Part of personal development is weight loss if you are overweight due to the fact that being overweight can contribute to many health problems. I personally love salads as a meal or part of a meal from time to time. Are you someone who loves salads and are using them as a part of your weight loss plan? If you are eating salads in order to lose weight you could be sabotaging your weight loss plan. Here’s how this may be happening:

Did you know that any type of oil used in foods or in cooking are high in fat? This includes the various types of oils used in salad dressings. This includes oils that are thought to be healthy such as olive oil. Unfortunately many Americans consume 60 grams of added fat each day in the form of oils.

The culprits in question here are refined or extracted oils. They are 100 % fat. What can you do to avoid sabotaging your lettuce and other green salads?

Here are some tips that you may follow:

1.    Don’t use salad dressing on your salad. Include enough of a variety of vegetables in it that it has a naturally good flavor.
2.    Use flavored vinegars. There are several available now and some even come in convenient spray bottles so that you may spray your salad with these vinegars.
3.    Use fresh lemon juice as a flavoring. Take a fresh lemon, cut it in half and squeeze the juice out of it directly into your salad.

If eating a green salad without salad dressing doesn’t appeal to you then here’s some ideas to watch the amount of fat that you are consuming:

1.    Make sure that you use salad dressings that use unrefined oils. Unrefined oil has bioactive components. This gives them healthful benefits and provide full-bodied flavor. It also makes the oil more prone to oxidation.
2.    Rather than pouring salad dressing directly onto your salad pour a small amount such as two to four ounces in a small container. Dip your fork into the container randomly as you eat the salad and by the time you are done eating the salad you should have consumed much less salad dressing than you normally would have.

My advice is to eat your green salads. Use organically grown lettuce, preferably fresh Romaine whenever available, and if you are careful about what you put on your salads you should start to lose weight, especially if used with other healthy lifestyle habits.

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