The most important days, more than any Grammy award thing or anything, is the day that you’re responsible for snacks after the game.
-Garth Brooks
After being diagnosed with Hypothyroid, I decided to work with a nutritionist to get really clear about what to eat that would support my body to heal naturally on its own. I’m also a mom, so it’s important to me that I have good, healthy snacks on hand to avoid regular trips to fast food or coffee stands before and after extracurricular activities.
Before working with a nutritionist, I didn’t know that when your blood sugar drops it puts your body into a stress mode, taxing your nervous system. I knew that the stress I had been under does that but didn’t know that every time I worked too long and didn’t have a little snack, I was taxing my system and preventing it from healing.
Here are some suggested snacks that I regularly have to keep my system going strong. I usually have snacks at 9:30-10am and then again at 3:30pm with meals set up to be about two hours apart from those times. My morning snack consists of a healthy fat, vegetable, and carbohydrate. The afternoon snack is Protein, Fat, and fruit. Here are several examples:
You can sub other vegetables for the ones I listed. I just try to make sure my snacks have a good balance of the fat, carbohydrates, vegetables, fruit and protein. I only eat fruit once per day and usually in the morning because of the natural sugar. I also have some grab and go bars that my nutritionist has approved which I will add to the shopping guide at the bottom of this post. In addition, I try to make up quinoa or wild rice and keep a container on hand. That way I can quickly saute some vegetables with it and add some olive oil and seasonings. It makes for a quick easy snack or part of a meal.
I try to make similar snacks for my kids but they don’t always like what I am having. I have a snack drawer in the kitchen and I stock it only with things I am ok with them eating. We do a treat stop at the local Dutch Brothers Coffee stand once per week if they’ve been mostly on track with healthy choices.
Here are some of the snacks we keep handy for them:
I’ve come to terms with the idea that’s it’s ok to repeat what works for my kids daily. If they like it and it’s healthy I continue to supply it for them even if they are having the same snacks multiple days in a row. I’m beginning to involve the kids in making some of the snacks too so that they start learning by being involved in the process. I find I learn better when I am hands on so I think it’s the same for them. Rachel Hollis also has some great ideas on her website here for fun snacks. This is where we got the idea to pre-make veggies in jars for grab and go healthy snacks. I purchased the jars and small dressing containers on Amazon. The links are in the shopping guide below.
Here is what is in our snack drawer:
We like to keep Kale Chips and healthy popcorn on hand. Several of us are gluten free so we have a found a couple brands of crackers without soy and other unhealthy additives. They are also in the shopping guide below. Nature Box is also a good company to order snacks from. They have a great variety of trail mixes and healthy crackers, chips, and dried fruit to choose from.
