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

November 27th, 2008 — Meals, alternative ideas, healthy eating, nutrition 

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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Tips For Picking the Right Foods

October 23rd, 2008 — Weight Loss Journal, food, food labels, goals, healthy eating 

If you are focusing on losing weight and making lifestyle changes, the first two weeks are undoubtedly the hardest. Your body and your mind need time to adjust to your diet, and this initial period requires a lot of motivation and a desire to stick to your new plan. Anytime you make lifestyle changes, it is difficult to know which foods you should be eating, and what foods you may never be able to eat again. Here are some tips to get you started.

1. Remove all the food you can’t eat from your house.

This is the first step in picking the right foods. When you don’t have the temptation sitting within easy grasp, it is a lot easier to keep on the right track. If your family eats those foods, they will need to learn to adjust, at least for a few weeks, until you are safely on the road to your changes. It is so much easier to make that healthy choice when you don’t have the chocolate cake in the fridge whispering at you.

2. Learn about the harmful effects of the chemicals in processed foods.

This is one easy way to guarantee that those tasty processed foods will never appeal to you again. Start learning about the chemicals and additives in your food and chances are, you will want to avoid them at all costs. Thanks to the Internet, anyone can learn more about the food we eat, and the additives that are included.

3. Find ways to make good foods taste better.

It’s a sad fact that until your palate gets adjusted, healthy food can actually nasty pretty nasty. However, by learning more about how to prepare that food you can make it taste better. Avoid adding dressings and sauces, but learn about different seasonings and different preparation techniques that can make any food taste better.

4. Reward yourself for the good choices.

Since it can take a week or two to start seeing real results on the scale, it is important to set up small rewards that will keep you going until you do reach that point. Avoid food rewards, but set up a system where you either do something you enjoy, or indulge in a little pampering, as a way of telling yourself “good job.” It is a lot easier to keep motivated when you make it an enjoyable experience to pick the right foods.

5. Take every day at a time.

Looking at a week’s worth of healthy food choices can be intimidating for everyone. Focus on the food choices you are going to make today, not tomorrow and not next week. Break it down so that you are only focusing on the choices that have to be made right now, and let everything else fall into place.

It will get easier to make the right food choices, and you can look at this initial phase as a training period that will make everything that is to come easier to accomplish.

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