Healthy Food Habits Go Beyond Weight Loss

Healthy eating habits, no doubt, can help you lose weight. But they can also help you reduce high serum cholesterol and elevated blood pressure - both major risk factors for heart attack, according to the American Heart Association (AHA). Healthy eating habits will also help reduce your risk of stroke, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, some forms of cancer and a variety of other health problems.

To get you on the path to healthy eating, keep these AHA dietary guidelines in mind:

• Eat a variety of fruits and vegetables. Choose five or more servings per day.
• Eat a variety of grain products, including whole grains. Choose six or more servings per day.
• Include low-fat protein with every meal. This can be in the form of fat-free and low-fat products, fish, legumes (beans), skinless poultry and lean meats.
• Choose fats and oils with two grams or less saturated fat per tablespoon. Olive oil is a very good and healthy choice.
• Balance the number of calories you eat with the number you use each day. (To find that number, multiply the number of pounds you weigh by 15 calories. This represents the average number of calories used in one day if you're moderately active. If you get very little exercise, multiply your weight by 13 since less-active people burn fewer calories.)
• Maintain a level of physical activity that keeps you fit and matches the number of calories you eat. Walk or do other activities for at least 30 minutes on most days. To lose weight, do enough activity to use up more calories than you eat every day.
• Limit your intake of foods high in calories or low in nutrition, including foods like soft drinks and candy that have a lot of sugar.
• Limit foods high in saturated fat, trans fat and/or cholesterol, such as full-fat milk products, fatty meats, tropical oils and partially hydrogenated vegetable oils. Eat less than six grams of salt per day (2,400 milligrams of sodium).
• Never crash diet. Instead, AHA nutrition experts recommend adopting healthful eating habits permanently, rather than pursuing crash diets in hopes of losing unwanted pounds in a few days.