Patient was educated on planning for snack on ADA diet as follows:
- Plan to have around an average of 150 – 200 calories on your snack. This calorie measure could slightly vary depending upon sex, activity levels, calorie requirement, and other factors guiding your maximum daily calorie allowance.
- Men have more muscle mass and therefore, could have a higher calorie requirement. Also, individuals with active lifestyle need more calories versus someone with a sedentary lifestyle.
- Plan to have a healthy snack, which is a decent blend of protein, fiber, healthy fats, and complex carbohydrates versus snacks that are sweet & salty.
- Some examples of an ADA snack could be as follows:
- Eat a hard-boiled egg. Rich protein content in the egg can help fill you longer and cut the craving for additional snacking.
- Choose eating a fresh fruit, such as, a sliced apple or peach with yogurt or peanut butter, against a candy bar.
- Choosing to snack on low fat cheese sticks, cottage cheese, beef/turkey sticks, canned fruit, soy patties and whole grain crackers over foods, such as, fried cheese balls, corn fritters, fried mozzarella sticks, dill pickle fries, and chips can help cut down consumption of some unwanted calories.
- You can try having steamed or canned vegetables, such as, bell peppers, cauliflower, broccoli, and carrots with hummus or guacamole dipping versus having butter popcorn, jalapeno poppers, trail mix, pastries, and granola bars.
- Tuna salad, with 2 ounces of tuna, light mayo, broccoli, shredded cheese, and ground black pepper can be a very good option for snack, with rich protein content and vegetables.
