As a natural whole food, nuts are an excellent source of antioxidants, vitamins and minerals. They are a powerhouse of essential nutrients. Eating nuts as part of a healthy diet is not only good for your heart, but even for that much desired slim waist. Nuts contain unsaturated fatty acids and other nutrients. They're inexpensive, easy to store, and easy to pack when you're on the go.

The type of nut you eat isn't that important, although some nuts are more nutrient packed and have more unsaturated fat content than others. Walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, peanuts, pistachios, pecans — you name it — almost every type of nut has a lot of nutrition packed into a tiny and tasty package. If you have heart disease and a large waist circumference, nuts are amongest the best food options for you.

People who eat nuts as part of a heart-healthy diet can lower the low-density lipoprotein (LDL, or "bad") cholesterol level in their blood. High LDL is one of the primary causes of heart disease. Eating nuts may reduce your risk of developing blood clots that can cause a fatal heart attack. Nuts also appear to improve the health of the lining of your arteries.

Nuts not only consist unsaturated fatty acid but also omega-3 fatty acids (prevent heart stroke), fiber (lowers cholesterol), vitamin-E (Stops the development of plaque in the artery), plant sterols (lowers cholesterol) and L-arginine (prevents blood clot). It’s quite evident that if you’re making a big mistake if you’re missing out on eating nuts.

Fiber found in nuts is a very essential and miraculous nutrient. Fiber makes us feel fuller and stays in our stomach longer than fiber poor foods we eat, slowing down our rate of digestion and controlling our appetite. It is of great help to those who cannot exercise portion control at their meals and thus find it difficult to stay thin a result of that. Fiber also takes to longer to chew and chewing promotes saliva, which is essential for healthy functioning of the body. The production of stomach juices that helps to fill the stomach gives your brain time to get the signal that you have had enough to eat. The unsaturated fats and protein in nuts also promote muscle gain. Greater muscle mass makes it easier to keep the fat away, as you’re burning more calories during rest. This further increases your body’s metabolic rate.

So include nuts as part of your daily diet to benefit yourself with fat loss, muscle mass gain, improved heart functioning and innumerable other health gains.