Eating More Fruits and Vegetables Can Help You With Weight Loss

Fruits and vegetables can be very beneficial to you if you are trying to lose weight. Why? Because they are high in volume and low in calories and they fill you up. They also contain lots of nutrients your body needs, and when your body is getting the nutrients it needs you won't crave the high calorie processed foods. So you eat less junk. You should be eating at least 5 to 9 servings of fruits and vegetables per day and even more if you are trying to lose weight, because if you are overweight you are most likely nutrient deficient. You should also eat a variety of them for overall nutrition. If you think “well, I don't like fruits and vegetables” think again. With all the different kinds out there you must like some. Here are 3 great ways you can include a variety of fruits and vegetables in your diet.

Make a list of all the fruits and vegetables you like and start including them in your snacks and meals - Brainstorm and think off all the fruits and vegetables that there are and write them down on a piece of paper and I am sure you will think of some you like. Start buying them and include them in your meals.

Include a fruit and or vegetable at breakfast. You can have an apple, pear, grapes or any fruit for breakfast or you can make an omelet containing asparagus, tomatoes, and or broccoli. I sometimes make omelets with tomatoes, onions and broccoli and usually have some type of fruit or berry for breakfast. At lunch you can add lettuce, tomatoes, pickles and or peppers to your sandwich, and at dinner add a vegetable or two as a side dish, and eat a salad either at lunch or dinner. For snacks you can have celery with peanut butter, a fruit or bowl of fruit, raw carrots, broccoli, peppers or cucumbers with a low fat veggie dip.

Make garden and fruit salads - This is a great way to get a variety of fruits and vegetables in. For a garden salad you can have lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and whatever other vegetable you want to add. Be creative you can add just about any vegetable you want. I have added mushrooms, radishes, raw carrots and even broccoli to my salads. You can even add fruits to salads. Some people add orange slices to their salads.

For a fruit salad you can cut up some watermelon, bananas and add blueberries, strawberries or whatever other fruit you would like to add. Salads are a great way to eat raw vegetables. Raw vegetables are better than cooked because they contain more nutrients. When you cook vegetables you kill some of the nutrients.

Make fruit and vegetable smoothies - You can make a berry smoothie with strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries. Or you can make a strawberry, banana smoothie, peach smoothie, pineapple smoothie, or any other kind of smoothie with any kind of fruit or fruits you like. Just take frozen fruits or berries, or fresh fruits or berries with ice, low fat yogurt, and an all natural fruit juice or water, add to blender and blend till mixed. Besides just having fruit smoothies you can add vegetables to your fruit smoothie and make it a fruit and vegetable smoothie. Some vegetables you can add to your smoothie are spinach, cucumbers, and broccoli.

Making smoothies are a delicious way to add fruits and vegetables to your diet. It is also a good way to get calcium if your smoothie contains yogurt. Smoothies are also a cool and refreshing drink on a hot summer day. When making smoothies, if you use fruit juice make sure that the fruit juice you use is all natural and does not contain high fructose corn syrup since this is an ingredient known to cause weight gain. Some all natural fruit juices you can buy are Juicy Fruit, and Ocean Spray. I use Blueberry Ocean Spray juice when I make smoothies.

I hope this information has gotten you to want to add more fruits and vegetables to your diet. Not only will eating more of these help you to lose weight, they will also help keep you healthy. Fruits and vegetables are known to help lower cholesterol and reduces your risk of heart disease, increase your immune system to prevent you from getting sick, and helps prevent cancer.