You have decided to lose weight. Great! The secret to losing weight is eating right and an exercise routine that includes strength training. That is the easy part. There are many things you can do to get your daily exercise in. You can go running, play sports, do exercise DVDs in the home, or go to the gym. The thing that will make or break your weight loss goals is your diet. Many people exercise everyday but they don’t watch what they eat and therefore, they don’t see the results they want. One easy thing you can do while shopping for food is to follow nutritional guidelines set by the American Heart Association.

The American Heart Association along with five other health organizations recommends that we do seven things to help us get the nutrients we need. They say we should: eat a lot of different foods, eat foods mainly from plant sources, have at least five servings of fruits and vegetables a day along with at least six servings of whole grain foods, eat low-fat and low-cholesterol foods, and most importantly limit the amount of high-fat and sugary foods from our diet. Following these guidelines will help to create meals that have the right amounts of nutrients we need to keep our bodies going.

Now you are at the grocery store trying to find foods that meet these guidelines. The easiest way to find them is to read the nutritional label. The government has said that all packaged foods must have a nutrition facts label on the package. There are five main things you want to look at on the nutrition label.

Serving size. All of the other things on the label are based on this number. If the package has more than one serving, the number of calories, fat, carbohydrates, etc is based on one serving. So, if you eat double the serving size, you must double the calories, fat, carbohydrates, etc. The serving size also tells you how many total servings are in the package. One thing to be aware of, a serving size in the package may not be correct portions, so you may have adjust accordingly.

Calories. Calories are energy, but if you eat more calories than you burn it turns to fat. The calories come from fat, protein, or carbohydrates. Another number next to the calories is the calories from fat. This number shows the amount of fat calories per serving. Experts say that 40 calories is low, 100 calories is in the middle, and 400+ calories is high. Looking at calories can help you manage your weight.

Total Fat. This is measured in grams per serving. Total fat is then broken down into the various fats in the food: saturated fat, Trans fat, polyunsaturated fat, and monounsaturated fat. Experts recommend that we limit our amount of saturated and Trans fats. These are the bad fats.

Carbohydrates. Most foods contain carbohydrates. The body breaks these down into simple sugars to give us energy. There are two types of carbohydrates: simple and complex. Simple carbohydrates are mostly the bad carbohydrates. They are the refined sugars. We need simple sugars; however, we should get these from foods like fruit and milk. These foods have important vitamins in them that we can’t get from sugary candies. Complex carbohydrates are the starches. These are our grains. As with simple carbohydrates there are bad ones. The good ones include the whole grains, which help you stay full longer. On the nutrition label, it is broken down into sugar and dietary fiber.

We can gain a lot of important vitamins from our foods--dietary fiber, vitamin a, vitamin c, calcium, and iron. No matter how we plan and read the nutrition labels, we still may not get the important vitamins. The best way to get those is to supplement your diet with a multivitamin. It will give you any vitamins and minerals you may be lacking in your diet. If you don’t get enough essential vitamins then your body won’t function properly and that will hurt your weight loss goals.

So, next time you are grocery shopping taking a few extra seconds to read the nutrition label can save you many headaches when it comes to your diet.