I always love to start a dinner with some jumbo shrimp, around four of them. According to the information on the menu at one of my favorite restaurants, these four shrimp deliver 180 calories (if you include the cocktail sauce) and 25 grams of protein.

This isn't a bad start to a meal when you're eating out. Jumbo shrimp are high in protein, and low in fat and calories. And they're not as high in cholesterol as commonly believed. In fact, in four jumbo shrimp, you get only 165 mg of cholesterol.

Keep in mind  saturated fats are what increase your LDL cholesterol (or what I like to call your "lousy" cholesterol), not dietary cholesterol you consume when eating food like shellfish or eggs.

Besides being high in protein, shrimp are also a good source of vitamin B-12, selenium, niacin, iron, phosphorus and zinc. They also fill you up for relatively few calories—just be sure to stick to cocktail sauce as a condiment, instead of salt or melted butter.

You'd think that because shrimp are seafood, that they'd be high in omega-3 fatty acids. Unfortunately, they deliver only about one-sixth the amount that salmon does. If you don't regularly eat flaxseed or oil or cold-water fish like salmon or halibut, be sure to take some fish-oil capsules to ensure you get enough omega-3s.