Breyers All Natural Strawberry ice cream
120 calories per half-cup, $5.60/1.5 quarts

“Research suggests that if you’re eating a single flavor, you’ll eat less,” says Dawn Jackson Blatner, R.D., a spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association. Strawberry doesn’t beg for toppings the way vanilla does, and the real fruit in it contains fiber, so that full feeling won’t melt away with your last lick.

Dove Miniatures in cherry, chocolate, or vanilla
60 calories each, $4/box of 16

What these itty-bitty bars lack in size, they make up for in flavor. With a rich milk-chocolate shell and decadent center (cherry’s our fave), one or two is plenty.

Ben & Jerry’s cherry garcia low-fat frozen yogurt
160 calories per half-cup, $4/pint

Scooper beware: This cherry bomb packs the most calories per serving of any on our list, a reminder that portion control still counts, even with foods that are billed as less fattening. But we can overlook that while we have fudge flakes melting on our tongues.

Klondike Slim-a-Bear sandwiches
100 calories each, $4.30/box of 6

These creamy-on-the-inside sandwiches are the poster child for portion control: We could devour one without guilty urges to rip into a second or third. READ THE REST HERE!

4 Non-Food Related Tips To Help You Eat Less & Lose Weight

3 Ways To Overcome Your Fitness Plateau

It’s almost noon and the only thing that’s on your mind is where you are going to go for lunch.  Seriously, ANYTHING to get out of the office for an hour! But rather than emptying your wallet and filling yourself up with unnecessary calories, pack yourself a lunch and pick a pretty spot in the park to eat.  This way you’re saving money, eating well, and enjoying beautiful scenery while doing so.

When I first started working, the idea of packing myself a lunch seemed like the ultimate loser move.  After eating out for every lunch everyday for a while, however, I realized that going out to eat isn’t always the best idea.  Not only do I find myself overeating and ready for a nap at 1pm, but the cost really adds up.  I’d much rather spend that cash grabbing dinner and drinks with my girls after work. So what do you say? Give the old brown bag another try and see if you can pack something delicious, healthy, and energizing!

The problem is, the classic peanut butter and jelly can really get old after a while.  And you can only rotate between strawberry jelly and grape jelly for so long.  Solution? Switch it up with some turkey! Throw in your favorite veggies and use your favorite bread.  Make your homemade sandwich deli status by spending the money to buy good ingredients on Sunday and having them last for the whole week.

Something else I’ve noticed that keeps me going during the work day is having something to snack on.  After going through chips, chocolate, and cupcakes, I’ve settled on something that is delicious, healthy, and keeps me going.  Veggies with any type of dip is always delicious.  I personally love hummus, but I see plenty of people smiling as they crunch away on carrots and ranch.  So try it out: pick a dip that suits you and the possibilities are endless. Not a veggie person? Go with the fruit.  There’s nothing more refreshing than biting into fresh fruit just when you thought you were going to pass out at your desk. Add some yogurt to the mix and you have yourself a homemade parfait.

What are some of your favorites to pack for lunch? What are some healthy and cheap options for when you decide to go out for lunch?

Easy Surprising Ways To Rev Up Your Workout

Foods You Should Eat For Younger Looking Skin

(BlackDoctor.org) — “It’s hard enough to get up in the morning early enough to get to work on time. You expect me to get up early enough to exercise?” It may sound like an uncanny suggestion. And 500 calories burned are no different whether they are burned in the morning than in the afternoon, but there are certain benefits of morning exercise that you don’t get when you exercise later in the day. Read on to find out what these benefits are.

1. Exercising early in the morning “jump-starts” your metabolism, keeping it elevated for hours, sometimes for up to 24 hours! As a result, you’ll be burning more calories all day long, just because you exercised in the morning.

2. Exercising in the morning energizes you for the day, not to mention that gratifying feeling of virtue you have knowing you’ve done something disciplined and good for you.

Want to lose weight? Dance it off!

3. Studies have shown that exercise significantly increases mental acuity—a benefit that lasts four to 10 hours after your workout ends. Exercising in the a.m. means you get to harness that brainpower instead of wasting it while you’re snoozing.

4. Assuming you make exercise a true priority, it shouldn’t be a major problem to get up 30 to 60 minutes earlier—especially since regular exercise generally means a better quality of sleep, which in turn means you’ll probably require less sleep. (If getting up 30 to 60 minutes earlier each day seems too daunting, you can ease into it with 10 to 20 minutes at first.)

5. When you exercise at about the same time every morning—especially if you wake up regularly at about the same time—you’re regulating your body’s endocrine system and circadian rhythms. Your body learns that you do the same thing just about every day, and it begins to prepare for waking and exercise several hours before you actually open your eyes. That’s beneficial because:

• Your body is not “confused” by wildly changing wake-up times, which means waking up is much less painful. (You may even find that you don’t need an alarm clock most days.)

• Hormones prepare your body for exercise by regulating blood pressure, heart rate, blood flow to muscles, etc.

• Your metabolism, along with all the hormones involved in activity and exercise, begin to elevate while you’re sleeping. As a result, you’ll feel more alert, energized and ready to exercise when you do wake up.

READ MORE HERE

4 ways to spring clean your workout routine

Diet is the biggest component to losing fat — you can burn 600 calories (for example) in a workout, but you can easily eat 2-3 times that much in one sitting if you’re eating junk food. As they say, you can’t out-exercise a bad diet. I’d still recommend getting active and burning calories as much as you can (with adequate rest), but if you really want to lose fat, you need to look at your diet.

So if diet is important, how do you stick to a good diet? The meal plan is often the simplest answer — plan out the foods you’re going to eat, measured for your calorie goal, and then just eat those meals (for the most part). You don’t have to track your eating because it’s already planned out.

Sticking to the meal plan is often the hard part, though. Most people aren’t used to it, and they often fail and feel guilty. So I thought I’d share some of what I’ve learned, what’s worked for me, in hopes that it’ll help you.

I’ve gotten pretty good at sticking to my plan, and I actually enjoy it. Go figure.

The Simple Method

So here’s what I’ve done, and what I’d recommend. Keep it simple.

1. Eat real, whole foods you love. Do NOT see this as a sacrifice. If you hate carrots or eggplant but you eat them because they’re somehow “virtuous” or you think that sacrifice is the only way to lose that fat, you’ll fail. You cannot stick to something you hate for very long. Instead, go for healthy foods you actually enjoy eating. For me, this is berries, fruits of all kinds, raw almonds, veggies cooked tastefully in stir-fries or chili or what have you. Your list will be different, and it could take some experimenting with different recipes you find online, in magazines or in cookbooks to find the healthy foods you like best. Main rule of thumb, though: try for real foods, not packaged ones (not even “healthy” convenience foods). In as natural a state as possible — meaning, not processed or extracted, not fried or smothered with cream or sauces.

2. Improve in iterations. Cut back a little at a time. You don’t have to go from Standard American Diet to a diet of Only Raw Carrots in one day (nor should you ever eat only raw carrots, but you know what I mean). Try a meal plan that’s a little better than the diet you’ve been eating for years — perhaps cutting out the liquid calories at first, or adding more fruits or veggies you love. As I said above, cut the calories just a little. This first meal plan doesn’t have to be perfect — just a little better. Then, once you get used to that, make a meal plan that’s a little better yet — maybe a couple hundred calories less, more veggies, less fatty stuff, less snack food, or more real food. With each iteration of your meal plan, get a little better. I’m still getting better at mine.

How to outsmart your cravings

3. Look ahead for bumps, and plan. We all have those bumps in our routines: an office party, someone’s birthday dinner, going on a date with your honey, taking a trip, being on the road all day and not having access to your usual foods. The key is to think ahead — what’s going on tomorrow? How will I deal with it? Should I pack food, or find out what the menu is at the restaurant so I can pick something healthy, or should I use this as a cheat meal? Thing is, don’t just do cheat meals all the time — then you’re not on a meal plan anymore. More on that below. Again, plan ahead and prepare — as you keep doing this, you’ll get good at packing snacks or meals so you’re covered, no matter what the occasion.

READ MORE HERE

5 cancer-fighting foods you should be eating

Cravings can sneak up on you as often and unexpected as that aggravating little itch you get on your nose. One minute, you’re innocently going about your day – the next, you’re in the clutches of desire. In a recent study from Tufts University, 91% of women said they experienced strong food cravings. These urges are fueled by feel-good brain chemicals such as dopamine, released when you eat these types of foods, which creates a rush of euphoria that your brain seeks over and over. What you need is a plan that stops this natural cycle and helps prevent unwanted weight gain. The next time you’re hit with an insatiable urge for a double-chocolate brownie, ask yourself these four questions to get to the root cause, then follow our expert tips tailored to your trigger.

1. Am I stressed out?

When you’re under pressure, your body releases the hormone cortisol, which signals your brain to seek out rewards. Comfort foods loaded with sugar and fat basically “apply the brakes” to the stress system by blunting this hormone. When you reach for food in response to negative feelings such as anger or sadness (like potato chips after a fight with your spouse), you inadvertently create a powerful connection in your brain. The food gets coded in your memory center as a solution to an unpleasant experience or emotion.

Do This!

• Stimulate happiness. Women especially have a profound emotional reaction to music. Create upbeat playlists to listen to whenever a food craving strikes. The songs provide a distraction and an emotional release.

• Wait it out. People give in to cravings because they think they’ll build in intensity until they become overwhelming, but that’s not true. Food cravings behave like waves: They build, crest, and then disappear. If you can “surf the urge,” you have a better chance of beating it altogether.

• Choose the best distraction. What you’re really craving is to feel better. You’ve heard the trick about phoning a friend or exercising instead of eating. But taking a solo walk won’t help if you’re feeling lonely. Instead, identify your current emotion – bored, anxious, angry – by filling in these blanks: “I feel ____ because of ____.” Then find an activity that releases it. If you’re stressed, channeling nervous energy into a workout can help; if you’re upset over a problem at the office, call a friend and ask for advice.

Can a drink a day keep the pounds away?

2. Have I been eating less than usual?

If you’re eating fewer than 1,000 calories a day or restricting an entire food group (like carbs), you’re putting your body in prime craving mode. Even just 3 days of strict dieting decreases levels of the appetite-reducing hormone leptin by 22%. Experts note that “restrained eaters”–dieters who severely limit calories or certain foods–aren’t necessarily thinner than regular eaters; they’re actually about 1 to 2 BMI points higher, or the equivalent of 10 to 20 pounds, as their self-imposed food rules often backfire. According to research from the University of Toronto, restrained eaters are more likely to experience cravings and to overeat the “forbidden” food when given the chance.

Do This!

• Lift any bans—safely. Plan ways to enjoy your favorite foods in controlled portions. Get a slice of pizza instead of a whole pie, or share a piece of restaurant cheesecake with two friends.

• Don’t “eat around” food cravings. Trying to quell a food craving with a low-cal imitation won’t satisfy your brain’s memory center. For example, if you’re craving a milkshake, yogurt won’t cut it –especially if you’ve been depriving yourself. You may even take in more calories than if you’d just had a reasonable portion of what you wanted in the first place. Munching five crackers, a handful of popcorn, and a bag of pretzels, all in the name of trying to squash a craving for potato chips, will net you about 250 more calories than if you’d eaten a single-serving bag.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE

Want to lose weight? Dance it off!

(From shape.com)

Ready to kickoff the holiday party season? The next couple months will be jam-packed with festivities and fun, not to mention a few healthy-eating obstacles. To keep from overindulging, it’s best to walk into a party with a game plan. Here are some strategies to keep your diet on track:

Make a choice

Would you rather look hot at the next holiday party or go to town at the buffet table? Use the season’s festivities as motivation to look great in your party attire. Avoid waistline-busting party foods such as fried hors d’oeuvres and fattening chips and dips. Instead, gravitate toward filling, low-calorie options like crudités and shrimp, suggests Susan Burke March, R.D., the author of Making Weight Control Second Nature: Living Thin Naturally. Making healthy choices is an automatic confidence booster, so you’ll look and feel better–and rock your little black dress.

3 ways to break out of your cardio rut

Eat beforehand

Just because you know your friend made her famous dish doesn’t mean you should starve yourself in preparation–in fact, you should eat in preparation. March suggests having a snack, such as nonfat yogurt or a piece of fruit, before you go out. You’re less likely to overeat or make unhealthy food choices at a holiday party if you’ve taken the edge off your appetite beforehand.

Learn to say “no”

The best way to avoid fattening party foods is to put a healthy eating plan in place prior to the event. A good host will want to make sure you’re enjoying yourself and partaking in the fare. When offered an option that isn’t diet friendly, March recommends saying: “Thanks, but I’m really thirsty right now. Maybe I’ll try one later.” Then head to the bar and grab a low-cal cocktail such as a wine spritzer or light beer.

Click here for more

How to decorate your kitchen for the holidays

Take a look at some inexpensive gifts for your Bff:

Before you beeline for the buffet table, arm yourself with holiday diet tips and strategies that will help you stay away from the most fattening foods of the season from shape.com:

Eggnog

This aromatic drink is a dietary disaster—it’s basically just sugar, cream, and eggs. Instead of reaching for this calorie-laden beverage (roughly 200 calories in just a 5 ounce serving), stick to your healthy diet plan by opting for hot chocolate, which has about 113 calories if you make it with water.

Dress up your holiday table for the holidays

Baked Potato with Toppings

It’s tempting to load up baked potatoes with sour cream and butter, but doing so turns this complex carbohydrate into one of the most fattening foods at the table. Just one tablespoon of butter can add around 100 calories to this fiber-rich food. Instead of dousing it in artery-clogging toppings, try using salsa, or go for roasted potatoes.

Prime Rib

While this is the holiday cut of choice, prime rib comes from the fattiest part of the cow, which translates to lots of calories. A 10-ounce slab of this hearty beef can have a whopping 1,000 calories and 37 grams of fat, which will take you more than two hours to burn off ice skating. Beef can be part of your healthy diet plan, just opt for Select or Choice grade beef and a lean cut, such as sirloin.

Click here for more

How to travel cheap for the holidays

(From shape.com)

There was a time in your life when you didn’t even realize what you were doing was called aerobic or cardio exercise. One of the most successful long-term weight-maintenance strategies is to make sure you burn 1,000 calories through exercise every week. But how you burn them is up to you. You can do anything from playing basketball (400 calories an hour*) to jumping rope (658 calories an hour) to going dancing (300 calories an hour). There’s no reason anything you do has to feel like a “workout.”

Work out on your lunch break

So banish all the “I have tos” and “I should bes” from your vocabulary, and try out some of these ideas for playing like a kid again. Calorie estimates are based on a 145-pound woman.

1. Inline skate. Head for the sidewalk or boardwalk or, if it’s cold outside, find an indoor skating rink (and think back to grade-school skating parties). Inline skating burns up to 700 calories an hour, depending on your speed and how hilly the course is.

2. Shoot hoops. At home, the local park or gym, play a game of basketball with a few friends. Burns 400 calories an hour.

3. Go dancing. Head out on a Saturday night to try salsa, swing or even belly dancing. Or pick your favorite music at home and just move. Burns about 300 calories an hour.

What is the best day of the week to lose weight?

Take a look at the hottest celeb pics on the net

Walking is an excellent way for any person with working legs to build up fitness.Here are some tips to create your own neighborhood walking workout:

1. Make sure you walk for at least 20 minutes to start efficiently burning fat! I would start by walking 5 minutes first, then start your intervals!

2. Wear a heart rate monitor to ensure you are burning fat and walking fast enough! Your goal is to keep your heart rate at 65-85% of your heart rate maximum! To determine your max, take 220 minus your age. That is your max and then you take 65-85% of that!

4 simple ways to get yourself to the gym

3. To turn more calories, step up your normal walking routine with muscle toning intervals including:
- Side shuffling
- Side stepping squats
- Walking lunges
- Reverse lunges with upper back squeeze
- Triceps dips off a bench or curb
- Pushups on a park bench
- Crab crawl
- Bear walk
- Bunny hops
- Power skipping

Blast away your belly bulge

Check out the hottest celeb pics on the net!

Are you looking for ways to burn more calories during the day? Here are 5 easy ways from shape.com:

1. Add 10 minutes in the morning
While you may be religious about going to the gym after work, waking up 10 minutes earlier in the morning and taking a walk around the block (or, alternatively, simply dancing to your morning radio show for 10 minutes) will let you start off your day with a faster-burning metabolism and, most likely, head off to work in a better mood than usual.
Calorie-burning boost: 275 calories per week

5 minute energy boosters for the office

2. Do intervals
When you alternate high-intensity cardio work with moderate-intensity recovery periods, you boost your calorie burning and increase your fitness level. This will help you break through plateaus.

Here’s how: Warm up for 5 minutes, then increase speed or resistance on the machine for 2-5 minutes. Return to your usual pace for 5 minutes, then continue with short bursts interspersed with a moderate pace for the rest of your workout. Cool down for 5 minutes at a slower pace.

When you’re ready to progress, make the work part of the interval longer and decrease the recovery time (but never to less than 30 seconds). For example, you could do 6 minutes at a higher speed and rest for 3 minutes.
Calorie-burning boost: 300-450 calories per 45 minutes

3. Jump rope on your coffee breaks
Sound silly? It won’t after you read the numbers. Slip off your pumps and put on your sneakers, then head off to a corner with a jump-rope. This quick heart-pumping activity is also weight-bearing, so your muscles and bones will benefit. And you’ll probably feel completely energized, too.
Calorie-burning boost: You can burn 208 calories on two 10-minute breaks each day (that’s 1,000 calories a week)!

7 new moves to tone your tummy

[From BlackDoctor.org]

Studies of American eating habits reveal that almost a quarter of the calories we consume come from nutrient-poor selections – better known as “junk food.” If one-fourth of what we eat is junk food, a plan for weight reduction should emphasize eating differently, not just eating less as many nutrition experts advise for weight loss. And if you have a healthy weight, you should still eat less junk food to prevent weight gain and chronic diseases, like cancer.

Too Many Calories from Sodas, Sweets and Desserts

In a recent study that surveyed 4,700 people, soft drinks were the number one source of calories. They accounted for 7.1 percent of the calories the people in this study consumed. Altogether, the categories of soft drinks, sweets and desserts, and alcoholic beverages made up 23.8 percent of total calorie intake. Salty snacks and fruit-flavored drinks added another five percent of calories. Since all of these foods are relatively concentrated in calories, you don’t have to eat a lot of them to increase your daily calorie total.

Another study revealed that people who eat a lot of junk food suffer nutritionally. This study looked at the impact of salty snack foods like potato chips, corn chips, crackers, pretzels and cheese curls. Those who ate the most of these high-fat salty snack foods had diets high in total and saturated fat and low in fruits and vegetables. These people scored poorly for dietary healthfulness.

Score High Points for Health

Studies of nutrient-poor food consumption highlight several important messages…

To find out what they are, click here.

Click here for 10 easy steps to weight loss.

Can less calories help you gain memory?

Studies show a glass of wine or beer each day is good for you, but could those added calories be making you fat?

(From shine.com)

We all know that drinking and dieting don’t mix. Alcohol is empty calories, quickly converts to sugar and lowers our inhibitions so we are inclined to eat more. However, for most of us, drinking is a part of birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, weekends, holidays, travel, fine dining, cheap dining, home dining, vacations, boat trips, sailing trips, camping trips, barbecues, happy hours, and in Europe…breakfast. OK, I think you get my drift. That being said, here’s the buzz on how to not let drinking become dangerous to your diet:

Vodka Cranberry/Tonic/Straight: One of the best alcoholic beverages for losing weight is 1.5 shot of vodka (98 calories) with a low or no calorie mixer, such as Schweppes diet tonic or diet cranberry juice (Try Ocean Spray’s Diet Cranberry Juice at 5 calories). Another option if you can stomach it is to drink vodka straight. Now with all of the flavored vodkas, such as Absolut Pears vodka, this is an option.

Captain Morgan & Diet Coke: A 1.5 shot of Captain Morgan (86 calories) with Diet Coke (0 calories) is a great option for bars that don’t have calorie free mixers. Almost every place carries Captain Morgan and Diet Coke. And Captain Morgan (86 calories) is fewer calories than regular rum (98 calories).

Sugar Free Red Bull & Vodka: If you are someone who wants um, “wings” when you are out, the Sugar Free Red Bull (10 calories) mixed with 1.5 shot of Vodka (98 calories) is a good option.

Beer: If you are a beer drinker, try and stick to Miller or Amstel Lite (96 calories, 4.2% alcohol) versus your average 150 calorie beer. Another second place option is Bud Light (110 calories, 4.2% alcohol).

Mimosa: Now you can also enjoy a very low calorie mimosa. Take 2 oz. of Minute Maid Light orange juice (12 calories) and 3 oz. of champagne (78 calories). And voila… a 90 calorie mimosa!

Wine: For all of you out there who have ever made fun of boxed wine (not me, no, NEVER) – I have some ironic news. The butt of all the jokes is having the last laugh. Franzia “Refreshing White” white wine (90 calories, 12.5% alcohol) is the lowest calorie you can get! Maybe they should market themselves as the diet wine and rebrand. SHHHH, don’t tell anyone, but it actually kinda tastes good, not to mention the obvious “low-cost” benefit. One thing to note is that this wine has about 12.5% alcohol, where the high alcohol content wines come in at about 14.0%.

Here is the run down of the averages of the different types of alcoholic drinks:

* 5 oz. – Red or White Wine: 120 calories
* 12 oz. – Beer: 150 calories
* 12 oz. – Coolers: 220 calories
* 12 oz. – Whiskey: 96 calories for 1.5 shots
* 12 oz. – Tequilla: 96 calories for 1.5 shots
Here are some specific alcohol “Beat It’s”:

* 12 oz. – Smirnoff Ice: 241 calories
* 12 oz. – Mike’s Hard Lemonade: 220 calories
* 12 oz. – Bartles & Jaymes: 190 calories

[From CNN.com]

Having a senior moment? A new study suggests that cutting calories may help.

Older adults who cut down on the amount of calories they consume get a two-for-one special: weight loss and better memory.

Healthy women ranging in age from 50 to 80 who reduced their calorie intake by 30 percent for three months not only lost weight, but their scores on verbal memory tests also shot up by 20 percent, according to a study conducted by Dr. Agnes Floel and her colleagues from the University of Munster in Germany, who published the results in the January issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“The results seem pretty dramatic,” said Mark P. Mattson, a senior investigator at the National Institute on Aging (NIA) in Bethesda, Maryland.

“Even though the number of subjects in the study was not really high, they had really high, statistically significant improvements in their performance on the memory test,” added Mattson, who studies caloric restriction and the brain in his role as chief of the Cellular and Molecular Neurosciences Section at the NIA’s Laboratory of Neurosciences. He was not involved in Floel’s investigation.

The study included 50 women, all of whom were either normal weight or slightly overweight. (The average body mass index was 28, which is about 175 pounds for a woman who is 5’6″.) Twenty were assigned to the calorie-cutting group, 20 upped their intake of unsaturated fatty acids (which some studies suggest may help aging brains), and the remaining 10 stuck with their normal diet.

Unlike the women who cut down on calories, the women who ate more unsaturated fatty acids showed no improvement in their memories, nor did those in the control group.

Why the improvement?

Find out by clicking here!

CNN’s Melina Jampolis offers 14 healthy ways to cut the calories and slim up – - without killing yourself in the process.

[From CNN Health]

Losing weight and getting healthy isn’t easy, but it’s often the little things that add up over time. Here are some things you may want to avoid and some you should include in your diet if your resolution is to lose weight and feel fine in 2009.

1. Sideline the salad dressing

A quarter-cup of dressing equals 25 to 30 grams of fat. If you eat three salads with dressing per week, that is the equivalent of a stick of butter per week (52 sticks of butter per year), which can not only increase your risk of heart disease and high cholesterol, it could lead to a 12-pound gain. Instead, keep dressing on the side, and dip your fork in it before every bite.

2. Say no to cheese and mayo

They may not seem that relevant, but if you have a tablespoon of mayo and a slice of cheese on your sandwich five days a week, you could gain almost 15 pounds a year! Go for mustard or even hummus to add flavor.

3. Limit sugar-filled juices, “waters” and sodas

Drinking just three 16-ounce drinks per week equals 52 extra cups of sugar (or 23 pounds of sugar) per year and could lead to an 11.5-pound gain.

4. Watch out for hidden sugars

You may think you are being healthy by eating breakfast cereal, fruit-flavored yogurt, smoothies and even spaghetti sauce, but you may be getting an extra 20 teaspoons of sugar each day with these types of food if you aren’t careful.

5. Cut down on fast food

Even “healthier” items like salads are loaded with salt and fat. And some moderate-calorie items like a breakfast biscuit sandwich have more than five times the suggested upper limit of trans fats, the absolute worst kind for your heart. In addition, 77 percent of the salt in our diet comes from processed and fast food, not the salt that we add to food.

So resolve to cut back on fast food and save yourself thousands of calories, artery-clogging grams of fat and blood pressure-raising milligrams of salt.

6. Mix fresh with frozen

Frozen meals are super-convenient but often loaded with salt and sometimes even deadly trans fats. So make sure to include fresh food (especially fruits and vegetables that are high in potassium) with frozen whenever possible so the potassium can balance out the damaging effects of the salt. And be sure to avoid trans fats as much as possible: Look on the ingredient list for the words “partially hydrogenated,” and if it is anywhere near the top of the list, skip that food.

7. Go slightly nuts

Nuts used to be on most dieters’ “no-no” list, but they are a great food to include if you are trying to lose weight and get healthy. They can help you lose weight, reduce cholesterol and reduce your risk of diabetes. Just make sure to keep portions under control. And nut butter is OK, too.

To find out what the other 7 steps are, click here!