The Doctors’ Tips for Healthier Eating

Boost your calcium, fiber and protein intake and eat more mindfully.

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Strengthen Your Bones & Metabolism: Increase Your Calcium
You know calcium is good for your bones, but now there’s more research linking calcium specifically to weight loss. Taking 1,000 milligrams a day of calcium can help reduce fat intake and speed fat metabolism. That’s a double whammy when it comes to weight loss.

Calcium is absorbed well in the form of milk (called whey). It’s less efficiently absorbed through the solid part, the curd. You can get your calcium fix with the usual suspects, low-fat dairy products and supplements.

Keep in mind the stealth sources too: spinach, sardines, sesame seeds, beans and oranges.

MORE: Recipes for Stronger Bones

Filling Foods: Choose Fiber & Protein
Ironically enough, when you’re really hungry, you’re more likely to grab candy, chips and fat-laden pork products. The more you gorge on these things, obviously the greater your chance your body shape will change, for the worse.

As a healthy eater, you can eat foods that fill you nutritionally without those roller-coaster spikes of blood sugar and other chemicals that lead you to feed, uncontrollably. Like it or not, vegetables score pretty high on the scale of satisfying foods. So if you’re still holding something against brussels sprouts from your childhood, try them again.

We’ve talked about fiber before, and that’s because it keeps you feeling satisfied. You’ll want to include about 25 grams per day in your diet (35 grams for males). Aside from controlling blood sugar and decreasing insulin levels, fiber also reduces calorie intake up to 18 hours a day.

Start with one to two grams of dietary fiber before meals and at bedtime, and slowly increase to five grams. Note: Don’t add it all at once, or else you’ll fill up like a balloon. The supplement konjac root seems to have a fiber-related effect.

Protein-rich foods are also very filling. Why? Protein lets your hypothalamus know that you’re satisfied.

MORE: Are You Eating for Beauty?