100 calorie snacks (give or take a few calories)

This time of year is when I start "training" for our yearly backpacking trip. And by training, I mean increased walking with some light weights. But this year I need to lose a few post-pregnancy pounds and I don't do well with diets...I LOVE FOOD TOO MUCH! Losing weight is all about calories in (food) and calories out (exercise) and the way I monitor my calories is by making my own 100 calorie food packs. These packs actually range between 90-120 calories but its close enough for me, you can be more precise in your measurements if you prefer. I have about 200-300 calories for breakfast, 4-6 calorie packs between snacks and lunch then a sensible dinner. I don't count my dinner calories but I am pretty critical about it being sensible, lots of veggies and a protein or a smaller portion of what I made for the night. I usually come out a little less than 2000 calories for the day.

There are tons of options for the calorie packs which is awesome because I like variety. The kitchen tool that makes this all possible is my kitchen scale, this gives me a more precise weight (usually in grams) to convert into calorie count. You can get kitchen scales for pretty cheap now, I got my scale from Amazon.

A few of my snack packs.

Here is a list of some of my fave calorie packs:

• 5 slices pepperoni and 1/2 ounce cheese (different cheeses have different calorie counts so measure accordingly)
• 5 slices salami and about 1/2 ounce cheese
• 1 boiled egg
• 1 rice cake with 1 tablespoon peanut butter
• 1/2 ounce almonds and about 8 dried apricots
• 2 black licorice and 10 almonds
• 1/2 can of chunk light tuna and 1/3 cup cooked couscous with cucumber
• 2 tablespoons of hummus and as much celery as you want
• 10 baby carrots and 1 tablespoon peanut butter
• 1 apple (approx.) or 1 banana
• 6 dried apricots and 1/2 ounce of dark chocolate
• about 2 cups of popcorn
• 6-8 shrimp and 1/4 cup cocktail sauce
• 1/2 of a honeydew
• and so SOO much more :-)

With the kitchen scale you can pretty much make anything a low-cal snack pack and having it portioned out makes me so much more aware of how much I'm eating.

And for my homemade items, I use this calorie calculator to compute the total then figure out my serving size. It is amazing how much (or how little) 100 calories can be.

Note:
Another way to cut out a few calories is to use smaller plates. Standard dinner plates are between 10-11 inches in diameter. I use 8 1/2 inch salad plates for our meals and it really makes a difference. Place the same size portion of food on both plates to see the difference for yourself. It's definitely a mental trick but it works!