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Food to maintain healthy weight

Understanding the Energy Equation
If you want to maintain a healthy weight, it is very important to understand the connection between the calories intake and the calories your body uses. You should work out roughly the number of calories you eat and drink each day. The number of calories you require depends on your age, activity level, and whether you are trying to gain, maintain, or lose weight. You should choose the most nutritionally rich food you can from each food group every day. These food are rich with with vitamins, minerals, fiber, and other nutrients, and they are lower in calories.

1. Increase Nutrient Rich & Low Energy Density Foods
Eating nutrient rich foods with low energy density is most effective way in maintaining good weight and health. By filling up with a substantial amount of food such as fruits and vegetables, an individual consumes fewer calories while feeling satisfied and gets a big hit of nutrients per serving.

Avocados - are delicious, satisfying and offer a healthy alternative to traditional sandwich spreads and salad dressing that are laden with cholesterol and saturated fat. They contain only 48 calories per ounce.

Kiwi fruits - are nutrition powerhouses of vitamins, minerals, dietary fiber and health-promoting phytochemicals. Two kiwifruit provide dietary fiber 16% of daily value (DV), vitamin C 240% DV, potassium 14% DV, vitamin E 10% DV and folate 9% DV, along with a wide array of phytochemicals and antioxidants.

Sweet potatoes - is an excellent source of vitamin A and a good source of potassium and vitamin C, B6, riboflavin, copper, pantothetic acid and folic acid.

Onions - contain fiber, calcium, iron, several B vitamins and more vitamin C than apples. They are rich in flavonoids, particularly Quercetin, an antioxidant compound that have strong supporting evidence indicating reduction of cholesterol, decrease in tumor formation, heal stomach ulcers and inhibit proliferation of cultured ovarian, breast and colon cancer cells. The organosulfur compounds in onions are also believed to have anti-cancer effects, to reduce symptoms associated with diabetes, have anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial properties, and seem to inhibit platelet aggregation to protect the patient from coronary heart disease.

Raisins - now rank among the top antioxidant foods because they contain important phytochemicals and minerals such as iron and potassium. The combination of dietary fiber and tartaric acid found in raisins also plays an important role in colon function and good health.

Mangos - an excellent source of vitamin A and a good source of vitamin C, two important antioxidants. An entire mango contains about 140 calories.

Watermelon - high in lycopene, which has been shown in studies to help fight prostate cancer, protect the lungs, skin, and eyes and even help fight heart disease. A big 17-ounce wedge has just 154 calories.

Honeydew - 1/10 of a honeydew has 45% of the vitamin C needed in a day with just 50 calories.


2. Reduce Nutrient Poor & High Calories Foods

Foods such as Soft Drinks, Sweet Desserts and Pastries,
Hamburgers, Pizza, Potato chips, Salty Snacks and Alcohol are contributing calories without providing vitamins and minerals, which cause overweight and undernourished problems.


3. Include Whole Grains (Complex Carbohydrate) in Diet

Two large scale studies, involving over 100,000 people over a period of over 12 years have confirmed that people ingesting the most whole grain foods have over 25% lower risk of type 2 diabetes and they are less likely to become obese.

Whole grains foods such as whole grain bread, pasta, brown rice and wild rice are high in fiber and have lots of important phytochemicals and antioxidants.


4. Reduce Harmful Fats

Limit intake of saturated fats and trans-fatty acids, which are most dangerous for the heart and may pose a risk for strokes and certain types of cancers.

The popular low-carbohydrate, high-fat and high-protein diets can starve the brain of carbohydrates, produce constipation and other gastrointestinal problems, reduce energy levels, stress the kidneys, and increase the risk of liver disorders, gout, coronary heart disease, diabetes, stroke and cancer.


5. Include Foods that Cut Water Retention
Foods that promote urination such as:
Small red beans
Job's tears
Corn and corn silk
Soybean and garlic
Foods that absorb water internally such as: broad beans & hyacinth beans
Foods that cool the body for hot-damp type:
* bitter gourd
* mung beans
* Foods that warm the body for cold-damp type - cinnamon twig, fresh ginger

Some information is from http://www.nourishu.ca/

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