4 Good-Health Guidelines

1. Fruit and Vegetable Consumption

If you make just one change in your diet, you should add produce to every meal you eat. Fruits and veggies lower heart disease by pumping your body full of soluble and insoluble fibre, flooding your bloodstream and cells with artery-protecting antioxidants, and delivering vitamins and minerals that help control blood pressure and keep arteries flexible.

Ask yourself: Did I have nine produce servings today?

Your goal: Four fruit and five vegetable servings

Tracking trick for women: Wear nine bangle bracelets on the same arm. Each time you have a fruit or veggie, move a bracelet to the other arm.

Tracking trick for men: Keep nine paper clips in your pants pocket. Move one to another pocket for each serving of produce you consume.

Extra credit: Aim to put a riot of colour on your plate every day—green broccoli, purple grapes, yellow squash, red tomatoes and orange peaches, for example.

How to catch up: If you’ve had breakfast and lunch with little or no produce, make up lost ground with a fruit snack in the afternoon, a big salad for dinner, and another fruit snack in the evening.

2. Fibre Consumption

Fibre at every meal keeps blood sugar from spiking. This controls cravings, helps you feel full and stay full longer, and lowers your diabetes and heart-disease risk. But the benefits don’t stop there: Getting soluble fibre (from oatmeal, barley or a supplement) slashes cholesterol levels. High-fibre foods are also less processed, so you get a whole package of naturally balanced, heart-pampering nutrients at the same time. Whole grains also provide vitamin E and other antioxidants. High-fibre nuts give you good fats—monounsaturated fat to preserve "good" HDL cholesterol and, if you choose walnuts, omega-3s to keep your heart beating at a steady rhythm.

Ask yourself: Did I have three whole grains plus some nuts and/or beans today?

Your goal: Two to four servings of whole grains and one or two servings of nuts and/or beans

Tracking trick: Think 3-2-1. That’s three whole grains, two fibre supplements, and one serving of nuts.

Extra credit: Make at least one of your fibre-rich grains a soluble-fibre powerhouse such as oatmeal or barley; take one or two soluble-fibre supplements daily.

How to catch up: Had a low-fibre breakfast and lunch? Snack on nuts this afternoon and have beans in your main dish at dinner—in chili, a burrito, or as a quick salad topper—with a slice of whole wheat bread.