Today’s weight loss tip relates to salad dressings.
One of the mistakes I have made in the past, when trying to lose weight is to listen to “weight loss guru” advice on salad dressings.
Most weight loss “gurus” out there make a huge deal about choosing low-fat or low-calorie salad dressings.
The challenge is that if you’re not used to eating salads, and your typical meal comes from a fast-food restaurant, eating a salad with a low-fat or low-calorie dressing is going to taste like crap.
Instead, here’s a little secret I discovered…
Bad Dressing, Bad Salad. Good Dressing, Good Salad.
I discovered that when I was trying to use low-calorie or low-fat or just generally “good for you” salad dressings, my salads would taste like crap.
And when your salad tastes like crap, what do you do? You never eat salad.
So instead of trying to shave an extra 10-50 calories off of an already healthy, and low-calorie salad, and making it taste like shit – I instead went out there and found a salad dressing that I actually enjoy!
My favorite lately has been Kraft Three Cheese Ranch dressing. Yes, I know that it is 110 calories for 2 tablespoons of that dressing – however, by choosing a salad dressing that I actually enjoy eating it makes it a lot easier to eat salads on a regular basis.
Also, if you look at the nutritional profile – most of the calories in that dressing come from fat and not sugar which signals your brain to stop eating.
Contrary to what mass media has tried to lead us to believe for decades now, eating fats doesn’t make you fat – it is actually starches and sugars that do that to us.
When we eat fats, we get full faster so we eat less.
It’s not the fat in fast-food meals that makes us fat, it’s all the sugar we eat with it.
Anyway, I won’t go into too much of a discussion on fat vs sugar intake as far as weight loss is concerned, because what I really want to focus on is salads in this post.
Other Ways to Pimp Your Salad
There are so many cool things you can add to a salad to make it taste so much better.
A lot of people who say that they don’t like eating salads make the following two major mistakes:
They think that a salad is made up of lettuce – and that’s it.
They choose crappy, low-fat, low-calorie dressings.
A real salad should be made up a LOT more than just lettuce. Most of the salads that I made during my weight loss were only about 20% lettuce.
Some of the things that I love to add to my salads are:
Red Peppers
Green Peppers
Cucumbers
Radishes
Green Onions
Red Onions
Pumpkin Seeds
Hemp Seeds
Sliced Almonds
Dried Cranberries
Baby Spinach
Cauliflower
Broccoli
Sesame Seeds
Flax Oil
Egg Slices
Grilled Chicken Breast
Grilled Salmon
Steak Slices
Avocado
etc.
The more stuff you add to your salad, the more variety of flavors there will be for you to enjoy. By mixing things up with your salads, you’ll actually ENJOY eating them and not see them as something you eat instead of “real food”.
The bottom line is this.
Forget about trying to eat the “perfect salad”. Instead, learn to make GOOD salads that you’ll actually ENJOY eating.
Every person who wants to lose weight, needs to have at least a couple of salad recipes under their belt that they actually enjoy eating.
I’ve personally got about a half-dozen different types of salads that I like making now and I actually enjoy eating them.
When I’ve had guests over who don’t typically eat salads, I’ve made my salads for them and they were shocked how good they tasted.
If you learn to make good salads, you’ll start to prefer them over a fast-food meal.
That is the bottom line.
It’s not about making a “perfect” salad that has virtually no calories but tastes like saw-dust!
It’s about making a GOOD salad that you’ll actually enjoy eating.