I’ve been eating salads my entire life. Growing up, salads were a regular part of my diet. My mother had a vegetable garden in which she grew tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers, green onions, swiss chard and other assorted vegetables.
When I learned I had diabetes several years ago, I also learned I had to make some pretty serious life-changing decisions about my attitudes towards food, exercise, and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Adding more fresh salads to my diet was simple for me but when my fiancé learned he too had diabetes a few months ago, it didn’t come as easily. Eating fresh salads is something he is learning to do, and like most new skills, it requires mindfulness and practice. Here's how to make the transition easier.
Research The Pros
First, learn about the benefits of adding salad to your diet. What was common sense to me is a learning experience for my fiance. Fresh, raw vegetables contain vitamins, minerals, and fiber. They are full of volume, which works for me because I like to eat larger portion sizes, with minimal calories, and salad is nearly fat free. Consider that one cup of shredded lettuce contains roughly 10 calories whereas one cup of macaroni and cheese contains nearly 400 calories.
Salads as a Meal
As I said earlier, salads are naturally low in calories and often too low to be a meal. People don't realize that too low of anything (calories, carbs, fat, protein) is not good. The right amount of nutrients per meal is the goal.
I like to eat Personal Chef To Go prepared salads when I have salad for lunch. There is plenty of variety, and Personal Chef To Go salads include protein rich lean meats that are very low in saturated fat. Since they are all prepared complete with dressing, they fit into my lifestyle in that I'm not likely to spend any significant amount of time making salads everyday. Another benefit I’ve found with Personal Chef To Go salads is that if I am augmenting an entrée with a salad, I can store the meat in a sandwich bag or air-tight container and I have a ready to go, healthy, protein snack for later!
While they are good for you, they are all delicious! The Mediterranean Chicken Salad, for example, is topped with a fantastic blend of Calamata Olives, Feta Cheese and Lemon-Oregano dressing. Mindful eaters, diabetics and healthy lifestylers all eat chicken as a regular part of their diet. The Mediterranean Chicken, as well as the Grilled Balsamic Dijon Chicken or the Thai-Ginger Chicken salads are well worth having around for convenience and superior taste.
Choose Your Favorite Light and Lean Ingredients
If you are going to add salad to your healthy lifestyle, then add the vegetables you enjoy eating. Build salads with low-calorie greens, and then add other low-calorie favorites, such as multi-colored peppers, mushrooms, red onion, carrots, and cucumbers. Add flavor by topping salads with healthy cranberries and bits of chopped walnuts. I force myself to reduce or eliminate the higher-calorie and higher-fat ingredients such, as cheese, fried noodles, nuts, olives, and bacon bits.
Go Deeper and Darker Green
If you’re going to eat salad, go for maximum nutrition by using the darker and deeper-color greens, such as romaine, green leaf, spinach, arugula, and watercress. I substitute these greens for the light-colored iceberg or Bibb lettuce.
Combine Multi-Color Ingredients
Color and appearance is important when you make a meal, so use the same thinking with salads. Different colored vegetables offer the variety of vitamins and minerals you need. Select tomatoes for vitamin C, carrots for vitamin A, and spinach for folic acid. The combinations of color are really endless. Try to add the colors of the rainbow to your salads to ensure you eat a wide array of nutrients. Try red cabbage, radicchio, multi-colored peppers, snow peas, corn, carrots, beets and anything else appealing to you.
Get Rid of Routine
I learned from having to exercise every day that routine kills consistency. The same concept holds true for me with eating healthy. Sometimes I eat my salad at the start of a meal and sometimes at the end of a meal. Either way can help you lighten up on calories.
I've found if I begin a meal with salad, the volume it takes up in my stomach leaves less room for higher-calorie foods. Eating a salad at the end of my meal prevents me from digging into a second helping.
Make Salads a Gradual Lifestyle Change
I learned very quickly not to set healthy lifestyle goals I can't achieve. Okay, I'm diabetic, I'm going to lose 60 lb.; I'm going to exercise an hour a day; I'm going to take a one-week class at my local hospital and learn all about nutrition; I'm going to eat salad three times a day, etc.
While I did accomplish many of those personal goals, and even more, I failed when I tried to do them overnight. I failed again when I gave myself a week, and again when I gave myself a month. I finally succeeded when I gave myself a year and took daily baby steps to achieve my long-term goals.
When it come to adding salad to your healthy lifestyle, here is the #1 roadblock to overcome:
You don’t want to take the time to make salad.
Actually, this was my only real excuse and here's how I overcame it. I keep Personal Chef To Go salads and an ample supply of low-maintenance salad fixings in my fridge. You can buy the pre-washed bags of lettuce mixes and buy vegetables that don’t need to be chopped, such as baby carrots, cherry tomatoes, and mushrooms and pre-chopped fresh vegetables are readily available at most supermarkets and grocery stores.
When I make salad, I make enough to carry me through a few meals and throw it all together in a giant bowl with an air tight lid. I also store individual servings in tightly sealed plastic containers so I can bring them with me. Often, when I open my fridge looking for a snack, I just grab a salad.
Dress For Less
When I was a younger adult, I'd eat salads for fun, and usually only when I went to a restaurant with a salad bar. I didn't care what the salad was made of--just pile on the creamy blue cheese dressing so high I can't see anything green. Obviously, the calories and fat in a salad quickly rise if you load on creamy-rich salad dressings.
Personal Chef To Go keeps their salads low in calories by making low calorie and lowfat dressings included with each salad. I can make my own, but I rarely do because the temptation to cheat is too much for me. I also like to have many different dressings to avoid the routine of the same salad every day.
If you like to make your own salad dressings, make a large batch and keep it in a jar in the refrigerator. Use a healthy liquid vegetable or olive oil and mix this with flavorful vinegar or fresh lemons, limes, or oranges.
Personal Chef To Go wishes you the best of luck with your healthy lifestyle!
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