Snack Of The Week: Walnuts & Dried Cherries

Since I'm going to be working my ass off to get in shape and ready for the races and, ultimately, the Comrades, I've also become serious about my diet. I'll try and post up any ideas, tips, tricks, and recipes I come across that I think you might find helpful. Why not have a six pack when running across the finish line?

Luckily, my Mom was ahead of her time in terms of healthy food, so many of the basics to good nutrition have been instilled in me since i was a kid; that said, I'm always open to new ways to keep myself fed and my waist from expanding.

One thing that I wasn't taught as a kid was that snacking was actually GOOD for you... let me rephrase: Snacking CAN BE good for you. To keep myself satisfied (and to avoid binging at far-apart meals) I am eating a snack 2 hours b/4 every meal (so that I shouldn't go more than 3 hours w/o any food).

Today's snack is one that I got from a Food Network show I stumbled upon last week, "Healthy Appetite with Ellie Krieger." Coincidentally, I'm eating it right now as my noon snack. I liked this idea b/c it was incredibly simple, taking about 5 minutes to put together a whole week's-worth of snacks.

Basically, you just buy walnuts (which you can simply toast by tossing them in a dry pan and heating on medium heat on the stove for a few minutes) and chop them up into decent-sized chunks. Then you add the dried cherries (which are AWESOME! I'm not a big fan of raisins, so these are definitely a nice alternative) - Ellie suggests a ration of 2:1, so use 2 cups of walnuts and 1 cup of dried cherries.

Now, measure out 1/3 cup portions, and put them in those little snack-sized ziplock bags, and you've got 9 snacks ready for the week!