Fruits and vegetables are packed with vitamins, minerals andy phytochemicals that are essential for your body to function optimally. The fiber is also needed to keep your digestive system healthy. Not only this, but plant foods provide an alkaline load to your blood, which balances out the acid load contributed by protein and grains. Maintaining an acid/ alkaline balance is so important, because an acidic state will contribute to bone and muscle loss.
The standard American diet (SAD for short, with good reason!) is loaded with acidic foods. Not only protein and grains, but sugar, processed foods, fried foods, and alcohol also contribute to an acid load in your blood. If you don’t balance your acidic foods with alkaline foods, your body will figure out how to create a balance on it’s own, and this means leaching calcium from your bones and teeth. If Americans ate a more balanced diet, I’d be willing to bet we’d see far fewer cases of Osteoporosis!
In order to maintain a balanced diet, you need to be getting 1-3 servings of fruit and/ or vegetables with every meal (the ultimate goal is 8-10 servings per day!). Keep in mind that fruit has more sugar, and if you have weight loss goals, you should keep your fruit servings to 2 or less per day, and the rest of your servings should come from vegetables.
What does a serving look like? The size of your balled up fist. More specifically, it would be 1/2 cup of chopped fresh veggies or fruit, and 1 cup of raw, leafy greens. But let’s keep things simple, and if the fruit or veggie portion you have looks approximately the same size as your fist, then it’s a single serving.
I know you’re probably thinking, “Crap, Shannon, how am I supposed to do that?! I’m still learning how to get protein in at every meal!” It doesn’t have to be complicated. An example day could look like this:
- Greek yogurt with a handful of berries (1 fist) on top.
- Salad greens (3 fists) with chopped tomato, cucumber and bell pepper (1 fist combined), and chicken strips.
- An apple (1 fist) with peanut butter.
- Fish with green beans (1 fist) and cauliflower (1 fist).
That’s 8 servings right there, and no more than 2 of fruit.
However, the fruits and veggies that count towards this goal are only the fibrous, non-starchy ones. This means that bananas and plantains, corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes and yams do not count (we’ll cover that stuff in an upcoming week). Everything else is fair game!
Fresh fruits and veggies are best, so go with those when possible. The next best option are frozen ones, and last on the list are canned.
Summary for week 4
1- Meal planning and prep
2- Eat slowly and stop at 80% full
3- 1-2 servings of protein per meal
4- 1-3 servings of fruit and/ or veggies per meal