Hi, I'm Brenda Thompson, registered dietitian and owner of Life Skills Nutrition. In this segment I'm going to talk about nutrient dense foods that are great for weight loss. As we talk about often times, the food guide pyramid provides a variety of foods that provide the nutrients that we need for development, growth, and maintenance. Our metabolism requires tons and tons of vitamins and minerals associated with weight loss, as well as nutrients such as proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. So here I'm going to show you foods from the food guide pyramid starting with the vegetables. It is important when you select vegetables that you get a variety of color. The color in these vegetables provide antioxidants which help fight against disease, help keep your skin beautiful, keep your eye retention, and things like that. Next is grains, and you definitely want to eat half of your grains whole. The food guide pyramid recommends three ounces, or half of your grains to be whole. These carbohydrates provide fiber, B vitamins, iron, magnesium, and selenium. Next on the list is meat and beans. You want to select lean meat, poultry, fish, and then dry beans, peas, eggs, nuts, and seeds. These provide the body with protein, B vitamins, iron, zinc, and magnesium. Next on the list is milk and other low fat dairy products. With dairy products you always want to choose low fat, one percent, or nonfat. And when I say low fat I don't mean 2 percent, I mean one percent. And then here with oils, you want to try to keep your oils to olive or canola oil. Also, you receive some fat from fish, and nuts, and olives, which are definitely healthy fats. You want to try to always eliminate partially hydrogenated vegetable oils because they can be just as dangerous as saturated fats. Saturated fats also need to be decreased, and saturated fats are mostly found in butter, shortening, lard, and other animal products. In fruits it's the same thing vegetables, you want to try to select a variety of different colors so that you can get the antioxidants and the different phytochemicals that they provide. Some of the nutrients that fruit provide are fiber, folate, vitamin A, vitamin C, potassium, and like I said before, many antioxidants and phytochemicals. Selecting these nutrient dense foods will help you lose weight and keep your body nurtured with the vitamins and minerals that you need for successful weight loss.
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