American Heart Association Dietary Guidelines

The American Heart Association Eating Plan for Healthy Americans is based on these new dietary guidelines, released in October 2000: *

• Eat a variety of fruits and vegetables. Choose 5 or more servings per day.
• Eat a variety of grain products, including whole grains.
• Choose 6 or more servings per day.
• Include fat-free and low-fat milk products, fish, legumes (beans), skinless poultry and lean meats.
• Choose fats with 2 grams or less saturated fat per serving, such as liquid and tub margarines, canola oil and olive oil.
• Balance the number of calories you eat with the number you use each day. (To find that number, multiply the number of pounds you weigh now by 15 calories. This represents the average number of calories used in one day if you're moderately active. If you get very little exercise, multiply your weight by 13 instead of 15. Less-active people burn fewer calories.)
• Maintain a level of physical activity that keeps you fit and matches the number of calories you eat. Walk or do other activities for at least 30 minutes on most days. To lose weight, do enough activity to use up more calories than you eat every day.
• Limit your intake of foods high in calories or low in nutrition, including foods like soft drinks and candy that have a lot of sugars.
• Limit foods high in saturated fat, trans fat and/or cholesterol, such as full-fat milk products, fatty meats, tropical oils, partially hydrogenated vegetable oils and egg yolks. Instead choose foods low in saturated fat, trans fat and cholesterol from the first four points above.
  
• Eat less than 6 grams of salt (sodium chloride) per day (2,400 milligrams of sodium).
• Have no more than one alcoholic drink per day if you're a woman and no more than two if you're a man. "One drink" means it has no more than 1/2 ounce of pure alcohol. Examples of one drink are 12 oz. of beer, 4oz. of wine, 1-1/2 oz. of 80-proof spirits or 1 oz. of 100-proof spirits.
  

Following this eating plan will help you achieve and maintain a healthy eating pattern. The benefits of that include a healthy body weight, a desirable blood cholesterol level and a normal blood pressure. Every meal doesn't have to meet all the guidelines. It's important to apply the guidelines to your overall eating pattern over at least several days. These guidelines may do more than improve your heart health. They may reduce your risk for other chronic health problems, including type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis (bone loss) and some forms of cancer.

Myth: If you eat after 6PM or 7:PM, you will gain weight.

Fact: You can only gain 1 pound of fat by eating 3500 extra calories. If your total excess calories in a given period of time doesn't exceed 3500, how can food consumed in the evening be "chosen" to put fat on your body. But, beware of all snacking, especially "after hours" = additional calories above and beyond your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) and your calories used during physical activities.