How, When, and What to eat for Munching?

Many of us have the habit of munching. And if you are stressed because of the fact that your dietician has advised you to reduce or stop munching, you can relax. Because, munching is not as harmful as you feel, when you know how, when, and what to eat. Rather, as we saw in the last week’s article, being empty stomach for too long is more harmful than munching.

Just remember these points—

(1)   Follow the timing for munching as far as possible. Let it fall between meals with a distance of around 1 and ½ to 2 hours. Don’t start it immediately upon lunch. Try to have smaller quantity of what you have from beginning. Eg- If you like to have two toasts, have only one instead!

(2)   Reducing the portions of your munching goes a long way in maintaining the weight. This way, you also don’t deprive yourself of the thing you like and also can teach the brain to feel satiated with smaller portion over the period of time. This is especially true if you tend to indulge in stuff like bhaji and wada. With practice, it is possible.

(3)   Include your beverages too in munching. It means, if you want to have a cup of coffee, it shouldn’t be coupled with your bhaji or wada. It should be taken separately just like an item in itself. This is true even for cold drinks and sharbats.

(4)   As far as possible, don’t munch sitting in front of television, else you are going to eat more. This should be maintained especially in case of growing children, as the problem of childhood obesity is increasing day by day.

(5)   Change your munching items. This is not difficult once you decide to do. Housewives! Don’t keep the items that you crave for like fried food in the home, else you tend to eat them in your afternoon TV time.

(6)   Go for nuts, dry fruits, fresh fruits, salads (without salt and sugar), sugar-free beverages (home-made), roasted items (If you buy from outside, make sure they are roasted and not fried), pohe without oil, lahya, ravyache padartha, lahyanchi pithi, etc