Best snacks for the work day - stay healthy and productive as you get through the daytime

What are the best snacks to take to work? This hub will discuss some of the best snacks for the work day. Several suggestions of good snacks that you can have while you are at work will be discussed. Are you sitting in front of the computer all day, either typing for the work place or at home, on HubPages and other on-line writing venues? Alternatively, do you have a job that requires you to be active all day, lifting heavy equipment? Perhaps you have to stand or walk a lot as a kindergarten teacher or a store sales associate for example. Please read on to learn more about some of the best snacks that you can take to work, rated the best both because of their portability and because of their nutritional value. Perhaps you are a stay at home mom and spend so much time taking care of the kids, you forget to eat your own meals on time. Whatever you do, the ultimate point of this article is to advise you on eating healthy snacks throughout the day to keep yourself going strong!

Here are my top recommendations for healthy snacks for the work day. Follow this guide and you will be feeling good, alert and strong. This is geared to your busy day of 8-9 hours or more. Note, besides for breakfast, I do not mention actual meals. This hub / article is about snacks after all.:

Example Schedule:

6:15am rise

By 7:00am eat a balanced breakfast. No time you think? There's always time, you just think there isn't. But if you insist there's no time, just grab one hard boiled egg. (I do not recommend high sugar cereals, cereal bars or granola bars)

8:00am: arrive at work

Between 9:00 and 10:00am: eat a banana (Yes, that soon after your breakfast, trust me, especially if you had only the one hard boiled egg for breakfast.)

12:00pm: the light lunch of your choice

2:00pm: Indulge in another snack. I recommend a handful of nuts. Cashews are my favorite but peanuts, pistachios or almonds (a very healthy choice) are all suggested.

4:00pm: Yes that soon! Indulge in yet another snack especially if you are leaving work at 5 but have a long drive or public transportation commute ahead of you with possibly some stops to make before you can get home and prepare dinner.

This is amounting to eating practically every two hours, but very lightly. This eating throughout the day method might be a diet strategy you have heard before but it really does work for keeping your energy level up. Although these are all healthy snacks, this hub is not about dieting, calorie restrictions / counting calories.

The snack that I recommend for this time can be any one of the following. The one you choose might depend on whether you are sitting at your desk or walking about and how easy or messy it is to eat:

• a navel orange (with an easy peel), tangerine or tangelo
• a string cheese snack (pure mozzarella or cheddar) such as Polly-O string cheese.
• an apple
• half a cup of blueberries
• a handful of strawberries
• a handful of grapes
• a box of raisins

When you think your stomach is growling and you have no choice but to go to the office vending machine down the hall for sugary candy, a chocolate bar or salty chips as a work day snack, just remember that there are always alternatives.

It is really is a matter of returning back to the basics. Fruits, nuts and sparingly, cheese offer lots of options for healthy snacking. There are so many different varieties of each. As excellent sources of protein, the nuts and cheese can also help to keep you feeling satisfied. Food with high protein content can be very satisfying. The natural sugars and carbohydrates in the fruits will offer an energy boost. When you want to switch things up a bit with your day to day snacking options, you can consider that occasional low salt popcorn or pretzels are okay too.

If you are a teacher, take notice of the healthy snacks most parents try to pack for their growing kids. When the kids bringing their own lunch take out the boxes or brown bags for the lunch hour, there are lots of boxes of raisins and packets of string cheese. Take a hint from that and treat yourself to similar healthy snacks.

Brown bagging it is much easier than it seems for both lunch and day time snacks. It is worth the money saved on buying lunches and snacks that are far less healthy.

On the weekend, simply stock your home refrigerator with fresh fruits and cheese as well as the cupboards with tins or bags of nuts and boxes of raisins. Make sure you have ziplock bags and brown paper bags or a reusable lunch tote on hand to fill with what you need on Monday morning.

For items that need to be kept refrigerated, utilize the refrigerator in your work place.

Enjoy your snacks!