Salad Days

Need to lose weight? No problem—just eat lots of salad. At least that’s the approach of many weight-conscious people who equate salad with low-calorie, healthful eating. What could be easier—just load up your plate with several different kinds of dark green, leafy base layers topped off with sliced carrots, mushrooms, garbanzo beans, sunflower seeds, sliced zucchini, beets and other nutritious veggies. Splash on some salad dressing and you’ve got it—a filling meal with virtually no calories.

If it were that easy, why can’t most of us lose weight when we eat salad?

Salad Dressing Is the Problem
Salad and weight loss go together like, well, salad and salad dressing. And salad dressing is the problem. A few innocent ladles of dressing can transform a potentially healthful bowl of greens into a high-fat, nutritional nightmare. Not only does a miserly two tablespoons of blue cheese dressing contain a whopping 170 calories (more than you’ll find in a generous three-ounce portion of lean red meat), it packs 17 grams of fat as well. And that’s in only two tablespoons of innocent-looking blue cheese dressing. How many people use that small an amount?

Even “lite” dressings have calories, so use them sparingly. A large salad can easily accommodate six tablespoons of dressing. That’s an extra 150 calories from fat-free blue cheese dressing and a mind-blowing 510 from the regular version. And those calories count, whether they’re fat-free or not!

How can you enjoy your salads—and lose weight, too? Try these green-and-leafy tips:

• Learn to like salad, not dressing.
  Once you get accustomed to the taste of fatty, gooey salad dressing, it’s hard to enjoy the naturally yummy taste of the salad itself. Many people who say they love salad really mean that they love dressing. Wean yourself from dressing by using less and less over a period of several weeks. You’ll soon find out that hidden beneath that fatty covering lies a whole universe of flavors that have been concealed from your taste buds.
  
  
• Always order dressing on the side.
  When you order a salad for lunch or as a main course for dinner, it almost always comes with dressing already added. That means you have no control over how much dressing the cook has slathered on. So order your salad with the dressing on the side and add just enough to flavor the greens and veggies. Are you always forgetting to ask for dressing on the side? To help you remember, carry a sticky note in your wallet or purse with “On the Side” written in big letters. When you open the menu and make your choice, stick the note on the entrée you’re considering. Then when the waitperson comes around, you’ll remember to make the healthful choice.
  
  
• Go easy on dressing in the buffet line.
  All-you-can-eat buffets are a dieter’s nightmare. All that food available to be scooped up! And you paid your money, so you want to recoup your investment. It’s a recipe for a pig-out. So when you’re loading up on salad, place the dressing in a small container and add it sparingly once you’re at the table. No dressing container provided? Use a glass from the beverage line.
  
  
• Squeeze a little lemon juice on your salad.
  Asking for your salad with no dressing but a couple of lemon wedges is a great weight loss strategy. The lemon juice adds a fresh, sharp taste to the salad fixings with virtually no fat or calories.
  
  
• Don’t live on salad alone.
  Too many weight loss strategies revolve around eating just a couple of meals over and over again. If you’re stuck in the bagels-for-breakfast, salad-for-lunch-and-dinner rut, try something else. Salad is a great starter for a nutritious and varied meal—but it shouldn’t always be the main course.