3 Ways to Easily Add More Fruits and Vegetables to Your Diet

Ants on a Log All of us know that we need to start eating healthier and get more fruits and vegetables into our diets. The hard part is actually doing it. For many people, it's just hard to get past the taste. However, there are ways that you can easily add more servings of fruit or vegetables to your diet with little effort. We'll show you ways to cheat and still enjoy your food.

1. Start with salsa substitution.

If you eat a lot of dips, you're adding a whole bunch of useless calories into your daily rotation. Put away that dip and bring out the salsa. It contains numerous vegetables and fruit and the taste is terrific. Better yet, it's fat free and extremely low calorie. You can use salsa on just about anything to make it taste better and you're getting the benefit of adding more servings of these important foods to your diet with little effort.

You can use it with chips, or tortillas, on eggs or pretty much anything. If salsa is not really your thing, try experimenting with a couple of different brands or you can even try to make your own with vegetables you like. Fruit salsa is surprisingly good when combined with cottage cheese or other low fat dairy products. This is probably the easiest way to get more fruit and vegetables into your diet with little effort.

2. Add one more serving of vegetables or fruits with every meal.

At breakfast, have some low sodium tomato juice or a sliced apple. At lunch, you can add in some delicious corn or a pear. With dinner, try experimenting with a tossed salad with low fat dressing. This makes it easy to get at least three more servings of fruits or vegetables into your diet without any effort at all. What's more, these servings will help you fill up faster and avoid overeating other foods that are less healthy.

3. Retrain your palate.

Some of us simply just don't like fresh fruits or vegetables. The key here is to retrain your palate and make your brain think that you actually enjoy them. Start small and add low fat sauces or little things to make the vegetables taste better. For example, you can spread a little bit of peanut butter inside a stalk of celery. Suddenly, that tasteless stalk actually tastes good and you're getting the added benefit of more protein. This makes a great afternoon snack. Just don't overdo it on the peanut butter or you won't be getting any benefit.

Simple things can make vegetables and fruits a lot better. However, you can also try experimenting a little. Just because you don't like one fruit or vegetable doesn't mean you may not love another. Get creative and go outside your usual routine with new vegetables you've never tasted before. You can actually have a lot of fun by trying out all sorts of new foods and seeing which ones you enjoy.

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Is Your Brain Keeping You From Losing Weight?

We all know that the mind is our most powerful muscle, but what do you do if your mind is working against your diet plan? Few of us realize just how much we beat ourselves up mentally, setting ourselves up for failure before we even try. If you’re ready to get healthy and lose weight, the first thing you need to kick into shape is your brain and the rest will follow.

So, how about some brain exercises?

These won’t require any physical effort, but they may be emotionally draining. If you stick with it however, you will feel liberated and chances are, you’ll finally be able to lose the weight and get back to being healthy. In fact, you may even end up happy as a result.

The first exercise:

You are capable of losing weight! Remove the word can’t from your vocabulary. It’s time to train your brain into thinking you can lose weight and that it will be easy. Every morning, do twelve repetitions of saying to yourself: “I CAN and WILL lose weight.”

The second exercise:

Your happiness does not revolve around a number! Stop saying to yourself that you’ll be happy when you reach X amount of pounds. If it takes too long to get there, your brain will step in and tell you that you’ll never make it, so why bother. Every afternoon, do twelve repetitions of saying to yourself: “I am happy RIGHT NOW and I am choosing to lose weight to improve my health.”

The third exercise:

You can put that piece of cake down! The time between dinner and bed is the hardest for many people. You get hungry, your blood sugar dips and that piece of cake starts to have a diabolical conversation with your brain. Short circuit that conversation and take your brain off of that track. Every night, do twelve repetitions of saying to yourself: “I do NOT need that piece of cake. I will live until I get to bed even if I do not have a snack.”

These three exercises will begin to help you whip your brain back into shape. You’ll be able to start thinking thin and as a result, you’ll be able to get there. Now, you can’t rely on this totally to lose weight, you will need to actually cut calories and start exercising, but it can have an enormous impact on your success rate.

If your brain is keeping you from losing weight, it is time to say enough is enough and take control. Once you do this, you’ll find that everything will start to improve, including your self confidence. Many of us, after years of being overweight, have developed a mindset that we are unattractive, unworthy people. If you stop that cycle, you will open up an entirely new world, virtually devoid of self recrimination. And when you can do that, you’ll be on the road to mentally healthy and physically healthy future.

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