Appetite rises when training volume rises, and that is a normal response rather than a problem to suppress. The question is what you put in the gap. Most packaged snacks marketed for this job are 150 to 200 calories of carbohydrate with single digit protein, which means they fill you for about 40 minutes.
Here is the number to screen by: protein per 100 calories. Above 8 grams, a snack tends to hold. Below 4, it does not, no matter what the front of the box says.
| Snack | Calories | Protein | Protein per 100 cal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plain nonfat Greek yogurt, 170 g | 104 | 17.5 g | 17 |
| Nonfat cottage cheese, 1/2 cup | about 90 | 14 g | 16 |
| Two hard boiled eggs | 144 | 12 g | 8 |
| Fruit and nut snack bar | about 190 | 3 to 6 g | 2 to 3 |
| Almonds, 1 oz | 164 | 6 g | 4 |
| Baby carrots with 2 tbsp hummus | about 105 | 3 g | 3 |
the single serve package problem
Individually wrapped portions are sold on the premise that the packaging does the restraint for you. The best known test of that premise found the opposite.
Coelho do Vale, Pieters, and Zeelenberg published a study in the Journal of Consumer Research in 2008 with 140 participants who watched television while chips were available in either nine small 45 gram bags or two large 200 gram bags. Among participants whose dieting concerns had been activated beforehand, people were nearly twice as likely to start eating from the small packages, and when they started, they ate nearly twice as much. Consumption was lowest with a large package and activated self control concerns, because a big bag looks like a decision and a small bag looks like a free pass.
The effect only appeared in the primed group, so this is not a universal law of packaging. It is a specific and well documented failure mode for exactly the person who buys snack packs on purpose to manage intake. If you have ever eaten four of the 100 calorie packs and counted it as 100 calories, this is that study describing you.
Single serve nuts still have a defensible use. Nuts are calorie dense enough that eyeballing a portion from a large bag reliably lands at double what you intended, and the packaging cost is worth it if the alternative is 400 calories. Just do not buy the multipack and then keep it at your desk.
the fear of fat correction, in both directions
The 2012 version of this advice spent its energy arguing that fat is not bad. That argument is won and now overcorrected. Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are fine, nuts are a good food, and there is no reason to buy fat free anything for its own sake.
The part that gets dropped is the arithmetic. An ounce of almonds is 164 calories and an ounce of walnuts is 185. Two handfuls while cooking dinner is 350 calories that nobody logs. Healthy and low calorie are unrelated properties, and nuts are firmly in the first category and firmly out of the second.
what to actually keep around
Plain Greek yogurt is the best ratio in a supermarket. A 170 gram serving of nonfat gives 17.5 grams of protein at about 104 calories. Buy plain and add your own fruit, because strawberry nonfat in the same 170 grams runs about 141 calories with close to 20 grams of sugar and the protein drops to roughly 13.7 grams as fruit preparation displaces yogurt.
Cottage cheese matches it on protein density and beats it on texture if you prefer savory, with the tradeoff being sodium. Nonfat cottage cheese runs about 232 mg of sodium per 100 grams against 61 mg for Greek yogurt. Not a problem in itself, worth knowing if you are watching it.
Hard boiled eggs are the most portable complete protein that requires no refrigeration for a few hours. Six at a time on Sunday, peeled, in a container.
Edamame, frozen and shelled, is the plant option that actually delivers: roughly 18 grams of protein and 8 grams of fiber per cup, ready in four minutes from the freezer. It is the one snack on this list that hits both thresholds at once.
Vegetables with hummus are worth eating, and they are not a protein snack. Two tablespoons of hummus is about 3 grams. Eat them because raw vegetables are genuinely satisfying by volume, and add a protein source alongside if the goal is to stop being hungry.
the sweet tooth question
Every snack list eventually recommends a bar or a dried fruit item as the answer to wanting something sweet. Those work as dessert and fail as satiety. A bar at 190 calories with 4 grams of protein is a small candy bar with a better ingredient list, and the ingredient list does not change how long it holds you.
Two approaches that do work. Have the sweet thing on purpose, small, after a meal that contained protein, rather than as a standalone afternoon snack on an empty stomach. Or make the sweet thing carry protein: Greek yogurt with frozen berries and cinnamon, or cottage cheese blended smooth with cocoa. The second one sounds unpleasant and is not.
Nothing here is about earning or deserving food. It is about which 200 calories buys you three hours and which buys you 40 minutes.