Snacking is a big deal. It can save or sabotage all your healthy efforts. Healthy snack ideas are essential to keep you full of nutrition and energy in between meals. Having healthy snacks on hand will help keep your blood sugar stable, your metabolism humming and your hunger at bay.

The wrong snacks (i.e usually something processed out of a vending machine) can be full of artery clogging saturated and trans-fats, preservatives, additives and refined sugar. It might kick a craving for a minute or two, but could spike your blood sugar and leave you a mess less than an hour down the road.

Where did these healthy snack ideas come from?

While I’d love to take the credit and say these are all a part of my Clean and Colorful Solution 28-Day Lifestyle change program, but that would be false (however, there are 42 healthy snack ideas in there too). But if I took credit for this list, that would fail to honor all the clever folks who helped bring it life. Because healthy snacks are such an important part of successful weight loss, I enlisted the help of a group of players in one of my DietBet games. These are real people, really trying to lose weight so these are straight from the source!

44 healthy snack ideas from happy people losing weight

Grab Just One Thing & Go

1. Beef jerky
2. A square of dark chocolate
3. Raw almonds
4. A tall 1% latte
5. Seaweed snacks
6. Watermelon
7. Sliced Avocado
8. Pumpkin or sesame seeds
9. Organic low sodium vegetable broth between meals to curbs cravings

Grab A Few Things & Go

1. Cucumber slices & hummus
2. Veggies (carrots, cabbage, broccoli) and hummus
3. Banana with some peanut butter
4. Apples dipped in peanut butter or almond butter
5. Carrots with the PB2 powdered peanut butter
6. Laughing cow cheese wedge with wheat crackers
7. Plain Greek yogurt with frozen blueberries

No Cook Quick Prep & Go

1. Apples with peanut butter sprinkled with cinnamon & cocoa powder
2. Any kind of fruit mixed up with cinnamon
3. Greek yogurt mixed with peanut butter and cinnamon
4. Cottage cheese and strawberries with sprinkled with cinnamon
5. Toast with coconut oil
6. English muffin with sunflower seed butter and slices of strawberry
7. Rice cakes with lots of salsa on top
8. Vans protein waffles with ½ tsp butter
9. Regular or pepper jack cheese stick with mustard rolled up with turkey lunchmeat
10. Dill pickle with laughing cow cheese rolled up with sliced turkey lunchmeat
11. Homemade Trail Mix: 1/2-cup corn chex, 1/2 dark chocolate granola mix, 1/4 raw almonds. For 430 calories.
12. Frozen grapes (these also make great ice cubes in a beverage you don’t want to dilute)
13. 1/4 cup of tuna with 1T sweet pickle relish
14. Plain Greek yogurt with frozen blueberries
15. Plain Greek yogurt with a small mix of seeds, nuts, turmeric, cinnamon, and cayenne
16. “Cookie dough” yogurt (Hillary W.): yogurt mixed with honey, vanilla, any nut butter, chocolate chips.

Blend & Go 

1. Iced coffee: chilled coffee, some 2% milk, and a bit of sweetener.
2. Pumpkin Pie Smoothie: (KareBear): Unsweetened vanilla almond milk, pumpkin purée, cinnamon, ground ginger, nutmeg, and pumpkin spice. Freeze over night and add hot coffee in the am and shake!
3. Milkshake: Frozen banana, PB2, and soymilk.
4. Banana Raspberry Smoothie: frozen banana, strawberries, any milk.
5. Fresh strawberry ice cream: Put frozen strawberries in the Ninja for a sweet treat.

Quick & Easy Cooking Healthy Snack Recipes

1. Microwave or air-popped popcorn with a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese or no-calorie butter spray and a little salt
2. No bake Coconut Haystacks (Juliana de Mata): Mix together coconut oil, unsweetened shredded coconut, natural cocoa powder, vanilla extract, roasted sweet potato and honey or stevia and roll into little balls and let harden.
3. Melted dark chocolate sprinkled with sunflowers seeds then frozen to make yummy bark!
4. Roasted Brussels sprouts: Preheat oven to 400. Spray Brussels sprouts with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast for 35-40 min, tossing half way through. Season with balsamic after cooked if desired.
5. Kale Chips: Preheat oven to 350. Remove kale leaves from stalks and spray with olive oil and season with garlic salt and pepper. Roast for 12-15 minutes, tossing half way through. Season with lemon juice after cooked if desired.
6. Baked garbanzo beans (BigDog): Preheat oven to 400. Let garbanzo beans sit out on a paper towel for a couple of hours then coat with olive oil and season with garlic salt and pepper. Roast in oven for 20 minutes, turn and roast an additional 10-15min. Check them out to see how crisp you want them.
7. Gluten-free, sugar-free, and dairy-free homemade oatmeal and cranberry cookie (Deb) recipe below.

Homemade Oatmeal & Cranberry Cookies

• 2 1/2 c gluten free oats
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 tsp Vanilla
• 1/2 c almond butter
• 2 ripe bananas
• 1 /4 c all natural apple sauce or the Granny Smith flavor ( I use that)
• 1/2 c melted cocoanut oil
• 1 c blueberries (dried cranberries) optional

Directions: Preheat oven to 350. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl set aside. Mash and blend bananas, applesauce, oil, and almond butter until well mixed. Then add the dried oat mixture to the wet. Stir well. Add blueberry or cranberries into mixture. Take heaping spoon full and put onto greased cookie sheet. Bake for 11 minutes.

What do you think of this list of healthy snack ideas? Any new ones? Any of your favorites missing? Comment below and let’s make the list even better! Together, we can do this! 

Teresa Marie Howes, BS, CPT, HHP

www.teresamariewellness.com

Teresa Marie is a nutrition expert, fitness enthusiast and health coach. She is backed with a BS in Nutrition, an MBA, a CPT from ACE and 16+ years of experience in the weight loss and wellness space. She is the founder and lead contributor of this site and coaches clients across the globe on how to achieve better health and more happiness by implementing the 4 Universal Diet Truths of her Clean & Colorful Concept.