Nutrition Guide easiest way

We are constantly being told that the nation is becoming obese and that our life expectancy is being lowered due to our poor diet and lack of exercise.
So what can we do to change this?
The easiest way of increasing our life span is by eating the correct foods.
The following food guide will show you how to separate the good from the bad....
The majority of foods can be split into 5 categories

• Proteins
• Vegetables
• Fats
• Carbohydrates
• Fats to Avoid

Generally, you should include protein, vegtables and fats into every meal however; this is not always possible as I doubt you will want to be eating vegetables for breakfast.
Below is a list of foods that fall into the 5 categories:

Proteins	Vegetables	Fats	Carbohydrates	Fats to Avoid
Chicken breast	Broccoli	Avocado	Baked potato	Butter
Turkey breast	Asparagus	Sunflower seeds	Sweet potato	Fried foods
Lean ground turkey	Lettuce	Pumpkin seeds	Yams	Mayonnaise
Swordfish	Carrots	Cold-water fish	Squash	Sweets
Haddock	Cauliflower	Natural peanut butter	Pumpkin	Whole-fat dairy products
Salmon	Green beans	Low-fat cheese	Steamed brown rice
Tuna	Green peppers	Low-fat salad dressing	Steamed wild rice
Crab	Mushrooms	Low-sodium nuts	Pasta
Lobster	Spinach	Olives and olive oil	Oatmeal
Shrimp	Tomato	Safflower oil	Barley
Top round steak	Peas	Canola oil	Beans
Top sirloin steak	Brussels sprouts	Sunflower oil	Kidney beans
Lean ground beef	Artichoke	Flax seed oil	Corn
Lean ham	Cabbage		Strawberries
Egg whites or substitutes	Celery		Melon
Trout	Zucchini		Apple
Low-fat cottage cheese	Cucumber		Orange
Wild-game meat	Onion		Whole-wheat bread
			High-fiber cereal
			Whole-wheat Tortilla
			Whole grains

The following tips will also help you with your daily diet:

Don't fear fatty foods.

You need to consume fat from foods for your body to function correctly. However, it's important to choose the right kinds of fat: Most animal fats and some vegetable oils are high in calories and are high in the kind of fats that raise your LDL cholesterol levels; the bad cholesterol. Contrary to popular belief, eating cholesterol doesn't necessarily raise the amount of cholesterol in your body. If you give your body the right tools, it will flush excess cholesterol from your body. Those tools are monounsaturated fatty acids, which you should try to consume regularly. These are the good fats, and they help lower the bad cholesterol in your body by raising the good cholesterol. Foods that are high in monounsaturated fatty acids are olive oil, nuts, fish oil, and various seed oils. Adding these "good" fats to your weekly diet can lower your cholesterol and reduce your risk of heart disease. Consider sautéing vegetables in small amounts of olive oil, and grabbing a hand full of mixed nuts for a snack instead of a candy bar. There are also various supplements that contain these good fats that you can take daily.

Carbohydrates are important.

You need to eat foods high in carbs since they are your body's main source of energy. The trick is to choose the right carbs. Simple carbs like sugar and processed flour are quickly absorbed by the body's digestive system. This causes a kind of carb overload, and your body releases huge amounts of insulin to combat the overload. Not only is the excess insulin bad on your heart, but it encourages weight gain. Insulin is the main hormone in your body responsible for fat storage. Eat plenty of carbs, but eat carbs that are slowly digested by the body like whole grain flour, hearty vegetables, oats, and unprocessed grains like brown rice. These kinds of food not only contain complex carbs that are slowly digested by the body, but are usually higher in vitamins and other nutrients that are beneficial to the body and they are higher in fibre which keeps your digestive system running smoothly.

Don't skip breakfast!

Many people do because they don't feel they need to eat breakfast, or they just don't feel hungry first thing in the morning. Research shows that people who skip breakfast are usually fatter than those who eat a well balanced breakfast. Although you might not feel hungry first thing in the morning, if you skip breakfast you will feel extra hungry come lunch time, making you more prone to overeating for your afternoon meal. In addition, skipping breakfast makes your body think that you are starving. After all, by lunch time, you may not have eaten in almost eighteen hours. For the rest of the day after you skip breakfast, your body will store up most of the energy you get from food, instead of allowing you to burn it, in anticipation of food scarcity. Not only will this cause you to be tired during the day when your body isn't using the food that you ate, but the extra energy stored up will result in weight gain.

Make eating fun.

Avoiding simple carbs and fatty foods doesn't need to be boring. Have fun not only with the food, but with the meal. Eating with family and friends makes the meal more satisfying than eating in front of the TV or in the car on the way home from work. You will also eat slower when enjoying your meal which gives your body time to feel full before you burst a button. There are more creative cooking resources available to us than ever before. You can find great tasting recipes in magazines, books, and right here on the Internet. Eating baked fish three or four times a week can get boring, so do a little recipe hunting to find more exciting ways to prepare your meals.

Buy non-fat or reduced fat foods.

This is done not to avoid getting fat, because eating fat will not make you fat. And it's not about eating less Calories. It's about control. Control over what kinds of fats you put in your body. For instance, olive oil has many health benefits, so buy non-fat or reduced fat salad dressing and add a table spoon of olive oil to the jar. You'll have a salad dressing that tastes great, and is also better for your health. So buy the non-fat foods so you can replace the missing fat with "good" fats. Remember, you do need to eat a moderate amount of fat each day.

Give yourself a cheat day.

Cheating doesn't mean pigging all day on all the wrong foods once a week, it means enjoying a food you really love once a week. Have a couple slices of greasy pizza on Sundays, or a big slice of double chocolate cake on Saturdays. This cheat day will help you stick to the change in diet, and in some ways it's actually good for your body. Special occasions, such as birthdays in the family, count as cheat days.

Avoid excess amounts of alcohol.

You know that heavy drinking is bad for your body, but it's also bad for your will power. A heavy night of drinking could send you to the fridge pigging out on all the wrong foods. However, many studies show that a beer or glass of wine a day is actually good for the body. Wine contains anti-oxidants which help fight illness and that moderate amount of alcohol can help you relax. Excess caffeine can also be bad for the body since caffeine stimulates your body into producing insulin in the same way that carbs do.