The sun is shining, temperatures are rising. Summer is the time to shed layers of clothes, as well as some pounds. You could opt for a stringent diet regime, but what about simply enjoying all the wonderful foods the season brings? You’ll still slim down, and do wonders for your health.

It’s a natural trend to eat lighter during the summer, and you can easily do so without feeling deprived. If you follow the U.S. government’s 2005 dietary guidelines of four-and-a-half cups of fruits and vegetables and three servings of fat-free or low-fat dairy each day, you’ll be getting plenty of naturally low-cal foods that are high in fiber, calcium, and important nutrients.

“Fiber helps in weight control because it promotes a feeling of satisfaction or satiety,” explains Registered Dietitian Cheryl Orlansky, of the Computer Science Corporation. “High-fiber foods, eaten consistently, prevent that rebound effect of feeling full one minute and looking for something else to eat the next. It also helps modulate blood sugars by slowing down the digestion of sugars to prevent a quick surge into the bloodstream.”

Much of summer’s bounty has extra nutritional benefits you may not be aware of. Fruits and vegetables contain antioxidants and other phytonutrients that may slow aging, protect against cancer and stroke, improve blood pressure, and keep your heart healthy. And just about all are low-calorie, so your waistline stays in check, another big health benefit.

Ready to slim down with summer foods? Start your summer “diet” with these.

Tomatoes and Peppers for Vitamin A, Vitamin C, and Lycopene

These powerhouses of nutrition are members of the fruit family, though thought of mostly as vegetables. Tomatoes and bell peppers of all colors deliver large amounts of vitamins A and C. A medium tomato, for example, is low in carbohydrates and has only has 35 calories but gives you 40% of the vitamin C and 20% of the vitamin A you need for the day.

Tomatoes have other benefits, too. “Consuming a diet rich in tomatoes has been shown to decrease the risk of prostate and other digestive tract cancer,” says Emily Abercrombie, RD, LD, a clinical nutritionist at Atlanta’s Emory Hospitals. This is because tomatoes and processed tomato products have high levels of a nutrient called lycopene, a powerful antioxidant that gives some fruits and vegetables their color.

Lycopene may prevent as well as treat several types of cancer. Research suggests it also may help prevent the LDL “bad” cholesterol in the bloodstream from being converted to oxidized LDL that can form plaques in arteries and increase the risk of heart attacks.

Peppers have antioxidants too, such as beta carotene, which can help boost the immune system and prevent the cell damage that comes from free radicals, a natural byproduct of our bodies’ normal functioning. Studies show damaged cells can lead to a number of diseases, such as cancer and heart disease.

Foods to Enjoy

How did summer edge up so fast? If you had abundant affairs to abbreviate down and appearance up afore bathing clothing division hit but never absolutely kept up with your goals, don’t despair. Follow these four simple accomplish to advance your summertime bistro habits and lose weight. Pull out that swimsuit and get started:

1. Drink … drink … drink … water. Put abroad the sodas. Stop affairs aperitive bake-apple beverages. Ignore the advertisements for milkshakes, algid coffee beverages and algid tea. Choose baptize instead. Why? Baptize has aught calories, quenches your appetence bigger than aperitive beverages and helps accumulate our bodies air-conditioned in the summertime heat.

Try these tactics:

• * Alcohol 12-16 ounces of baptize with every meal.
• * Bring forth a baptize canteen in the car.
• * Accumulate abundant abounding bottles on your board so that you don’t accept to bushing as often.
• * Accumulate a acknowledgment abounding of baptize with you on outings to the beach.
• * Add a aberration of beginning adhesive or auto for a activated taste.
• * Freeze a baptize canteen brief for ice-cold bubbler throughout the next morning. Just accomplish abiding to leave 1-2 inches of air in the canteen afore freezing to anticipate accidents in the freezer.
• * Accomplish it a claimed challenge. Accumulate a bullpen of ice baptize in the fridge, and alcohol it all by the end of the day.
• * Place an 8- or 10-ounce bottle on the counter. Every time you airing past, ample it up with baptize and drink.

2. Shop farmer’s markets for the freshest produce. Not abiding what to do with beet greens or eggplant? Ask the agriculturalist at the market, or browse through our compound finder for abundant ideas. Accomplish the farmer’s bazaar a stop on your account route, and you’ll accept no alibi for not bistro affluence of attractive and adorable aftermath every day. Accumulate a basin of babyish carrots, breeze peas and broccoli on duke for snacking.

3. Start your day with a whirl. Mix fruit, milk or abstract and ice cubes. Pour aggregate in the blender, whirl, and breakfast is accessible in a snap. Try your admired aggregate of beginning and arctic fruit, or sample one of our recipes for added ideas. Breakfast — and accepting abundant bake-apple in your diet — was never so easy.

4. Think small. Our appetence generally decreases if the temperature rises, so yield advantage and eat abate meals. Split a sandwich with a friend, adjustment a cup of soup instead of a bowl, opt for an appetizer allocation at banquet instead of an entree, and if you’re indulging in ice cream, ask for the aboriginal cone possible. You’ll be abundantly afraid that a abate allocation satisfies ache just as effectively, and your waistline will absolutely acknowledge you.