Eat an unlimited amount of leafy green and other colorful vegetables. These plant-foods provide your body with a vast amount of nutrients that can satisfy your body’s daily requirements. Because some nutrients are better absorbed if the food has been cooked, eat half of your vegetables cooked and half raw. It is smart to eat a large salad every day. To your lettuce leaves, add bell peppers, chives, red cabbage, or other raw, chopped vegetables. Remember that the deeper the color of the vegetable, the more nutritious it is. Be sure to chew your food well or you be flushing the nutrients down the toilet.
Limit foods that come from animal sources. As tasty as chicken, eggs, and cheese are, these foods are high in saturated fat and cholesterol and void of fiber and other valuable nutrients. Red meat, chicken, and deli meats and milk products have been linked with weight gain.
Eat at least one cup of beans per day. An easy way to get more beans into your diet is to replace meat with beans. Packed with fiber and other hard-to-find nutrients, these low-calorie legumes provide ample and beneficial protein to the diet.
Don’t bother counting calories. Instead, count how many servings of vegetables and fruits you eat in a day. If you can tally 5, good job. If you can tally 11 or more, you are on your way to substantial weight loss.
Eat ‘whole grain’, not ‘whole grain flour.’ Flour, the major ingredient in most breads and cereals, is a highly processed food. Most of the nutrients, including the fiber, are lost in processing. Most breads and cereals that claim to be ’whole grain’ are made from flour. Ingredient labels that list ‘whole grain flour’ or ‘whole oat flour’ are still flour. Look for whole grains on the ingredients label, such as ‘whole grain wheat,’ ‘whole grain oats’, ‘whole grain barley,’ etc. Sprouted grains are best. Limit your intake of breads and cereals to one serving per day.
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