The death of snacking

Back before I started Whole30 and then for the first couple of weeks of Whole30 I was eating 3 main meals plus two snacks a day and some fruit with meals, or if I was doing Crossfit then 3 main meals (and fruit) and 3 snacks a day. My day looked something like this:

Non-Crossfit day

Breakfast 7:30am - Eggs, tomato, spinach, avocado
Snack 11am - Nuts
Lunch 1:30pm - Protein + veggies, then some fruit
Snack 3:30pm - Protein + veggie snack (usually a chicken drumstick and some carrot)
Dinner 7:30pm - Protein + veggies and then maybe some coconut milk or fruit after

Crossfit day



Breakfast 7:30am - Eggs, tomato, spinach, avocado
Snack 11am - Nuts
Lunch 1:30pm - Protein + veggies, then some fruit
Snack 3:30pm - Protein + veggie snack (usually a chicken drumstick and some carrot)
Snack 6pm - Almond butter usually
Dinner 8:30-9pm - Protein + veggies and then maybe some coconut milk or fruit after or some sweet potato before dinner

Then a couple of weeks into my Whole30 I noticed that I was getting really hungry within an hour of lunch, so I decided to cut out the fruit and see if that helped, which it did. Later on I decided to cut out the nuts and nut butter because I was eating far too much of them and although they're good for you, they're also really high in calories.

Both of those things seemed to have worked a charm. I no longer have a mid morning snack and I often find that I don't need my afternoon snack either, or won't be hungry for it until after 4:30pm.

I've also cut out the pre-Crossfit snack and haven't been eating any sweet potato either, unless it's a Friday and I need to make it through until a late dinner with Glenn. I still have a lot of energy and my workouts have been getting better and better, weird huh!

This is my weekday eating habits now:

Breakfast 7:30am - Eggs, tomato, spinach, avocado (and bacon sometimes)
Lunch 1:30pm - Protein + veggies
Afternoon snack 4:30ish - Protein + veggie snack
Dinner 7:30-9pm (time depending on whether it's a Crossfit day) - Protein + veggies

It is so much less food!! Sometimes I do eat a piece of fruit at some point during the day, but I never feel overly hungry any more and often I'm so full from dinner that I don't even want dessert! This is quite big for me, because I've always been someone who has eaten lots of snacks and been hungry between meals.

The answer to appetite control really is less sugar and more fat and protein, this is evident by how badly I ate on the weekend after I'd started giving into sugar, I ate tons more food than normal and felt out of control with my eating the whole time.

I wish someone had told me all this 10 years ago!  Here's a great diagram on the problem with carbs, based on "Why We Get Fat" by Gary Taubes, which is the book that started all this off for me (thanks Tim!):

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1668916/pasta-not-bacon-makes-you-fat-but-how