Snacking
Living at The Institution can make living your desirable life – whatever that may be – difficult at times. Honestly, I am frustrated more often than not. So, when trying to living a paleo lifestyle, The Institution can really make things difficult.
Besides trying to avoid the “mandatory” meals where processed carbs and mass quantities of deserts are shoved down your throat “family style,” another issue that arises is snacking. Part of the poor food culture here at the The Institution is the “company stores” (company stores allow cadets to satisfy their hunger when the Mess hall is closed or simply out of convenience). In these “stores,” there is nothing but food that is a direct detriment to ones health. At the store, one can only choose between products made by Nestle, Hostess, or Hershey.
I do my best to avid these products at all times because, aside from being simply bad for you, they quell your appetite away from the food you should actually be eating – fruit, vegetables, red meat. So, I wanted to point out a few snacks that are great alternatives to ”fatty cakes.” (these are my favorite and by no means the entire spectrum of what could eat. For a bigger list, go to the Mark Sisson’s site.)
- trail mix – a great combination of all paleo foods – nuts and dried fruits. Ideally, you want to stay away from the ones with chocolate in it, but I personally think it’s no big deal – there are worse alternatives
- beef jerky – pretty obvious here.
- Seasoned Nuts – I personally don’t like nuts much, so I had my mom buy some seasoned nuts with special flavoring. Personal preference on this one.
- Dark Chocolate – I don’t have a “sweet tooth” per se, but I do crave chocolate every once in a while. True Dark Chocolate actually has a lot of nutrients, but those all consist of at least 70% cocoa. Hershey’s Dark doesn’t consist of that much, but its better than the traditional.
- Blackberries – I love blackberries and because of their packaging, they can make for some good snacking.
Keep in mind that snacking is really for the weak (myself included). You should almost always strive to maintain a “feast/famine” diet with acute starvation (intermittent fasting) as an integral part of your life. Easier said than done I know, but results are best achieved when intermittent fasting is substantial in one’s lifestyle
