1. Menu Planning: Dinner & Snacks
• This unit is about planning dinner, afternoon and after dinner snacks.
• Planning is a powerful form of self-suggestion.
• Plans you make for healthy meals and snacks are self-suggestions for the meals
you are likely to prepare and eat.
2. Menu Planning: Dinner & Snacks
• Consider that mid-afternoon snack.
• Everyone has a down-time in the middle of the afternoon.
• Human beings have day-night body rhythms.
• Energy rhythms drop down in the middle of the day making us feel tired.
3. Menu Planning: Dinner & Snacks
• A baby or a grandma takes a nap.
• Kids get after-school snacks to replenish their energy.
• Adults think about having a snack to recharge a tired brain.
• Mid-afternoon snacks are healthy.
• You just have to make good choices.
4. Menu Planning: Dinner & Snacks
• Consider what would be healthy options for late afternoon snacks, desserts
after dinner, and after dinner snacks.
• It is a challenge if you are in love with rich cake snacks.
• Rich cakes are made with starch, sugar, and saturated fat.
• The more you eat them, the more you want.
5. Menu Planning: Dinner & Snacks
• Too much sugar, fat, and starch create a risk, if you are vulnerable, for Type 2
diabetes, and high cholesterol.
• Too many desserts, too much saturated fat, and sugar certainly will make you
overweight.
• You can use self-suggestion to try other options to satisfy your need for sweets.
6. Menu Planning: Dinner & Snacks
• You can have a decaf coffee, or tea or drink some water.
• Instead of candy bars, you can munch on low calorie crackers with low fat
cheese.
• You can have a piece of fruit.
• You can nibble peanut butter and celery or eat other veggies.
• It's a good idea to eat something to tide you over till dinner time.
7. Menu Planning: Dinner & Snacks
• You might as well have a plan for dinner. There are so many delicious choices.
• You can have broiled or grilled chicken breasts, or a small steak, or fish.
• You can have any kind of green vegetable or carrots and a big salad with low
fat dressing or lemon.
8. Menu Planning: Dinner & Snacks
• Growing up, many people acquired a taste for fatty meats and fried foods.
• Food came with sauce or gravy.
• Crunchy chips were the standard treat, though loaded with fat and salt.
• You remember favorite foods and want them when you are hungry.
• Taste memories are powerful suggestions.
9. Menu Planning: Dinner & Snacks
• But old eating habits may be risky for your health.
• Fried meats, and mashed potatoes with butter, contain saturated fats that
clog your heart's arteries.
• Maybe there are obstacles in your life now to giving up those old eating habits
that could harm your health.
10. Menu Planning: Dinner & Snacks
• But old eating habits may be risky for your health.
• Fried meats, and mashed potatoes with butter, contain saturated fats that
clog your heart's arteries.
• Maybe there are obstacles in your life now to giving up those old eating habits
that could harm your health.
11. Menu Planning: Dinner & Snacks
• Maybe there isn't time to prepare dinner because of your family's busy
schedules.
• Maybe you hate to cook.
• Maybe it's easier to buy prepared food or order in.
• But you can use self-suggestion to keep an image of your body's arteries in your
mind, as you plan your dinner and snacks.
12. Menu Planning: Dinner & Snacks
• Maybe you could begin to think about a small change in future actions.
• Maybe you can begin to suggest to yourself what to buy, cook, or order in a
restaurant that you like that's tasty and healthy.
• Maybe you can imagine a healthy meal that's easy to assemble and prepare.
• Self-suggestions can turn themselves into actions.
13. Menu Planning: Dinner & Snacks
• Maybe you can plan ahead and buy easy-to-assemble ingredients in the
market.
• You can buy calorie controlled meals, frozen veggies, and quick-to-broil
chicken breasts.
• Consider using paper plates and cups and plastic silverware, during the week,
when you work late, are tired, or have to carpool.
14. Menu Planning: Dinner & Snacks
• For dessert, you can easily put an apple or pear on a plate, cover it with
plastic wrap and then microwave it for five minutes.
• You can broil slices of pineapple in a tabletop broiler.
• You can have some low calorie meringue cookies.
• In season, you can have a cup of cherries.
15. Menu Planning: Dinner & Snacks
• If you get after dinner munchies, have some non-buttered popcorn.
• You can have a fat free milkshake which you make in the blender, adding
strawberries, blueberries, almond or vanilla extract.
• You can make a hot drink in the blender with some decaf coffee, fat free milk
and almond extract.
16. Menu Planning: Dinner & Snacks
• You can use self-suggestion to adopt healthy menu ideas from cookbooks or
magazines.
• You can use the power of your imagination to create your own menu of
healthy foods that appeal to you.
• Press the arrow on the next slide for an audio guide on menu planning for
dinner, and for mid-afternoon and after dinner snacks.
