Summer: Ideal for Fixing Your Diet

If you are concerned about your health, or maybe you are a little (or a lot) overweight, summer is an ideal time to improve you diet and re-educate your stomach, tastebuds and mind to appreciate a more natural and low fat diet and maybe smaller quantities of food if weight is your problem.

Fruit and Vegetables
You probably know that ideally you should eat around five portions of fruit and vegetables a day - a portion is usually set at around 3 to 4 ozs. Look around you at the huge selection of delicious fruit available during the summer - strawberries, raspberries (my favourite), melons, mangos, pineapples, etc, etc. Eat them fresh and uncooked and they will not only do you good but they are refreshing and thirst quenching too.

Salads
Get out your favourite cookbooks, or look online, for fabulous salads made with all the in-season fruit and vegetables readily available. Just remember that salad dressings pile on the calories so look for low calorie alternatives. Either make them yourself or buy them in your local supermarket. In the unlikely event they don't stock them, make a fuss and ask the manager why not.

Barbecues
We all have barbecues during fine weather but look at low fat, low calorie alternatives. Chicken is one but make sure it is properly cooked - you can always cheat and cook it in your kitchen, just finish it off on the barbecue. Did you know that venison (deer meat) is even lower in fat than chicken? It is an excellent meat if you are trying to cut down on fat in your diet. If you can't buy it in your local stores, there are many specialist providers selling on the internet who will ship it to you next day in chilled containers.

Don't forget to include some barbecued vegetables like sweet peppers, eggplants (aubergine) and onions - you must take every opportunity to eat your daily allowance of fruit and vegetables!

Breakfast
Summer is an ideal time to get into the habit of eating a healthy breakfast. OK, you might be one of those people who pride themselves on never eating breakfast but did you know it is the most important meal of the day? It gives you the energy to work through till lunchtime and it is the one least likely to be stored as fat. If you skip breakfast, you will probably get hungry mid morning and then eat something unhealthy - laden with fat and sugar, for example.

Muesli is an excellent breakfast. Don't be put off by the store bought cereal. That often contains a lot of sugar and rather hard unappetising dried fruit. Why not make your own? It is much nicer and healthier too. An added bonus is that you can make enough for several days in just a few minutes. Here's my recipe:

Recipe for Home Made Muesli
Pour raw oats into a bowl (judge for yourself how much you want to use), then stir in dried fruit like currants, sultanas and raisins. Next add any seeds you like, eg sesame, pumpkin, then chopped, unsalted nuts - any will do. With kitchen scissors or a knife, cut up ready to eat dried fruit like apricots, mangos, prunes, figs and add them to the mixture. Finally, if you like it, add some cinnamon or other spice. Stir the whole mixture again. I do it with my hands to make sure everything is well and truly mixed. Store in a screwtop airtight jar. Just add lowfat milk and a low calorie sweetener, if needed, when you serve. You can also add chopped fresh fruit to the bowl before you eat it.

When I first made this, it was more oats than fruit because I had the store bought muesli as my model. Now I put in a much higher proportion of fruit meaning that I start my day with a good portion of fruit. Not only that, oats are recommended to combat cholesterol in the blood.

If you get into the habit of eating healthily during the summer when it is easier, you will find that within a short time you are enjoying your new diet and want to continue this way of eating permanently bringing benefits for your overall health and maybe some weight loss too, if you need it.

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Copyright © 2003 Carol Fisher. All Rights Reserved.