Want to lose weight?

Here are 10 Easy-to-follow Rules if you want to lose weight:

Rule No. 1
Eat fruits and vegetables every few hours

If you have a piece of fruit or a serving of vegetables every 2 to 3 hours, you’ll maximize your body’s disease-fighting ability – and you may even lose a pound a week without noticing.

That’s because phytonutrients – the health-promoting, disease-preventing substances abundant in plant foods – need to be replenished in your system often to keep their potency high. Go for 4 servings of vegetables and 3 servings of fruit daily, but remember, more is better. How many more? 7 to 10 servings of produce a day to offer you the ultimate in disease protection and help you get the best nutrition bang for your caloric buck. (The servings a re small: 1 cup of romaine lettuce counts, as does half a grapefruit).

If you snack on produce three times a day instead of soda and chips, you can also expect to lose about 1 pound per week. A produce-packed diet also arms your body against heart disease, diabetes, and possibly some cancers, and may keep your bones strong by helping them retain calcium. Include at least one serving a day of “potent” produce, preferably in whole, not juice, form: red (tomatoes), deep green (broccoli), orange (carrots or squash), or citrus (grapefruit or oranges).

I’ll post Rule No. 2 tomorrow…