of how to incorporate these food items into your daily meal plan. It will also give you links on the right of this page on what counts as a serving of whole grains. You can click on the tips for each of the food groups.
5. At the bottom of this page, it links you to some example of ways to incorporate physical activity into your life.
6. On the right of the page, you see links to “view, learn, and print more”. You can print out a checklist of this information (i.e., “print a PDF version of your results”).
7. On the right of the page, under the “view, learn, and print more” section, click on the My Pyramid Tracker. This will take you to a free website to enter in what you eat and see how it measures up to the guidelines. (You must register to the site, but it IS free). How awesome is that? You can also do that with your physical activity!

Well, I hope that you enjoy the MyPyramid.Gov website. It’s a useful tool for helping with weight management and control.