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I've heard that it's actually good to snack throughout the day, as long as you're eating healthy snacks (that's my downfall personally sad ) It's suppose to keep your metablism up if you eat something every 2-3 hours.
It also helps keep your hunger down and makes you not eat quite as much at larger meals. I've also found that it helps me to get in my liquids for the day, as I'm more likely to drink something when I'm eating. The only problem is when you start snacking and not thinking about it. In that case I've found if you measure out what you can eat beforehand and put the rest away that it takes care of oversnacking.

Fruits and veggies are always a good choice, and I somtimes put a teaspoon or two of reduced fat peanut butter with it so that it lasts longer. Nuts and trail mix is a good choice also, just watch out for the calorie and fat contents, a handful of nuts packs a punch as far as calories sometimes. At least the fat in nuts is good fat. Whole grains are also a good choice. I snack on triscuits or sunchips if I really want something salty to munch on. Just watch the serving sizes on your snacks and the nutritional info and it's not really a problem.

One more thing. If you really shouldn't be snacking (you just ate and you're really just kind of bored) do something with your hands or something that really gets your focus away from food. I read a book, but that's just me. Chewing gum helps too ^_^. I love the new longer lasting gums, although my fave is stride.

Lol Lemon, thats a good way to go about it mrgreen if theres nothing nice to snack on then I dont want to snack. Unfortunately, no one else in my family is dieting so there are always nice, fatty, unhealthy snacks calling out to me.

Ive tried eating nuts, but like you said Lenady they do pack a lot of calories. Veggies could work though! Celery and low fat peanut butter, or just plain celery are easily done, would satisfy the crunch factor, and aren't so nice that I would want to eat heaps of them

Ive been trying to distract myself, i like to sew so ive been doing lots of that, but im at home for a lot of the day at the moment so i can only do that for a certain amount of time before i get bored again >.< next week im back at uni though so hopefully i will be busier and it will get easier

What are triscuits and sunchips? Are they like veggie chips? I try to avoid gum because i have a thing about avoiding chemicals and preservatives etc and i always imagine gum to be full of stuff like that >.<

Stuff from Robert's American Gourmet is healthy and really good. My favorite is Stealth Chips. Here's their website if you wanna see what they look like: http://www.robscape.com/ Baby carrots or carrot sticks are reeeally yummy/healthy, too. So is any fruit like apples, pears, oranges, tangerines, etc. Finally, if you've snacked and snacked and are still hungry, chew some gum. 3nodding

always have low or no fat snacks with you. carrots for example, or an apple. If you have a craving for something junkier, what I do is I tell myself I can have it when I've finished all the carrots or wtv. That way, by the time I get to the junky item, I'm not that hungry and so I wont eat too much of it. Munching stuff constantly is NOT bad, you just have to watch what your munching on. If you munch chips all day long, ya, that's bad.

Every week at the grocery store, I buy myself seven oranges, seven apples, and five bananas (for weekdays). Then I buy my SO about half that, because my SO buys fruit at the cafeteria at work, and doesn't need any at home. I eat one piece of fruit every morning when I wake up, and another piece of fruit about halfway between breakfast and lunch, then another piece right around 3pm (or wait until I get home from work, and eat it before starting to cook dinner).

I also buy Carrot Chips. They're just fresh carrots, crinkle-cut into thin rounds. I guess I could also buy carrots and cut them myself, but why bother? I don't want to spend the time, and they cost just the same. Whenever I get the munchies, I resort to carrots.

These two things take care of the crunchy-craving, and also the sweet-craving. They also are filled with fiber, which cleans out the intestinal tract (ahem, makes you poop), which in turn makes you weigh less. The intestines can get gucked up with digested food that it can't get rid of, but fiber scrubs it out on the way down. If your diet wasn't very fiber-rich, and then you start eating fruits and carrots and celery, you could lose up to 20 extra pounds in two months' time, just because the fiber cleans you out!

It's not that hard.

1. Get carrot chips and salt them.

2. Use baked chips instead of fried.

3. Soy Crisps -- a whole small bag (four servings) contains less calories and fat than a single-serving bag of regular fried potato chips.