Weight Loss Tip #3 - Equal Time for Fruits and Veggies

Here's one that's so simple, you can't mess it up. Unless you don't do it at all. If you want to increase your nutrient-density (NU~DE), make sure that every time you eat, at least half the volume is either fruit or veggies.

That's it! Can you believe that half the battle of eating clean was right there for you all the time? It was as close to you as the ruby slippers were to Dorothy, and at least as magical. Why does it work? Well, the key to lowering your calories while increasing your vitamin, mineral and fiber content and, at the same time, filling up your stomach, lies in eating a lot of produce. How much? About half your food should do it. How do you do that? Make sure half of what you eat at any time during the day (which should be mostly lean protein and whole grains on the other side of the plate) is either fruit or vegetables. If you're eating just one thing at a time (say, every hour or two), every other time you eat it should be all veggies or fruit.

And you need to balance out the mix of fruit and veggies. If you lean more heavily toward either, it should be veggies.

Simply shifting 10% of your diet from empty calories (sweets, fatty foods, soda, alcohol) to produce could easily chop 500 calories off your daily total. That's a pound a week; 50 pounds in a year.

That's worth heading to the farmer's market seem like a good idea, huh?