Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

I love this list of healthy and easy snacks from Fit Personality. So many times I get BORED with my food and then that leads to a binge. Having lists like this helps me.

Here is the list:

• Frozen grapes
• Blueberry greek yogurt
• Boom Chicka Pop
• Dried fruit medley
• Clementines
• Naked Juice
• Raw almonds
• Peanut butter and fruit slices
• Larabars
• Peaches and cottage cheese
• Edamame
• Watermelon chunks
• Carrots and guacamole
• Apple chips
• Strawberries and balsamic vinegar
• V8 Juice
• Celery and peanut butter
• Protein smoothie
• Pistachios
• Cinnamon Rice Cakes
• Cherry tomatoes
• Raspberries and lime
• Bell peppers
• Frozen mango
• Hard boiled egg
• Cauliflower and hummus
• Greek frozen yogurt cups
• Fruit kabobs
• Tomatoes and feta cheese
• Chocolate almond milk
• Peanuts and raisins
• Dry whole grain cereal
• Blackberries
• Cinnamon pears
• Roasted chickpeas
• Laughing Cow wedges
• Almond butter and toast
• Banana slices and chocolate
• Oatmeal balls
• Pomegranate
• 100% fruit pops

It’s very important to keep the variety of your food constantly changing in order to prevent dopamine burnout. This is all explained in my entry here:

• Starling Fitness – Fitness, diet, and health weblog » How Sugar Affects The Brain

Speaking of healthy foods, let’s say you’re hungry and decide to eat a balanced meal. You do and dopamine levels spike in the reward hot spots. But if you eat that same dish many days in a row, dopamine levels will spike less and less, eventually leveling out.

That’s because, when it comes to food, the brain evolved to pay special attention to new or different tastes. Why? Two reasons: first, to detect food that has gone bad, and second, because the more variety we have in our diet, the more likely we are to get all the nutrients we need. To keep that variety up, we need to be able to recognize a new food and, more importantly, we need to want to keep eating new foods, and that’s why the dopamine levels off when a food becomes boring.

Keep changing your meals and snacks and you won’t have that leveling out of your dopamine. That’s why I love lists of interesting foods I could have for snacks!

Via: Funeral For My Fat, fit-personality: Get your snack on y’all.