Healthy snacks have the ability to make or break your dieting goals. Snacking, in general, has always been frowned upon as something that cannot be done on a diet. How often have you heard "I just need to cut down on my snacking"? But used correctly, snacking can actually help your diet. Well timed healthy snacks can prevent you from over-eating when it comes to your main meals. This article will look at some healthy snack food ideas that you can use when trying to lose weight. Each snack will be accompanied with nutritional information- in fact, this is another great tip for dieting. Check out the calories of any meal or snack beforehand to help avoid any nasty surprises. The criteria for each snack is that it needs to have a total preparation time of fewer than 5 minutes. Any longer and it doesn't count as a snack in our eyes, it counts as a chore! So you won't be finding any homemade protein bars in this list. We will try to keep fat content low as a diet low in calories and fats is the best for long-term weight management.

Snack 1. Protein Yogurt

This snack is as simple as getting a bowl of Greek Yogurt (170g) adding 100g frozen blueberries (or fresh, doesn't matter) and one scoop of protein powder. Then mixing them all together with a spoon. Easy, this snack is perfect for breakfast or as a dessert, or even pre-workout.

• Calories = 238
• Protein = 33.5 (protein powder = 18.5g per scoop in this example)
• Fat = 2.8g
• Carbs = 20.7g

You can obviously use regular Greek yogurt if you need some more fat in your snack, or double up on the protein powder if protein needs to be higher. Adding 50g of oats can also boost the calories, carbs, and fat of the meal (194 calories, 3.45g fat, 8.4g protein, 33g carbs). You can also add some honey to improve the taste (64 calories per tablespoon).

Snack 2. Oatmeal

Maybe not the most exciting snack out there, but oatmeal is a fantastic healthy snack food idea that can be made very quickly and as with snack one is very versatile. You can do a lot with oatmeal, add protein powder, add fruit, or have it on its own with milk. So for this snack, we are going to take 50 grams of oatmeal, add 200ml milk, and some blueberries and then eat it. You can cook the oats if you prefer but eating them like this is definitely the quickest way to do it.

• Calories = 129 (226 if protein powder added)
• Protein = 4g (22g if protein powder added)
• Fat = 5g (7g if protein powder added)
• Carbs = 18g (20g if protein powder added)

Snack 3. Protein Shake with a Banana

A nice and simple pre or post exercise snack is a protein shake with a piece of fruit such as a banana. In this example, we are going to add 2 scoops of protein powder but you can use 1 if your calories require it. The banana in this example is large (121 calories).

• Calories = 315
• Protein = 38g
• Fat = 4g
• Carbs = 34g

You can use milk instead of water to mix with the protein shake but this will increase the calories (129 calories for 250ml 2% milk).

Snack 4. Beef Jerky

One of those snacks that sounds super unhealthy until you actually go through the nutrition label. Obviously, an entirely jerky-based diet would not be a great idea but as a snack, you could easily fit it into your daily calories. Some supplement companies have even created a jerky that contains 25g of protein per 50g of jerky! For this example, though, we will use a normal 50g serving of jerky to estimate calories.

• Calories = 205
• Protein = 16g
• Fat = 13g
• Carbs = 6g

Aiming for the higher protein/lower fat offerings would be ideal (as mentioned before, some jerky has been designed specifically for the fitness community) and is an enjoyable and easy way to boost your daily protein intake.

Snack 5. Turkey Sandwich

Smoked turkey breast slices with lettuce and low-fat mayonnaise served between 2 slices of toasted bread. What could be easier than that? And it's perfectly healthy.

• Calories = 205
• Protein = 12g
• Fat = 4g
• Carbs = 30g

Add more turkey slices to increase protein, or consider taking with a protein shake. If you’re feeling super adventurous or brave, you can do half Greek yogurt + mayo, instead of all mayo (even though it’s low fat- adding that yogurt in will get you an increase boost in protein and probiotics) But as a healthy snack food, this sandwich is awesome.

Snack 6. Chicken Fajita Wrap

To make this snack fit our "less than 5 minutes" rule we are going to need to use pre-cooked and diced chicken which can be found in most shops. But if you have the time, cooking the chicken yourself will make this snack even better. Pay attention to what wraps you use as they can differ hugely in calories. Finding a low-calorie salsa can also improve this snack. To make it grab a wrap, fill it with 50-100g diced chicken (cooked). Add lettuce and some salsa, fold and then eat. Simple really!

• Calories = 399
• Protein = 45
• Fat = 6
• Carbs = 72

190 of those calories came from the wrap, so if you use a smaller size wrap you could potentially lower the calories and the carbohydrates in this meal significantly. And there you have it! Six healthy snack food ideas that are high in protein, low in fat, and not particularly high in calories. All of the nutrition examples used are just that, examples. Take these as a rough guideline and not as the exact calories. Using a calorie tracker will really help you when it comes to eating healthy, instead of just guessing you can type your ingredients into the tracker (some websites even allow you to scan the barcode of the food into their database) and find out exactly how many calories are in them. Here’s to happy snacking. Remember to prioritize protein, but do not avoid fat or carbohydrates. All three macronutrients are necessary for a balanced diet. Try to keep snacking to once or twice per day as low-frequency meals actually improve your metabolism.