I have been asked in the past: "How do I know that I am getting all the nutrients I need for a healthy body in my meals?".

My answer to that is - the more colorful your plate is, the more variety of nutrients you are ingesting.  I am of course talking about natural color and not artificial.  Be careful of that pitfall, these days many of the foods are artificially colored and flavored.

But you should have at least three colors on your plate - and white doesn't count!  Except for potatoes and white fish, everything else that is white has very little nutritional value i.e. white rice, white bread, white pasta and so on... you get the picture.


You are doing great if you have one shade of yellow or orange, one shade of green (the darker the better) and a brown on your plate. Red is another great color to introduce to your meals. For instance, you are having a really balanced meal if you are having a portion of carrots (raw or steamed), a portion of broccoli or spinach or maybe even a green leafy salad, and then add a lean meat of your choice and you know you have a perfectly balanced meal! If you decide to have pasta or rice, pick the whole grain (brown) veriety.

To add the red, maybe you can have some fresh watermelon balls, cherries or strawberries for desert, you can even mix them all up.

So if you are staring at your plate, and all you see is one color... most likely white and brown,
then you know your body is not getting all the nutrients it needs to function at its best!

Keep it colorful, and you are on the right track!

Kind regards

Vanessa Bader

P.S.  In the Quick Start Guide that you get with your Hot Burning Body Workout DVD's I have
included a six day meal plan for you and also some additional recipes that will put you on the right track to eating completely balanced, low fat meals.