That's Fit

Changing any lifestyle habit isn't easy. If you're looking to shed some pounds for summer and are switching to a healthier way of eating, you may find yourself staring at your pantry and wondering what to do. Take these tips from AOL Body and stock your kitchen with healthy staples -- having all the building blocks for healthy eating sets you up for success.

• Clean out your fridge, freezer, and pantry of unhealthy foods that can throw you off course.
• Stock your freezer with frozen fruits and veggies and healthy snacks such as edamame and veggie burgers.
  
• Fill your fridge with low-fat dairy, fresh fruits and veggies, lean protein, and a pitcher of water.
• Stock your pantry with a variety of whole grains, salt-free seasoning mixes, and healthy snacks such as fat-free popcorn.

For more summer weight-loss tips, click on the image below and check out AOL Body's Summer Quick Fix.

In our house, we tend to keep food in our fridge for longer than most people. It's part laziness, part iron stomachs and part frugality, but whatever the cause, I'm often left scratching my head wondering if I should use a certain ingredient in my next meal. But I recently came across this handy timeline for storing common fruits and veggies:

• Carrot (peeled): 51 days
  
• Tomato: 36 days
  
• Garlic: 30 days
• Broccoli: 27 days
• Strawberry: 22 days
  
• Asparagus: 22 days
• Spinach: 19 days
• Grapes (black and green): 14 days
• Peppers (red and green): 14 days
• Cucumber: 8 days
• Lettuce: 8 days

Surprising, yes? I thought the times on many of these were much shorter. This is good news though, particularly for those month-old carrots in the back of my fridge.

Small changes sometimes inspire me. A new candle burning on my kitchen counter, a new pair of pants with perfect slimming capabilities, and the always-thrilling new running shoes that all but bounce me out the door and onto the streets. Today, my inspiring change comes in the form of a new refrigerator.

My new Kenmore stainless steel fridge with French doors and a bottom freezer will arrive today to take the place of an old, dumpy white fridge with barely enough space to contain the food for our family of four. What space this rickety old thing does have is not very useful -- anything that sits at the back of the fridge ends up frozen. The freezer is crowded too. Pieces are falling off here and there. And a light inside just burned out. Clearly, this new fridge is in order.

I can't wait to stock my new beauty. First, I plan to rummage through everything I've got in my old model and pitch anything that doesn't fit my newish healthy lifestyle. Salad dressings that haven't been used in ages: Gone. Two half-used containers of chocolate frosting: Right to the trash. A coffee energy drink (energy is code for caffeine and sugar): To be dumped and recycled. Anything of a questionable nutritional nature will be ditched. All healthy items -- fruits, veggies, low-fat cheese sticks, chicken breasts, fresh fish -- will be rewarded with a new spot in a new fridge. I may even buy some new healthy stuff to fill the space of this seemingly gigantic appliance.

Yep, small changes (not inexpensive, just small compared to all things large and monumental) sometimes do the trick for me. Who knew? A fridge. How inspiring.

The average family open the fridge 22 times a day. Each time, cold air barrels out and warm air takes its place, making the appliance use extra electricity to cool itself back down.

If you're a frequent fridge opener and closer, you can save energy by practicing this four-step process:

• Decide what you want

• Open the fridge

• Grab your goods

• Shut the door

No lingering, no browsing, no shopping around. Just get what you want and be done with it. While you're at it, make sure your refrigerator is set to its proper temperature. To increase efficiency, be sure your fridge has tight seals and clean coils.

If you like your turkey, stuffing, and gravy better the second time around, you'll want to get your Thanksgiving goodies in the fridge within two hours of eating, says Kathy Bernard of the USDA meat and poultry Hotline. Fruit pies with no dairy can stay out (be warned: they may get moldy), but the other stuff must be kept chilly.

A few good food-storing options, recommended by the product experts at Reader's Digest, include Tupperware's Heat N Serve line -- it has a valve perfect for reheating -- and Stuffables, built to fit odd-shaped foods like a turkey leg.

If you're looking for good and secure stackers, give Rubbermaid's Premier containers a try. And for more on making use of leftovers, check out these Reader's Digest resources.

Growing up, the roast beef from Sunday night's dinner was always used in beef dip for Mondays dinner. I used to hate that, eating leftovers, but now that I buy my own groceries and do all the cooking, eating leftover roast beef doesn't seem like such an awful thing anymore. The key for feeding your family leftovers is adding some variety. Nobody wants to have the same thing two nights in a row, so you need to figure out ways to incorporate what you had last night into a new dish for tonight.

Even though I complained about it in my youth, my mom's idea of making roast beef into beef dip was a good one. Here are some more suggestions from eDiets on how you make your leftovers seem new again. My favourite idea is using leftover chicken to make chicken wraps -- yummy.

What do you do with leftovers?

Looking in someone's fridge is like peeking in their medicine cabinet -- you can learn a lot about them from the foods they eat ... and also how punctual they are about throwing moldy leftovers out. WebMD thinks so too, and they've put together this short video in which one of their dietitians raids someone's fridge (I suspect her own because she loves pretty much everything in there.) Here are some must-have items according to her:

• Non-fat sour cream: This can be substituted for fat in a lot of recipes
  
• Light cream cheese: In baking recipes that call for lots of butter, you can use half butter, half light cream cheese for lots of richness without all the fat
• Soy milk: It's high in protein and calcium and taste, low in fat.
  
• Calcium-fortified orange juice: For those who don't drink milk
• Lots of fruits and veggies
• Omega-3 eggs: Not only do these eggs have lots of nutrients, they're lower in fat than regular eggs. That's because the chickens are fed healthier grains.
• Butter: Most dietitians are quite anti-butter but this one recommend having a bit in your house for baking purposes. While there are many ways to lower the amount of butter you use in a recipe, cutting it out altogether isn't always an option.

What's a must-have in your fridge?

Ever wondered what should go in the fridge and what can stay in the fruit bowl on the counter? Here's a list of things items that you might be putting in the wrong place:

• Apples, apricots, canteloupe, honeydew and figs should be in the fridge.
• Avocados, bananas, nectarines, peaches, pears, plums and tomatoes can go on the counter

Really? I have kept apples on my counter for as long as I can remember. Cateloupe and Honeydew too, as long as they haven't been cut up. And I usually keep tomatoes in the fridge, but I won't anymore. Does this list surprise you are all?

I wish someone would design a refrigerator that doesn't allow things to be pushed to the back. Out of sight equals out of mind at our house -- at least when it comes to leftovers. I subscribe to the theory "when in doubt, throw it out," but this chart takes all the guesswork out of whether something you "found" in the back of your fridge is safe to eat. Some things -- like chili -- just taste better the second time you serve them, but some leftovers are better suited for the garbage can!

By now, you're probably feasting away on fourth of July goodies and not too concerned about food safety, but I thought I'd post these fourth of July food safety tips anyway because, hey, food safety is an important issue 365 days of the year. Plus you don't want to spend the fifth of July hugging the toilet. Here are the top 5 food safety tips for July 4th and the rest of the summer:

1. Properly store food in the fridge for approrpriate periods of time
2. Keep raw meat at the bottom of the fridge. Just in case they leak, you don't want them leaking all over your veggies.
3. Wash hands and surfaces constantly
4. Don't leave food out for more than 2 hours
5. If there's mold or fungus on something, don't just cut it off. Get rid of the item.

How do you protect yourself from food-borne illnesses?

I love summer salads, but I don't eat as many of them as I'd like to because it's so hard for me to keep lettuce and salad greens fresh in the refrigerator for more than 1 day at a time. But it seems FitSugar has the answer, and who knew it would be so easy? Just put your greens in a plastic bag, breathe a puff of air into it (for the carbon dioxide) and tie it at the top. Of course it will take up more space in your fridge this way and I'd make sure your family isn't sensitive about people breathing on each other's food, but if this works (I'm totally trying it) what an awesome trick!