Maintaining a Healthy Weight With Vegetables and Fruit

Vegetables and fruit are important to a balanced diet. They provide vitamins, minerals, fibre and other substances important for health.

A diet rich in vegetables and fruit may reduce the risk of some cancers, heart and stroke, diabetes and other chronic diseases. Eating more of these wonder foods along with whole grains, lower fat dairy products and lean meats, beans and nuts is a safe and healthy way to lose or maintain weight.

Adding more vegetables and fruit to your favourite dishes adds taste and volume while replacing some of the higher calorie ingredients. That way, you can eat the same amount of food with fewer calories. Most fruits and veggies are naturally low in fat, cholesterol and calories while high in water and fibre so they help fill you up.

Watch your portions!

Adding vegetables and fruit will decrease the calories per serving in a meal, but you still need to watch the portion size. Eating more calories than you burn off will lead to weight gain even if the extra calories come from vegetables and fruit.

Don’t eat more; just eat better!

Use a normal size plate or a smaller luncheon plate to keep portion sizes small. Make sure that vegetables, fruits and whole grains make up at least three-quarters of the plate. Replace some of the meat, cheese, white rice or pasta with legumes, broccoli, asparagus, greens, carrots, beans or other favourite veggies.

Or try some of these ideas:

Breakfast

• Replace one of the eggs or cheese in your morning omelet with a variety of vegetables like spinach, broccoli, onions, mushrooms or peppers. Add fresh herbs for more flavour.
  
• Spice up your scrambled eggs with salsa.
  
• Add cut up fruit such as bananas, peaches, strawberries or blueberries to your cereal.
  
• Add grated carrot, zucchini or fruit such as blueberries or apples to pancake and waffle batter.

Lunch

• Replace part of the meat or cheese in your sandwich, wrap or burrito with a variety of vegetables such as lettuce, cucumbers, onions, tomatoes, zucchini slices or sprouts.
  
• Add a cup of chopped vegetables (broccoli, carrots, beans, pea pods or peppers) to your soup to replace some of the meat, noodles or rice.
  
• Replace half your sandwich with a cup of broth based vegetable soup. Add a piece of fruit and you have a hearty, low calorie lunch.

Dinner

• Start with a broth based vegetable soup. It will fill you up at the start of your meal so you’re satisfied with smaller servings of the higher calorie foods.
  
• Add a cup of chopped vegetables like broccoli, tomatoes, greens, squash, onions or peppers to your favorite casserole to replace one cup of the rice, pasta, meat or cheese.
  
• If you need something sweet to end your meal try fruit – alone or with some low fat yogurt. Try sliced bananas, peaches, plums, apricots, grapes or berries. Sprinkle with seasonings like cinnamon, ginger, cardamom or nutmeg for a sweet touch with few extra calories.
  

Snacks

• One or two small snacks are part of a healthy diet. Eating a small snack between meals may keep you satisfied throughout the day. Choosing vegetables and fruit will allow you to have a satisfying snack for about 100 calories or less.
  

Vegetable and fruit snacks that are about 100 calories :

* You can add 2 tablespoons of hummus, baba ghanouj (eggplant dip) or bean dip (about 46 calories) and still have less than 100 calories for your snack.

Replace your high calorie snacks from the vending machine with lower calorie snacks like vegetables and fruit.

Choose low calorie fruits for dessert in place of high fat, high calorie baked goods.

Make it a habit to have a green salad with low calorie dressing with your meals. It will fill you up so you eat less of the higher calorie foods.

Links:

Eating Well With Canada's Food Guide

Translated Versions of Canada's Food Guide

Dietitian Services @ Healthlink BC