The 3 Healthy Snacks You Should Never Eat

Today we are going to talk about The 3 “Healthy” Snacks You Should Never Eat.

Snacking has been promoted by nutritionists and health professionals for years.  Snacking was once absolutely taboo back even into the 1970’s. But now, it’s a whole industry.   

It has a place in our daily lives as its own mealtime. Something to plan, something to buy, something to eat. Something to set our daily rhythms too.  

But it’s terrible advice.

And the three snacks will be talking about today are the absolute worst for women over 40 who are trying to burn excess fat.

Snack # 1: Low-fat or fat-free flavored yogurt.

Yes, low-fat or fat-free flavored yogurt is a terrible snack.  It’s also a lousy breakfast.  No matter if it’s Greek, French, American, or in a squeeze tube, yogurt made from non-fat or low-fat milk that has added sweeteners turns on the fat-accumulation hormone, insulin, and if you have it between meals, will keep it on too high for much too long.  It may be low in calories, but it certainly promotes fat accumulation.

Snack # 2: Fruit

That’s right, fruit. I used to recommend apples and peanut butter or pears and cheddar cheese or a banana between meals and that was very bad advice for women trying to lose weight.  Fruit, all fruit, is high in a specific sugar called fructose. Fructose is metabolized differently than glucose. It goes straight to your liver.  Diets high in fructose can cause fatty liver disease, high triglycerides and other cholesterol issues, and certainly excess fat accumulation.  By eating fruit between meals you are decidedly not going to burn your excess body fat anytime soon.

Snack # 3: Commercial fruit smoothies or juice drinks

This is like taking the worst part of the fruit and concentrating it by 100x.  The Strawberry peach smoothie by Daily Harvest is 91% carbohydrate. 91% of that smoothie is rushing into your bloodstream and causing a huge swing in your blood sugar and causing your insulin to roar into action to take care of the giant sugar surge.  Sugar is sugar, whether it comes from a Snickers  or a peach.  If you have insulin resistance, you can’t metabolize fruit sugar or smoothie sugar very well.  If you have a healthy metabolism, you can handle it better.  But the fructose is surging toward your liver to be stored as liver fat and the glucose is surging toward your belly to be stored as belly fat.  Now there is controversy over whether the sugar in fruit is different.  And hear me plainly: if you have insulin resistance or metabolic damage, sugar from fruit is not good for you.

But Hannah, I can almost hear you say what about ______ for a snack?

Well, let’s pan back 60,000 feet and talk a little about what any snack, not just these three that I used to recommend to people all the time, but really any food or drink with calories or artificial sweeteners are doing to your metabolism.

Because the truth is, there is no such thing as a healthy snack if you are trying to burn fat.  If you are trying to lower your blood sugar.  If you are trying to keep the weight from coming back on.  If you are trying to eat healthily.

When you eat anything between meals, from an ice cream cone to a protein bar, you stimulate the hormone insulin to turn on.  This happens naturally when we eat and is a good thing. Insulin is not inherently bad.  It’s good.  Without it, we would all melt away and die.

The problem is that most of us have insulin that turns on too high and stays on too long. This happens because our metabolisms are damaged. When your insulin turns on too high and stays on too long, that’s when you store fat. That’s when you gain weight.

If you feel like you are totally dependent on snacks like protein bars, yogurts or fruit, or any food or drink really,  to get you through the day, that is a sign of metabolic damage and why you may be struggling with losing weight. 

Not snacking is a very difficult thing to do because your metabolism is dependent on the snacks. Our whole eating environment creates a positive feedback loop for you to need more and more food. Just what Proctor and Gamble are hoping for.

It’s a real struggle because the only way to give up snacking completely is to have a happy healthy metabolism that can grab our fat stores between meals and burn that for energy instead of screaming for more food to burn, but it can be done!

I struggled with giving up snacking for years until I started to understand metabolism on a new more profound level.  Once I repaired my damaged metabolism, I was able to give up snacking without any hunger, drama, or desire. It was effortless. 

But it starts with healing your metabolism from the current toxic food environment that you set up to fail.  To repair your metabolism, you need the Freese Method.

Remember you can lose weight, achieve glowing health, and never stress about your weight again, we just need to repair your metabolism first with the Freese Method!

Ranch Dressing Recipe: https://thefreesemethodprogram.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/Extra+Recipes/clean-ranch-dip-dressing.pdf