Properly prepared, green veggies add color appeal to your meals. Cooked just until tender-crisp, they add flavor appeal. Besides that, dark-green veggies supply plenty of nutrients—vitamin C, folate, and vitamin K, to name a few. Today we know they also supply two key carotenoids—lutein and zeaxanthin—which may promote eye health. And plant substances in greens may lower your risk for heart disease and some cancers, too.

Go green!

• Think beyond the iceberg! Vary your salad greens: use spinach, romaine, watercress, chicory, escarole.
• Serve on a bed of greens. Arrange grilled or roasted fish, chicken, or meat atop tender-crisp green beans or wilted spinach.
• Get leafy. Tuck chopped fresh spinach and other greens into sandwiches, pita, and wraps—and in lasagna, risotto, pasta dishes, and burritos.
• Nosh on green snacks: raw broccoli spears, asparagus spears, zucchini slices, or crisp snow peas.

Ripe avocados are slightly soft to pressure from your palm. Use them mashed as a spread, slivered and layered in sandwiches

Your charge: keeping your weight within a healthy range.

These five strategies all promote a healthy weight. Pick one. Then take action with small steps in solving your weight problems, starting today.

1. Move more. Build up to 60 minutes of moderate activity daily. Spend less leisure time sitting—watching TV, at the computer. You’ll find lots of ways in this book.
2. Eat more slowly. Pay attention to know if you’re really hungry and when you’re full.
3. Try smaller portions. Start with less. If you’re really hungry, you can go back for more.
4. Enjoy five to nine fruit and vegetable servings a day.Most are low in calories.
5. Drink more water. Consume fewer soft drinks.

To keep more vitamins in, improve one or more of your culinary skills today.

• Go under cover. Cook fruits and veggies in a covered pot so nutrients that dissolve in water (B vitamins and vitamin C) don’t disappear in steam.
• Keep the “a-peel.” The edible peel, outer leaves, and area just below the peel contain many vitamins and minerals.
• Skimp on water. Better yet, steam, microwave, or stir-fry fruits and veggies, so water-soluble vitamins don’t come in contact with water.
• Cook fast—just until tender-crisp. The shorter the cooking time, the less nutrients are loss. Besides, your veggies will look and taste better.
• Enjoy raw flavor. Heat destroys some B vitamins and vitamin C. So enjoy fruit and vegetables raw.

With spring around the corner, you’ll see promotions for bike-athons, walk-a-thons, and dance-a-thons; many are fund-raisers to support worthy causes. Join in! Do it with friends or with family.

• If you stay physically active, look for an event that challenges you.
• If you’ve been sitting through the winter, find a fun event that’s not too strenuous. Start moving now.
• If you’re a community volunteer, organize some kind of “move-athon,” even if it’s just for a small group of local citizens or organization members.

• Your muscle mass and strength. Adults lose about 7 to 8 pounds of muscle a decade.
• Your body’s fat. With age, body fat replaces muscle. It adds up especially around the midriff, where it’s riskier.
• Your rate of energy use. For basic work, your body uses about 2 percent less energy for every decade.
• Your bone density. Bone loss is part of aging.
• Your “numbers.” Cholesterol and blood sugar levels often go up with age, increasing, respectively, heart disease and diabetes risks.
• Your body’s thermostat. A sense of thirst diminishes.
• Your aerobic capacity. With age, the body doesn’t use oxygen as efficiently.

You can slow these physical changes—even reverse some:

• Stay physically active. Regular moderate activity helps keep muscles strong, pumps oxygen to muscles, burns energy faster, and promotes healthy weight and healthy “numbers.” If weightbearing, activity helps keep bones stronger.Move more today.
• Eat smarter. Enjoy more fruits, vegetables, and whole-grain products, fewer high-fat foods, enough calcium-rich foods, and enough calories for a healthy weight. Take one step toward smarter eating today.

Visualize a healthful meal by dividing your plate into four quarters. (To avoid overeating, picture an 8-inch, not a 10-inch, plate.)

• Fill three sections with vegetables, fruit, and rice, pasta, bread, or other grain products. (Make portions reasonable, not overflowing. Choose whole-grain foods as often as you can.)
• Fill one section with lean meat, poultry, fish, or beans. (A meat serving is the size of a deck of cards, or 3 ounces.)
• Add a glass of low-fat milk (or, if you’re a vegan, a calcium-fortified soy beverage).

Mood-triggered eating can turn into poor nutrition that leads to excess calories and unwanted weight gain. That may cycle to more negative feelings—perhaps guilt or poor self-esteem.

So stress won’t get the best of you, Here’s some tips on How To Stop Emotional Eating:

• Try positive self-talk. Forget what’s wrong; think of one or two things that feel right. If it helps, talk aloud.
• Work it off with exercise. Don your walking shoes and take a brisk walk. Turn on some music and relax muscle tension as you move to the beat.
• Give yourself permission for a “time-out.” Try a bubble bath, soft music, a relaxing book, or giving a hug to someone who needs it as much as you do.
• Get professional help if you need it!

Different nuts have different benefits: almonds for the most fiber, almonds and hazelnuts for the most vitamin E (an antioxidant), pecans for more cancer-fighting ellagic acid, Brazil nuts for more selenium (another antioxidant), cashews and pistachios for more potassium, walnuts for omega-3 fatty acids.Many nuts also have phytic acid, which may reduce cancer risk and help control blood sugar, cholesterol, and triglycerides.

Wonder about the fat? It’s mostly monounsaturated—the kind that doesn’t raise your blood cholesterol. And nuts are cholesterol-free, too.

Pick an easy nutritious culinary idea today.

• Use nuts as a condiment. Sprinkle on soup, salad, yogurt, chicken or fish, or cooked veggies.
• Switch nuts for different benefits. Try chopped hazelnuts in salads, walnuts in pesto, or pistachios on baked fish.
• Try this crumby idea: Mix finely chopped nuts in a bread crumb topping.
• Give a toast to nuts! Toast nuts in a dry skillet over medium heat for 3 to 5 minutes, shaking often, to intensify their flavor.

Before you slip products into your cart, use these consumer tactics to pick what’s right for you:

• Learn the language. Know that label terms like “more calcium” or “low-fat” mean what they say. The government regulates the definitions.
• Get specific. Use the labels’ Nutrition Facts to identify the calories and the nutrients in a serving, and perhaps to compare a few similar products.
• Stay shopping smart. If a product has “more” of something (perhaps vitamin D), do you really need the extra? If another has “less” of something else (perhaps fat), are you prudent in your whole approach to eating? As important, was the food or drink healthful to start with, even before it was “more” or “less” modified?