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Two Week Coaching Plan – Snacking Healthy

For the next two weeks, I challenge you to snack wisely and consider if you are snacking for the right reasons, or is snacking a bad habit for you.

One of the most important healthy eating habits you can create, is to ensure you eat regularly throughout the day, while being in tune with your hunger and fullness cues.

By missing meals, we tend to under eat, which leads to a lack of energy and performance. Drastic under eating also causes a reduction in your metabolism and can actually slow fat-loss.

Ask yourself the following questions before you start these new habits:

Am I skipping meals throughout the day? If so, which ones in particular?

Am I mindlessly snacking between main meals?

Are you doing this on a weekday or weekend, or both?

Think about what area needs your focus and attention the most to help you achieve this daily habit, and put some small changes into place to make it a success

Daz Daz
Prep
The Introduction of healthy eating with smarter snacking choices

Unhealthy snacking can reduce our natural hunger cues and ruin our appetites. This can result in irregular eating patterns and lack of eating routine. This 2-week habit coaching program will help you eat regularly throughout the day, choose those healthy snacks while being in tune with your hunger and fullness cues.

Day 1
Monday – Start the habit of healthy snacking.

The selection of poor choices for snacking can reduce our natural hunger cues and ruin our appetites? This can result in irregular eating patterns and lack of eating routine as well as energy. For some people, this is the key reason as to why they gain weight.

Forming a new habit with healthy snacks will also help you ‘re-connect’ with your body.

Today, after completing your habit for the first time, I want you to answer these two questions:

  1. What did I do well today?
  2. What did I learn today?

These questions are so important that I want you to reflect on them every day. The truth is the most overlooked factor in building new habits is bridging the gap between what you want to do and the behaviour.

You must close the loop between your intention and your behaviour, and it is as simple as answering these two questions.

Day 2
Tuesday - Reinforce the habit

Understand and accepting your current situation will allow you to develop smarter habits. To do this, you must start listening to your body.

Here are some key questions to consider daily:

Do I feel true hunger at any time between meals?

Was I hungry just before my last meal?

How satisfied am I after each main meal?

Once we have answered these questions you can decide am I snacking for hunger or out of just plain old habit because the food is there for me.

Day 3
Wednesday – Understand your new habit

Snacking wisely can provide energy in the middle of the day and a healthy snack between meals can not only decrease your hunger but also reduce overeating at mealtimes.

The key for you is limiting the unhealthy snacks or drinks, as these often contain higher amounts of sugar and fats. Such foods and drinks that list sugar or corn syrup as one of their first ingredients are not the healthy snacks we need.

Be cautious about snacking when stressed too, as the brain will often crave for taste such as sugary of fatty foods to meet that need for instant energy.

 

Day 4
Thursday – What is a healthy snack

Aim for fruit, vegetables, whole grain, and low-fat dairy options as your snack. Nuts are a great healthy food source, but portion size is important. Always have a measured amount (25g) and never eat straight from the bag, this is where over consumption takes place.

The combination of a carbohydrate and protein will slow down absorption and digestion and so keeping your fuller for longer.

Consider wholewheat crackers and cheese, plain yoghurt and fruit, or slices of apple with nut butter on.

Day 5
Friday - Reinforce that habit

A great way of forming new habits is to display that new habit where you will see it as a constant reminder, for example in the kitchen on the fridge.

Write that new habit down with days of the week in a grid format and every time you hit that habit tick the box.

Aim for a success rate of 5 days out of 7 and see how you go.

When you get that trigger to snack think about your new habit, tick the box on your habit sheet and consider your weekly goal of success.

 

Focus on your body, your surroundings and all the other sensations associated with eating a tasty healthy meal. Appreciate everything wonderful about the habit so that the habit itself becomes your reward.

Day 6
Saturday – The weekend and so just keep that new habit in check
Day 7
Sunday – Reflection of your new habit

Take a minute to reflect on the past week or so of doing the habit.

What has it been like, as opposed to the fantasy you had about it before you started?

What have you learned?

What do you appreciate?

What obstacles have come up, and are there ways to overcome them for next week?

Consider writing a short journal entry about these reflections, to solidify your learning.

Treat habit formation as a learning process, to learn about yourself, your mind, mindfulness, resistance and more.

Day 8
Monday – Adjustment of Habit

If all went well last week, and you did not struggle or skip the habit for more than a day, I recommend that you lengthen the habit this week.

If you have struggled, keep it the same as last week or make it even easier. For example, if you are work plan your snacks as you would your meals. Will there be cakes, biscuits or chocolates in the office and be prepared for it.

Planning ahead and seeing the obstacle of an unhealthy snack makes it easier to deal with and eat your own healthy option.

Day 9
Tuesday – Make the change simple for yourself

Never make too big an adjustment so that it becomes too difficult.

This slow change process of expanding the habit a little at a time helps overcome the resistance of the mind to change and discomfort.

Each step is not difficult, so your mind does not rebel much. Gradually the habit becomes your new normal and you can expand a bit more, pushing your comfort zone a little at a time.

Continually reflect and appreciate the forming of your new habits and the healthy lifestyle change that it is bringing.

Day 10
Wednesday – Keep the habit

As you gain momentum with your new habit, they become easier to maintain, they become a subconscious thought and act and one that you will do without thinking. This is where habits can become so much easier as you create new ones and slowly remove the bad ones.

If you have been struggling, resisting, feeling disappointed and feel like quitting, this is all very real and natural as the body and brain resists the change.

These are forms of dissatisfaction from what you are trying to achieve.

If you have felt any of these during this habit change, try to practice with these difficult feelings as you do the habit today.

Put your attention on how your difficultly feels. Explore the feeling instead of avoiding it. Get to know them.

Day 11
Thursday – Cracking that Habit

As we finish up this important second week, let us reflect on not wasting this precious time we have been given, and instead study this habit change as if it were the most important change of our lives.

Set yourself up to win this weekend and achieve your habit. Today, think about your super easy, almost effortless version of the habit for the weekend.

How and when will you do the habit this weekend?

Day 12
Friday – Habit accountability

As you prepare to move forward on your journey to being a awesome healthy individual, you’ll want to put this current habit into ‘habit maintenance mode.’ This is a way of continuing it with less of a focus.

By now, the habit should start to become more automatic and become more part of your ‘normal’ day to day routine. Every few days, pause and reflect on this habit and check in to see that everything is still going well.

Maybe once a week, use one of your Sunday reflection sessions to assess whether you have any obstacles around this habit, need to adjust and learn. After a while, you need to reflect on the habit less often, as it becomes ingrained in your life

Day 13
Saturday Remember to be awesome and have a great day
Day 14
Sunday - Cementing the new habits

Over the last two weeks you have completed the ‘health snacking’ habit challenge – nice work! Today, take a minute after practicing your habit to reflect again on the past week of doing the habit.

What has the habit been like and how have you done?

What have you learned?

What parts or how much of this habit will you continue to do?

Consider writing a short journal entry about these reflections, to solidify your learning.

Treat habit formation as a learning process, as a way to learn about yourself, your mind, mindfulness, resistance and more.

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