At the local Grocery Outlet, I recently found pure pumpkin back in stock, at about 70 cents a 15-ounce can. (That is a great price... for great pumpkin.) Pumpkin is considered a Super Nutrient, and I ate a lot of it when I was losing my first 20 pounds.

It isn’t easy to find pumpkin at a good price, other than during the fall and Holidays, or early in the year at the outlets.

According to The Super Foods RX Diet: Lose Weight with the Power of SuperNutrietns (page 31, hardback), “People are often surprised that pumpkin is included as a SuperFood but it’s one of the best sources of healthy cartenoids available…But it’s the fiber in pumpkin that makes a special contribution to weight control. A half-cup of canned pumpkin has 3.5 grams of dietary fiber for only about 40 calories. This is more fiber and fewer calories than any average slice of bread, even a while grain variety.”

My cans usually have the calorie count at between 50 and 70 calories for a half-cup serving.  I no longer buy the larger cans, because it just goes bad in the fridge, before I eat the leftovers.

It is my understanding that fiber helps curb the appetite, and reduce the rate at which blood glucose rises following a meal.

As a snack, I eat a half-cup of pumpkin with a half-cup of fat-free, plain yogurt (Dannon or Nancy’s), with cinnamon stirred in. I often add about 3 walnut halves or 3 almonds, ground up, for some added good fat and a little crunch. (I understand pumpkin is good in soups and casseroles, too.)

To keep from crashing, I like my snacks to be balanced with protein, good fat and carbs. 

When buying canned pumpkin, I make sure I buy pure pumpkin, not a pumpkin pie mix with a sweetener added.

When I started eating healthy meals last year, and losing weight, I slowly upped my fiber to about 30 to 35 grams per day. Made a big difference in how full I felt!