We’ve been super-sized

7 comments August 29th, 2008

I guess it had to happen — the snacks in the vending machines here at the Register Star got bigger last week.

Not surprising when you figure that the concept of what constitutes a serving size is way out of proportion to reality, but that’s another story.

And it’s not that my occasional salty chips fix now costs 75 cents a crack instead of 40 as much as it means I have to pay attention to that serving size.

Instead of something like three-fourths an ounce of deep-fried corn and salt (oh, the tragedy), it’s now one and three-fourths — translating into about 120 more calories, more total fat and more sodium, assuming I eat the whole bag.

So, if you’re like me, what can you do?

Well, barring some weird situation, no one is probably forcing you to eat the whole bag at one sitting. A rubber band around the package will keep a second serving fresh for another day.

Here are a couple of other things you could do:

Bring your snack — you control the serving size — from home and pick a healthier option unless you just h-a-v-e t-o h-a-v-e that salty snack. Either way, you’re better off.

Make sure you’re not confusing hunger with thirst. When you get the urge to hit the snack machine, first drink the biggest glass of water you can stand. Doesn’t have to be all at one gulp, but drink it all. Then wait 10 minutes.

If you’re still hungry, go eat something. If you’re not still hungry, you were only thirsty. You’ve satisfied that thirst and you haven’t ingested one single calorie.