Isn’t that a dream? Many people turn green with envy when one of their friends will say, “I want to become a bit fatter, but no matter what I eat, I cannot seem to gain weight.” There are people really gifted with a slight frame and the metabolism of a lynx. Unfortunately, not everyone is gifted the same way. So to live healthier and have a slimmer body, all you really need to do is to eat more.
Well, maybe not more of the potato chips and French fries and the ice cream, but more of the healthy food options that you can find in the fresh produce section of the grocery store. Look for these super foods the next time you do your grocery shopping and throw out all the bad stuff from your pantry. Yes, throw them away and replace them with the good stuff.
If you are a big snack person, then you must have that need to eat while working or while doing something on the computer. The next time you are looking for a snack, reach for some dry roasted almonds rather than some potato chips and candy bars. Although the numbers are not yet settled, researches show that almonds have a lot of trace minerals and healthy fats that help your heart fight diseases. It is also filling and contains a lot of vitamin E and selenium. And the best part is that some people think the amount of calories that it takes the body to burn an almond is almost the same number of calories that the almond itself contains, so it is virtually a zero calorie food! Grab a bag of almonds and whenever you feel like having a snack, just take a handful, even a big handful of it and munch away.
One of the best super foods in the market is green leafy vegetable. Forget about the iceberg lettuce, which can be considered the runt of the green leafy family. Go for greener vegetables like broccoli and kale. Take from Popeye and have a bunch of spinach everyday. You can also eat Swiss chard and collard greens, which are all wholesome and good to eat. There is a debate on whether or not greens should be cooked. The cooking process does leech out some of the nutrients and the vitamins in the vegetable, but one also has to look at the fact that cooked vegetables are a lot more palatable than raw ones, so you can eat a lot more vegetables when they are cooked. So the safest bet to get the green leafy vegetables that you need is to choose for yourself which one will work best for you. If you can eat somewhere around four servings of raw vegetables, then that will be great. But if you cannot, then eating five to six servings of cooked vegetables will be an excellent approximate.
A lot of people like salads, though, and can tolerate eating them raw. So you can take from this cue and make salads that not only have lettuce, but greener salad vegetables like arugula, endive and cress. You can even make the salad have more texture and get more of the raw vegetable goodness that you need everyday.
