How to Lose Weight by Eating Colorful Foods By William Winch At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

Most people don't realize it, but the color of the food (colorful foods) you eat can make the difference between success and failure regarding weight loss and overall heath. The high-calorie, high-fat American diet today consists of bland colored foods that are not healthy for your body. If you can look at your plate in front of you and not see colorful foods, chances are good that you are not eating well enough to lose weight and keep it off for good.

How do you go about getting colorful foods on your plate? The key to designing this type of meal is to load up on a varied selection of fruits and vegetables broken down into seven different color groups. It's too bad that the Skittles candy corporation is well known for their slogan "Taste the rainbow of flavors," rather than the natural colorful foods that people should be associating color with.

Colorful foods come from the earth. When you first switch the usual American diet to a diet rich with color, you will lose weight since fruits and vegetables carry fewer calories per bite than breads, cakes and pastries made from refined flour. The color of food is important because the different plant chemicals they represent have different effects on the body. Aside from helping you lose weight, you will also become healthier.

Here is a simple breakdown of the 6 colors you should be adding to your plate, and what each has to offer.

Red / Purple:

Includes grapes, red wine, prunes, cranberries, blueberries, blackberries strawberries and red apples. These foods contain powerful antioxidants that reduces the risk of heart disease by inhibiting blood clot formation.

Orange:

Includes carrots, mangos, apricots, cantaloupes, pumpkin, squash and sweet potatoes. These provide alpha and beta carotenes.

Orange / Yellow:

Includes orange juice, oranges and tangerines, peaches, papayas and nectarines. These provide B-cryptothanxin.

Yellow / Green:

Includes spinach, turnip greens, corn, peas, avocado and honeydew melon. These foods contribute to eye health.

Green:

Includes broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage and kale. These foods stimulate the genes in your liver to turn on the production of enzymes that break down the cancer-causing chemicals in the body.

White / Green:

Includes garlic, onions, celery, pears, and white wine. These foods have been shown to have anti-tumor effects.

With all the benefits that come with a colorful foods diet, why is it that so many people opt for the unhealthy colorless foods like french fries and cookies? The answer is simple. We are just conditioned to eat that way. Our selection of foods today is determined by taste, cost and convenience rather than by the careful selection process that helped humans evolved over millions of years. People used to grab a handful of healthy red grapes to get something sweet. Now they grab a fatty donut.

Most vegetables and protein foods contain fat, and all vegetables and fruit contain some sugar, a little protein, and a little fat. Eliminating all fats or sugars from your diet is impossible, but you can control those foods you choose. You can make desirable choices that will help protect your DNA by avoiding obesity and over-nutrition and taking in adequate amounts of colorful foods with phyto-chemicals in fruits and vegetables.

The final ingredient for healthy weight loss that must be consumed is protein. Each pound of lean body mass you have requires one gram of protein per day. In the absence of adequate protein intake, you will lose protein from your muscles. You can get all the protein you need, without the fat, by consuming soy-protein shakes once or twice a day, depending on how much weight you need to lose.

In order to lose weight and keep it off for good, you must be willing to change your eating habits and lead a healthy lifestyle. Otherwise your weight and health will continue to fluctuate until you end up with more health problems than you can imagine. Follow the colorful foods code above and slowly weave it into your diet instead of always choosing bad foods. You'll soon find that your weight problems will be a thing of the past and you can begin to enjoy life again.

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