Boost your nutrition with quick and easy diet tips

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Through the years, I often have offered advice on how to improve your diet. Here are my latest additions to the list of quick and easy things you can do:

n Don't drink your calories.

n Get three servings of fruit.

This first piece of advice comes from the Nutrition Action Health Letter, www.cspinet.org, published by the Center for Science in the Public Interest. The advice: "Don't drink your calories (from any beverage, including fruit juice) if you are watching your weight."

The reason: We tend to view beverages as freebies when it comes to calories. Wrong!

Culprits include obviously bad drinks, such as soft drinks, and seemingly good drinks, such as fruit juices.

Soft drinks are easy to demonize. Folks quickly understand that consuming a soft drink that contains 10 teaspoons of sugar and zero nutrients is not a good idea.

The downside of fruit juices is the highly concentrated dose of sugar and calories, without most of the valuable fiber that contained in the raw whole fruit. A cup - 8 ounces - of orange juice has about as many calories as a similar volume of a soft drink - 100.

Another culprit is wine. Red wine has won favor as a rich source of valuable antioxidants, and is the drink of choice for many at dinner. No problem, as long as you take into account the number of calories contained in a glass of red wine and include those calories in your overall daily caloric budget. Most popular red wines contain about 100 calories per 4-ounce glass.

Another problem with drinking your calories is that the liquid goes down easily, and overconsumption is common.

One 4-ounce glass of wine, for instance, doesn't seem like much, and two at dinner may seem reasonable. But that's 200 calories on top of what you have eaten.

Similarly, a 16-ounce glass of juice with breakfast adds 200 calories. Drinking this amount, which certainly is not excessive, is equal to the calories burned in a 2-mile brisk walk for a larger male, and 2.5 miles for a smaller female.

Diet soft drinks cut the calories and are a better choice in this regard. Some scientific evidence, however, suggests that diet drinks may interfere with the body's ability to regulate blood-sugar levels. There also is the potential to promote overeating.

Of all the possible choices for beverages, water may be the best. It contains no calories, and it helps guard against dehydration.

Three servings of fruit

I have made an effort to increase the amount of fruit in my diet, and it has helped me manage my weight, an increasingly difficult battle as we age.

On average, I try to either eat a grapefruit or orange, at least one apple, and a banana daily. Sounds like a lot, but I have simplified the consumption process.

Here is one strategy I employ. I'll eat the orange or grapefruit for breakfast with some soy cheese on whole-grain (high-fiber) crackers. This is a quick, easy and highly nutritious breakfast.

Later in the day, I concoct a blend, typically for lunch. If you are at home, everything you need will be right there, or you can make up a blend in the morning and take it with you to work in a thermos bottle.

My blends contain one or two apples (depending on size), a banana, a heaping scoop of soy protein powder and soy milk. (You can substitute whey protein powder and skim milk if you prefer.) The chocolate-flavored protein powder nicely flavors the drink, mimicking a chocolate milkshake. I can whip this up in no time and sip it while I'm working at my desk.

The nutritional content of this blend is impressive. The banana and apple provide about 190 calories and one-third of the daily fiber you need. The protein powder provides about 25 to 30 grams of protein. The soy or skim milk adds another 5 to 10 grams of protein. This would supply about half the protein you require for the day. The soy or skim milk also provides a generous dose of calcium.

The blend is quite filling with a modest caloric content and easily will get you through to dinner without the need for snacking.

The bottom line

Today's suggestions make for an easy and healthy breakfast and lunch you can plug into your daily life at least a few days a week. On those days, even if your dinner selections are horrible, two out of three of your meals would be healthy, thus substantially improving your overall diet.

Give it a try. Your body will thank you.