Add this ingredient to help you shed pounds!!

Idea from EatingWell in Healthy Eating

My husband and I are fairly active people, but I'm always looking for more ways to shed a few pounds. (Who isn’t, right?) So when I read that adding more fiber to your diet can help you lose weight, I started to think about where I could sneak in some extra fiber during the day.

We already get a decent amount of fiber at breakfast and dinner, so lunch seemed like a good experiment. Especially when I realized I could turn some leftover dinner ingredients into high-fiber lunches.

Here are 4 easy ideas:

• One of my favorite quick lunch solutions is to make a big pot of soup over the weekend. Homemade soup tastes a lot better than canned and I can control what goes in it. One of my cold-weather favorites is Cumin-Scented Wheat Berry-Lentil Soup, packed with heart-healthy, fiber-rich wheat berries and lentils. We eat some for dinner, then I freeze the leftovers in individual containers. That way, it won’t go bad before I use it, and I can just grab a container from the freezer when I’m making my lunch.

• Rice & Lentil Salad—Turn leftover cooked brown rice into a simple salad with canned cooked lentils and a delicious sherry vinaigrette.

• Mediterranean Tuna Antipasto Salad—Packed with protein and fiber, this tuna and bean salad is ready in a flash. Serve with warm, crusty bread or pack it in a pita for a sandwich. For an extra kick, add a pinch of crushed red pepper or cayenne.

• Curried Chicken Pita—Roasting a chicken for dinner is a pretty easy meal, and I always turn leftover meat into chicken salad. I like the sweet touch that cranberries and pear add to this tangy curried chicken salad. Toasted sliced almonds add a nutty crunch.