If you want to improve your health and your waist line, the first place you should start is what you keep in you’re fridge. People’s current eating habits have never been worse. You could work out for 2 hours at the gym each day, but if you continue to eat French fries and frozen pizza’s for dinner, you’re never going to get the body you want. The following article is intending to give you tips on what to buy when you go to the grocery store.

First of all, you should never attempt to go hungry on an empty stomach. This is just silly, because all you are doing is torturing yourself. If you go to the store while starving, you are much more likely to buy fattening processed foods that you could imagine cooking up as soon as you get home. So going after a meal, or at least have a whole grain muffin first.

Before you go to the store, you should also make a list of what you are planning to buy, that way you won’t get side tracked and start wandering down the chip aisle. As for the foods you want to include on your list, there should be a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables along with low fat meats. Separate your list into the foods groups so you won’t be running all over the store, again, chancing bumping into the chip aisle. Your list might look something like this.

Meats
Extra lean ground beef
Chicken breasts
Ground turkey
Salmon
Shrimp
Back bacon
Filet mignon/or other high quality low fat steak
(meats to avoid would include full fat ground beef, real bacon, chicken wings or legs, fish sticks, anything deep fried, sausages and hot dogs. All of these meats contain a lot of fat and are very bad for your heart.)

Dairy
Eggs
Egg whites
Low fat milk (skim, 1% or 2%)
Cheese
Butter
Margarine (olive oil varieties are good)
Yogurt
Cottage cheese
Low fat cream cheese
(you should avoid creams and homo milk unless you are using it in small quantities for coffee. Real butter and cheese is ok, as long as you aren’t eating it in large amounts. Also avoid unhealthy margarines that contain a lot of hydranataed oils.)
Fruits and Vegetables
This is a category where you can pretty much chose anything you want, since all fruits and vegetables are healthy. You should, however avoid canned fruits that are packed with sugar. Fruits and vegetables that are brightly colored contain more healthy properties. Berries are especially good for the skin, heart and cancer fighting agents. Be sure to include canned tomatoes and tomato sauce which has been shown to be more healthy than fresh tomatoes-although these are still good)

Grains and legumes
Whole grain pasta
Brown rice
Jasmine rice
Basmati rice
Whole wheat or whole grain breads
Beans (caned or dried)
Bran cereals
Oatmeal
Barley and other such things, like musili
(Despite popular opinion in the past few years concerning carbohydrates, these types of carbs are very healthy and will encourage weight loss as long as they are eaten within moderation. You do, however, want to avoid white breads, white rice, white pasta and pastries.)

If you follow the basic guide lines of this list and watch your portion control, you should soon find that your waist line and your blood pressure has decreased.

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