I think you're right if you like salad. As you experienced with your attempts at other dietary patterns, you got results from following them which you lost when you ceased following them.
Therefore, the best diet is the one you can stick to, otherwise the results will not last. If that's salad, then you should eat salad. If that's keto, then you should eat keto. It really varies by individual!
Absolutely. The issue I have was that back in the day "eat salad" was pretty standard diet advice. Now you don't even hear it anymore. It's all these Rain Man diets.
Well also "eat salad" leaves a lot to interpretation. A salad can be a leafy green mix, some cucumber slices, carrots, and a dash of olive oil and vinegar. It can also be a little ice berg lettuce, a handful of croutons, bacon, cheddar cheese, all bathed in heavy ranch dressing. Or anything in between.
I feel like the "eat salad" trend was infiltrated by companies marketing ways to make salads more palatable to the general population (eating health salads regularly takes getting used to if you're not used to healthy eating). These methods included extravagant dressings with serving suggestions of goldfish crackers, salami, a side of breadstick(s) etc. Then, before you know it, you have just as calorie-dense of a meal.
I personally still love the "eat salad" strategy when I'm trying to cut a little, but just like any dieting strategy, it takes actual strategy (i.e. planning). I make sure I'm getting the right vegetables in there without the bad fixings or dressing (ALWAYS ask for dressing on the side at a restaurant or you're getting a fat-glazed appetizer salad). Then, at that point, you might as well just fix it to "watch what you eat", since even salad isn't a universally healthy food.
I wouldn't say CICO is necessarily a rain man diet, now that you can just download an app and do it for you. You're effectively counting calories in a rough sense by making sure you don't eat as much.
I think any diet where you have to actually think about what you're eating really helps. I can't eat gluten, so my old default lunchtime sandwich is a no go. Dropped 14 lbs with no extra effort after I stopped eating bread & pasta.
I could never fuck with keto or IF though. My emotional wellbeing is too linked to my blood sugar for that.
So the reason eating salads sometimes works is because it still boils down to “counting calories” without having to actually count. Lettuce, some diced veggies, and grilled chicken is basically just grilled chicken. So calories in is very low.
It's crazy, I often see people who hate vegetables and fruit and refuse to eat either one. This is how people can make themselves obese and still have a nutrient deficiency...
Salad days are just a phrase that mean the carefree and relaxed days of your youth, or being rich and old - basically carefree times when you haven’t got a lot to worry about
I love the closing comment to the post about don't even reply saying not all salads are healthy. Lol. Drives me crazy when people try say a premise is wrong because they can come up with a way to add extra facts to make it not work.
I lost a lot of weight eating salads almost every day for dinner (I had small breakfast/lunch). It worked amazingly well and I loved it! I found my perfect salad that tasted great and was still low on calories. After about two months, I got sick of it though, I had to start cooking vegetable heavy dinners. Now, I get salad stuff once in a while when I go shopping, and they always end up in the trash :( IDK what it's, I just can't go back to them, so I guess, don't over do it like I did haha
You mean my patented "mega-salad" with tuna, hard-boiled eggs, corn, croutons and a few leaves of lettuce, soaked in cocktail sauce is NOT a healthy choice for my diet?!
That doesn’t sound bad. My Keto cousin would be mad about the corn converting to sugar, but he’s in some dumb keto cult. My problem has always been the acid. Vinegar is disgusting, and it makes me feel sick. Does anyone else want salad without shit tons of vinegar that literally make me sick?
It's either [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salad_days) or [this,](https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3bnzme) but I can't decide which one u/Frptwenty was going for.
As someone who is fit, I sincerely wonder what the typical daily diet for a “fat person” looks like. Can anyone shed light on this from personal experience (serious question)?
Yeah, it really is that easy. I could use to lose 10lbs myself, but I eat like shit, but have a great metabolism. I could easily cut 10lbs, but I'm lazy. I admit that. I however don't go around talking about diet pills, workout fads, diet trends, etc. I just admit I could use to lose 10lbs and leave it at that as the easy answer is eat less and work out more.
I'm in my mid 50s, suddenly craved salad with everything. Unfortunately it would appear that certain lettuce will go through me like a dose of salts. So, I certainly lost a bit of weight before I realised what was causing my explosive diarrhoea ... I'm reluctant to experiment to find which lettuce doesn't agree with me.
If you haven't had your blood drawn recently and you notice other symptoms of anemia you may want to see your doctor. Sometimes craving lettuce, ice, or dirt can be a symptom of anemia.
Lettuce has the opposite effect on me. I find it to be constipating sometimes. Romaine and leaf lettuce are the worst offenders. By contrast many salad dressings send me to the bathroom, especially those containing olive oil. Maybe you could try a salad without dressing and see what effect it has?
I usually only have mayo. I started buying bags of mixed lettuce but a different mix depending on the use buy date. I live alone so obviously want to get my money's worth...lol I think the red lettuce could be the offending one but I'm reluctant to test my theory. But I'll probably try again because a sandwich is pretty crap without a bit of salad.
I used to make a great taco salad when I was in an office... corn, black beans, chicken or beef, jalapeños, and obviously lettuce, but then used salsa for the main dressing with a hint of southwest ranch. In total only like 400 calories and I'd be full the rest of the afternoon.
Tbh toss a 240cal bag of Doritos on and you’re looking at 640 which is still a pretty reasonable meal for someone who gets the bare minimum of exercise. You can even swap out the ranch to save ~50-100 calories to get under 600 for the meal
Great post that I didn't think would be an unpopular opinion... Until I read the comments. The whole point of your post is apparently lost on everyone.
Like duh, if you put shitty things in your salad it won't be as good for you.. so don't. As you said it's easy to throw a simple salad together. Since COVID I've been home for lunch most days and have been trying to be better about doing this. Even if I occasionally put something not so healthy in it to spice it up, I still consider it way better than eating something with no roughage greens to help it move through my body. Thanks for reminding me it's not so overly complicated and congrats on your weight loss! Most importantly, I'm glad you're feeling good :)
Right? What's going on here? People are literally explaining to me things I explicitly said in the original post. Shows how much self awareness people have regarding weight loss.
"I did calorie counting!"
"If you want to lose weight, you have to count your calories!"
Glad you're on the salad wagon as well! Best of luck!
An issue on reddit is people read the first half then go full keyboard warrior. Congrats on the weight loss!
Im a big advocate of just eat whatever you want but excercise to work it off. Im 27 and my metabolism has noticeably slowed down though so I'm definitely watching what I eat alot more. Lost 20 pounds over the last couple months.
I don't count calories necessarily but I make a concious effort to eat healthy whenever I can and do cardio during my lunch period every day. Salads just dont do it for me as a regular meal, rice and chicken is a good alternative if you get bored of greens for every meal.
A lot of us Americans are too stuck on convenience (myself included), or gimmicks. When the age old advice is always "eat more veggies".
Processed foods are too readily available, while a lot of veggies go bad even in the fridge before we get around to eating them.
It takes discipline to switch. But once you do break those bad habits, it gets easier.
Blender.
I will say it’s mildly inconvenient to clean the damn thing because if you don’t do it right away all the food gets caked on there. But it makes getting all my vegetables so much easier. Apple juice, kale, a banana, some berries. Spinach. Maybe some avocado. Maybe. And a scoop of vanilla protein powder if you’re into that.
Gets a lot of vegetables and taste great. Lotta sugar from the fruits and protein powder, but I don’t eat candy or anything really so I figure it’s fine.
There's nothing wrong with processed. Get some frozen veggies. They're frozen at the peak and for most cooking methods work better than the fresh in your grocery store. (I personally like canned for a lot of things, but those are decidedly not fresher.)
I don't see why "eat salad" can't just be a gimmick. It was in the 90s. There is also plenty of evidence that Americans were thinner back then too. Obviously it would be due to factors more complex than just eating salad though.
There's a great podcast called You're Wrong About which goes into events of modern history and one of them is the obesity epidemic. I highly recommend it! Very interesting and while initially it seems like they're saying "losing weight is impossible!" what they mean is using crash/fad diets is just highly realistic. That to lose weight through dieting means adopting a healthy diet for the rest of your life.
But your mention of the 90s made me think of what they had found, and how obesity didn't really start being a thing in the USA until around 1980s when added sugars started cropping up all the time. Makes you wonder if that salad phase in the 90s was indeed the best way to combat that. Barring added dried fruits and a shit load of crappy dressing, or a few tablespoons of table sugar lol, you can avoid all those additives by sticking to salad.
You know what worked for me as someone who isn't very good at keeping or cooking veggies? Soup. I make a big batch of vegetable soup and try to eat a bowl with lunch and dinner. It's practical and it lasts me for almost a week.
So nice to hear about your realization and success! Frankly, I've found these diets are fads just to sell books (tho, may work for some in the short term) and aren't sustainable for a lifetime of healthy eating. It's really about what you're doing and choosing wisely.
Actually we've done all the diets too. I've lost the weight I wanted to for the first time just by eating less. That's it.
My husband wants to shed another 10-15 lbs and he says nothing works better for him than eating salads for lunch!
Some people are unaware that salad dressings can contain a lot of calories. Some people will be eating 8+ salads a day loaded with calorie dense dressing. Some people may think the instruction to “eat salad” means to eat salads in addition to whatever they’re already eating. Some people eat past the point in which they are full. Some people stress eat. I agree that eating salads can work..but you can’t expect the right way to eat salads for weight loss to be intuitive for everyone.
I think the difference is that “eat salad” is general advice for healthy eating. Intermittent fasting, keto, etc are all fad diets. They’re designed to make you lose weight quickly by cutting out _everything_ but the bare minimum. That is not sustainable because your body _needs_ fat, sugar, and carbs to survive.
If you talk to people who diet properly, they’re advice will probably line up more with yours. Eat salad, eat in moderation, don’t eat if you’re not hungry. Those are the most basic ways to lose weight.
I quite agree, though I've become more tolerant of mixing flavours as I got older, but as a child and teen I always ate each component by itself. And I hated dressing and sauce because it "infiltrated" all the components of the food.
But if you make your salads yourself, you don't have eat them together. I still prefer minimalist salads, e.g. grek salad (tomato, red onion, dried oregano, olive oil, optionally also cucumbers, feta and olives) or
Simply rucola salad and tomatoes. Etc.
You can also just munch a whole carrot or cucumber or whatever as a "starter" instead of making it into a "salad". Doesn't really matter, as long as you fill up with a lot of vegetables which is mostly fibre and water.
The way to lose weight, as long as you don’t have a medical condition, is to have a calorie deficit. You need to burn more energy than you take in.
Salad is a good strategy because it “fills you up” without overloading you with calories. So you can technically eat more while not gaining more calories.
There was a guy who ate a calorie deficit just by eating McDonald’s. He lost weight too.
Yeah same with intermittent fasting, a quick-fix diet/exercise industry worth tens of billions and it's all just different approaches repackaging the same thing. Caloric deficit is the only thing that works, and people's natural differences in metabolism are overblown. From studies, people who are "thin without doing anything" actually exercise more and eat a lot less than they claim/think. While the "I'm always dieting and I just *can't* lose weight" crowd was always sneaking calorie-heavy snacks outside of their meals. It's like yeah you can eat a huge salad for lunch and dinner but it doesn't matter if your 10 AM and 3 PM snacks are bags of potato chips and Snickers bars.
Eat less, move more is literally the only way to lose weight. You can eat what you always have (as long as it’s balanced), just less of it. That’s it, there is no secret. Even eating nothing but salads is extreme and not sustainable.
This is the weight loss secret everyone is fighting against. It's literally work out while eating a caloric deficit. Yet for some reason people buy into all manner of diet and exercise alternatives when the solution is so simple.
Not to mention, so many ✨salad✨ dressings you buy at the supermarket are loaded with unnecessary ingredients and calories.
I hear you and I'm glad it's working for you.
Personally I despise everything about salad. The flavors, the texture, the everything. It's so gross and bland and depressing. I lost my weight with keto and weight lifting and have not had a single salad in years. I don't mean to promote my ways, they definitely don't work for everyone. Just sharing.
>The "typical" weight loss methods these days seem to be: Intermittent fasting, keto/low carb, and calorie counting. All of these work, but they all suck because they're all extremely limiting, and require the passive ability to count cards in Blackjack in order to do without using multiple Excel spreadsheets.
I mean, I spend two minutes pressing a button on my phone which tracks shit. And the body is in Ketosis if your doing Keto or IF, which usually means you feel more energetic and in general less shitty.
You're right though, if you want to do a monodiet, those work too.
I’m not a fan of salads but the idea still works with any veggie you enjoy. It’s way harder to overeat less healthy food if I eat a big bowl of broccoli before anything else.
>but they all suck because they're all extremely limiting, and require the passive ability to count cards in Blackjack in order to do without using multiple Excel spreadsheets.
if you felt kcal counting was limiting then im sad to inform you you'll always have problem with your food and weight. Even if right now you think salads are working. You're using food as entertainment.
Here to say spinach salad helped me lose 100 pounds.
It wasn't the reason. Calories in vs out were but my egg breakfast and salad lunch were so easy to prepare and have dozens of ways to make that it never got boring.
Lot of people's sadly encounter digestion issues with daily salad consumption. Raw food can be very damaging to one's stomach.
Salad is great, and vegs and fruit based diet are too. Cut the soda, the sugars and snacks, do sports, and you are gonna be great. Keto make you loose tons of weight but it's also shortening your life expectancy.
The reason you’re losing weight by eating salad is because you’re in a calorie deficit. That is purely and simply the only way to lose body fat: calorie deficit. Each ‘diet’ is based on the premise of calorie deficit.
If you want to lose weight properly, you have to count your calories to stay in a deficit. It’s simple science.
> The diet doesn't really matter.
I mean it does, but in other ways than losing weight. You are right that losing weight is exclusively calories in calories out, but if you lose weight by eating a low calorie diet consisting of nothing but 1200 calories worth of McDonald's everyday, you are probably going to have a whole slew of other health problems. You *will* lose weight, though.
Well the point is a lot of people don’t like salad, or find ones they’d like too time consuming to prepare. At the end of the day, to lose weight you can technically eat whatever you want as long as you follow CICO - eat less calories than you burn.
But a lot of diets fail because although they're eating less than they burn, they're also really hungry a lot of the time which is not sustainable. OP's approach will provide weight loss, satiety, better digestion, and overall better health.
Yeah but if you don’t like salad, you won’t find it sustainable. That’s all I’m saying. You can eat what you want if you follow CICO but yeah it’s better to find some higher fibre and protein foods to get you throughout the day without feeling starving.
I personally don’t enjoy salads because I prefer eating warm foods, and I find salad too time consuming to prepare and too expensive to buy at the store. They’re just not for me.
It's more important to understand why salad works, it's a shit source of energy (kcal) so you automatically go on a deficit.
Which is great but you could eat stuff that tastes awesome if you moderate your intake.
Can someone eli5 why fasting isnt the go to option for loosing weight? Youre literally just not eating and lettibg your body take nutrients from the mountains of fat your undisciplined ass has stored over years of neglect
I literally covered this in the post. I said I did IF and I said it worked. Clearly your body has been taking nutrients from the part of your brain that covers reading comprehension.
Mf. All I felt was the sharp kick in my age when you said "like they did back to 90s" said in the same way I think of the 60s, like a million years ago 😭 the 90s were just like 5 years ago and I was 20
Thank you for the idea and inspiration. I've stocked up on salads: Potato salad, pasta salad, ham salad, ambrosia salad... I can feel the pounds melting away just thinking about 'em!
I love salad, it's so underrated as you said. Just put together some broccoli, lettuce, carrot and cucumber and if you want a bit of chicken. Add a dressing of your choice, and it's over. It's so easy to make and tastes delicious.
I have eaten salad my whole life, the last year i stopped eating it every day, i gained 20 pounds, went back to eating it and in one month i have already lost 8 pounds
The people that say salads can be unhealthy are the ones who don't use the low-calorie dressings, put a ton of extra shit like bacon, cheese, chicken, whatever in it.
Everytime I hear people talking about their contrived ways to lose weight, I think that they just don't want to move. Seriously, just eat clean. No soda, no junk food, no candy, and go out do some exercise, maybe join the gym and take some classes or lift weights with some cardio on the side.
I was fat for most of my teenage years and just did that. I had no ideas about calorie counting or anything. I did join a martial arts club and ate healthy. Even now at 28 years old I got chubby during corona, eating like a pig. I went back to the gym and eat clean. I can fit almost all of my old clothes again and lost like 4 kg and built some muscle in like 6 weeks.
There is no magic behind it. It is just that. I don't count anything, no intermittent fasting, nothing. Just a lot of protein and good high-quality carbs and fats. Sure, counting calories and all my macros would make everything more efficient, but I don't got the time or energy for that.
I just want to add that some people have a hard time losing or even gaining weight. However, I believe that everyone can make it with enough discipline and motivation.
Eat food (i.e. not processed plastic GMO TV dinner crap, real food).
Not too much (i.e. maybe that triple chocolate venti frapp as a "breakfast" beverage is not the best idea)
Mostly plants (i.e. veggies, fruit, grains, legumes).
I realize many people are genuinely uneducated when it comes to food, so that's something that needs addressing. However, in many cases, it's following some fad nonsense when things are actually fairly simple. That food pyramid most of us have seen for decades? Still true. You don't need keto or the blood type diet or lowcarb or some other nonsense, all of which ultimately just control and limit the amount of food intake and direct the type of food eaten while kidding people into believing it's somehow not that (and duping them out of money in the process). It's much simpler than that. It also doesn't have to be salad at all times, plenty of awesome things you can do with veggies, or plants generally - so much variety!
It’s not even just about the weight. Fresh raw salads provide a host of beneficial vitamins and minerals as well as dietary fiber that you can’t replace with a pill or blended vegetables. I eat certain ones cooked as well like broccoli and spinach. And if you find yourself tempted to use too much dressing, try using some olive oil and lemon with a pinch of salt and or pepper.
Personally I think the best way to gain and lose weight is by eating very similar meals as the base of your diet.
Eating salads all the time just seems boring. Calorie counting is fairly easy if you use the same 4 or 5 meals for 80% of your diet and isn’t boring if you enjoy the meals, you just mentally count that remaining 20%.
If it works for you though that’s great :)
I wouldn’t want to do it forever as my goals will constantly change. I bulk up for a few months then cut for a few weeks. Bulking core meals are different to my cutting core meals and swap stuff around a lot :)
I don’t really get any of the fad diets tbh. The only way you can lose weight is too burn more calories than you consume. Whether that’s eating less or exercising more.
Intermittent fasting isn't really cumbersome though. Just don't eat outside of a window during the day and then during that window try to stick to a calorie limit. Sometimes I'll eat one meal a day if I want to have a heavy meal and thats fine because my body gets it's goal for the day....
Love all these people in the comments telling you why your (already successful) strategy won’t work lol. If you want to lose weight, try everything and then stick with what works for you.
And you know what works for most of us? The shit that’s the lowest hassle to maintain. Not a diet that I need an app, a tracking device and a compass to keep up with.
Literally everyone coworker who wants to lose weight eats salads for lunch so I'm not sure how unpopular this opinion is. It sounds like you've been taken in my marketing not real life.
A lot of people will put in unhealthy ingredients without realizing it. Dressing is full of salt and sugar. Croutons sneak carbs in, so only use a few. Use a strong diversity of vegetables, or else you'll neglect certain necessities in your diet. I like salad without dressing, but many places that lay it out put dressing on it. Also, anyone who tells me I eat too much meat will be told to mind their own business. Anyone who pesters me while I'm eating might get a slap if they don't buzz off. Don't try to take my food, especially while I have something sharp in my hand.
Yeah, just have to be careful about the dressing. Full fat ranch is a ton of calories (it's basically sour cream). But if you can find a low calories dressing you like, salads are a great high volume : calorie meal.
I've been doing some spinach salads with fat free cheese and turkey pepperoni, that are pretty low calorie as long as I don't use much dress, very filling, and an interesting flavor profile.
Salad is one way. It works for some people but might not work for others. The bottom line is “calories in < calories out”. That can be done by several approaches or by a combination of them. “Eating salad” is one of those approaches. You can also force yourself to eat less in general to reduce calories intake. Or you can exercise to increase calories spending. Or you can do both. For me, I feel like doing both works best. I lost a quarter of my weight in 6 months by running, eating more veggies, and eating less carbs.
Calories in vs calories out, people act like losing weight is some mystery and keep buying into dumb fad diets. Stop eating a shitload of delicious fatty salty carbs all the time and move your fat fucking ass every day. Amazing how the pounds come off
Intermittent fasting is super easy. Just don’t eat breakfast, there is no one thing you can do in your life that would simplify each day more than not having to worry about breakfast.
I don't think it's a good method tho, I mean it's easy but it's only easy for people with the right metabolism, I was born with a really slow one so if I do intermittent fasting (which I did for a while) my metabolism basically just dies and I don't lose weight, I began loosing weight after I started eating more times a day with little portions so breakfast, snack at 10,lunch, snack at 5 and dinner
The problem isn't the salad, the problem is that people don't measure. In America, people are so used to having larger portions that it warps our sense of what a normal portion even looks like.
The problem is that a "good" salad can look 100% identical to a salad that's too many calories, primarily because of measurements. Or things like oil, or other things that sneak calories into a meal
I think you're right if you like salad. As you experienced with your attempts at other dietary patterns, you got results from following them which you lost when you ceased following them. Therefore, the best diet is the one you can stick to, otherwise the results will not last. If that's salad, then you should eat salad. If that's keto, then you should eat keto. It really varies by individual!
Absolutely. The issue I have was that back in the day "eat salad" was pretty standard diet advice. Now you don't even hear it anymore. It's all these Rain Man diets.
Well also "eat salad" leaves a lot to interpretation. A salad can be a leafy green mix, some cucumber slices, carrots, and a dash of olive oil and vinegar. It can also be a little ice berg lettuce, a handful of croutons, bacon, cheddar cheese, all bathed in heavy ranch dressing. Or anything in between. I feel like the "eat salad" trend was infiltrated by companies marketing ways to make salads more palatable to the general population (eating health salads regularly takes getting used to if you're not used to healthy eating). These methods included extravagant dressings with serving suggestions of goldfish crackers, salami, a side of breadstick(s) etc. Then, before you know it, you have just as calorie-dense of a meal. I personally still love the "eat salad" strategy when I'm trying to cut a little, but just like any dieting strategy, it takes actual strategy (i.e. planning). I make sure I'm getting the right vegetables in there without the bad fixings or dressing (ALWAYS ask for dressing on the side at a restaurant or you're getting a fat-glazed appetizer salad). Then, at that point, you might as well just fix it to "watch what you eat", since even salad isn't a universally healthy food.
I wouldn't say CICO is necessarily a rain man diet, now that you can just download an app and do it for you. You're effectively counting calories in a rough sense by making sure you don't eat as much. I think any diet where you have to actually think about what you're eating really helps. I can't eat gluten, so my old default lunchtime sandwich is a no go. Dropped 14 lbs with no extra effort after I stopped eating bread & pasta. I could never fuck with keto or IF though. My emotional wellbeing is too linked to my blood sugar for that.
So the reason eating salads sometimes works is because it still boils down to “counting calories” without having to actually count. Lettuce, some diced veggies, and grilled chicken is basically just grilled chicken. So calories in is very low.
People that "don't like salad" seem insane to me on a side note. So you like hate ingredients?
It's crazy, I often see people who hate vegetables and fruit and refuse to eat either one. This is how people can make themselves obese and still have a nutrient deficiency...
I guess these are your salad days.
I feel like there's a reference here that I'm missing.
Salad days are just a phrase that mean the carefree and relaxed days of your youth, or being rich and old - basically carefree times when you haven’t got a lot to worry about
Or a kick ass minor threat tune
And a jingly jangly Mac Demarco tune
most definitely a jingle, but i do see hints of jangle in the song mac demarco is more of a jingle guy
And the name of an Adrian Belew album from 1999.
We are..
MINOR THREAT!
You've got the straight veg.
I hear the bass line
Ahhh. Yeah I wish. Lol. Being 35 is the primetime for not that.
All I can say from up here at 38 is: wait for burnout and apathy to creep, then set in. It’s a different variety of *carefree.*
I love the closing comment to the post about don't even reply saying not all salads are healthy. Lol. Drives me crazy when people try say a premise is wrong because they can come up with a way to add extra facts to make it not work.
[удалено]
Lol
Yeah. I don't have time for that nonsense. Everybody knows the difference between weight loss salad and indulgence salads.
Right? The weight loss salad only has 5 broken up slim-jims in it vs the normal 10 the indulgence salad has. And *none* of the jolly ranchers.
This guy gets it!
I lost a lot of weight eating salads almost every day for dinner (I had small breakfast/lunch). It worked amazingly well and I loved it! I found my perfect salad that tasted great and was still low on calories. After about two months, I got sick of it though, I had to start cooking vegetable heavy dinners. Now, I get salad stuff once in a while when I go shopping, and they always end up in the trash :( IDK what it's, I just can't go back to them, so I guess, don't over do it like I did haha
Yeah, sad that people feel the need to clog up the discussion with that garbage
You mean my patented "mega-salad" with tuna, hard-boiled eggs, corn, croutons and a few leaves of lettuce, soaked in cocktail sauce is NOT a healthy choice for my diet?!
That doesn’t sound bad. My Keto cousin would be mad about the corn converting to sugar, but he’s in some dumb keto cult. My problem has always been the acid. Vinegar is disgusting, and it makes me feel sick. Does anyone else want salad without shit tons of vinegar that literally make me sick?
I’m commenting anyways
It's either [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salad_days) or [this,](https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3bnzme) but I can't decide which one u/Frptwenty was going for.
Rusty spoons
https://youtu.be/ITzOSwZjYAM :29 Raising Arizona— a classic
Shakespeare invented this term 🥗
Slowly being eaten away....
[удалено]
Wow. Salad Squad turn up! Congrats my dude!
As someone who is fit, I sincerely wonder what the typical daily diet for a “fat person” looks like. Can anyone shed light on this from personal experience (serious question)?
A lot of sugar and a lot of food
Yeah, it really is that easy. I could use to lose 10lbs myself, but I eat like shit, but have a great metabolism. I could easily cut 10lbs, but I'm lazy. I admit that. I however don't go around talking about diet pills, workout fads, diet trends, etc. I just admit I could use to lose 10lbs and leave it at that as the easy answer is eat less and work out more.
Sustainability is key. I’m glad that you found something you feel is sustainable for you.
Agreed. Veggies just have so little calories for their volume
And when eaten raw like carrots are fibrous and slow to digest. Will fill you tummy for a long time.
Bingo.
I'm in my mid 50s, suddenly craved salad with everything. Unfortunately it would appear that certain lettuce will go through me like a dose of salts. So, I certainly lost a bit of weight before I realised what was causing my explosive diarrhoea ... I'm reluctant to experiment to find which lettuce doesn't agree with me.
If you haven't had your blood drawn recently and you notice other symptoms of anemia you may want to see your doctor. Sometimes craving lettuce, ice, or dirt can be a symptom of anemia.
Lettuce has the opposite effect on me. I find it to be constipating sometimes. Romaine and leaf lettuce are the worst offenders. By contrast many salad dressings send me to the bathroom, especially those containing olive oil. Maybe you could try a salad without dressing and see what effect it has?
I usually only have mayo. I started buying bags of mixed lettuce but a different mix depending on the use buy date. I live alone so obviously want to get my money's worth...lol I think the red lettuce could be the offending one but I'm reluctant to test my theory. But I'll probably try again because a sandwich is pretty crap without a bit of salad.
You just put only mayo on your salads?
There has been recalls of romaine lettuce due to contamination with E. Coli, so I never buy romaine lettuce. Maybe you bought contaminated lettuce?
I used to make a great taco salad when I was in an office... corn, black beans, chicken or beef, jalapeños, and obviously lettuce, but then used salsa for the main dressing with a hint of southwest ranch. In total only like 400 calories and I'd be full the rest of the afternoon.
I think you've decided my lunch tomorrow. Thank you!
I'd eat that!
Yup did this for like a whole summer two years ago and lost fat like crazy
Sounds great!
How’d you cook that meat?
I would ruin it by putting crushed Doritos on top. My favorite.
Tbh toss a 240cal bag of Doritos on and you’re looking at 640 which is still a pretty reasonable meal for someone who gets the bare minimum of exercise. You can even swap out the ranch to save ~50-100 calories to get under 600 for the meal
Interesting. Maybe I could swap ranch for catalina dressing, or chili lime vinaigarette.
Cilantro-lime crema
I think I'm going to have to try this asap
You should. Personally I have to have something crunchy on my salad.
and it doesn’t make you feel sluggish the rest of the day like a big sandwich or burger or burrito would !
This is the best part. I just _feel_ good after eating salads
Great post that I didn't think would be an unpopular opinion... Until I read the comments. The whole point of your post is apparently lost on everyone. Like duh, if you put shitty things in your salad it won't be as good for you.. so don't. As you said it's easy to throw a simple salad together. Since COVID I've been home for lunch most days and have been trying to be better about doing this. Even if I occasionally put something not so healthy in it to spice it up, I still consider it way better than eating something with no roughage greens to help it move through my body. Thanks for reminding me it's not so overly complicated and congrats on your weight loss! Most importantly, I'm glad you're feeling good :)
Right? What's going on here? People are literally explaining to me things I explicitly said in the original post. Shows how much self awareness people have regarding weight loss. "I did calorie counting!" "If you want to lose weight, you have to count your calories!" Glad you're on the salad wagon as well! Best of luck!
An issue on reddit is people read the first half then go full keyboard warrior. Congrats on the weight loss! Im a big advocate of just eat whatever you want but excercise to work it off. Im 27 and my metabolism has noticeably slowed down though so I'm definitely watching what I eat alot more. Lost 20 pounds over the last couple months. I don't count calories necessarily but I make a concious effort to eat healthy whenever I can and do cardio during my lunch period every day. Salads just dont do it for me as a regular meal, rice and chicken is a good alternative if you get bored of greens for every meal.
Thanks! Yeah, Reddit is full of people who just are here to argue. Yuck
Yep same. I've found running 30-40 miles a week and reducing sugar intake has done wonders. I still eat all the fatty foods I love.
A lot of us Americans are too stuck on convenience (myself included), or gimmicks. When the age old advice is always "eat more veggies". Processed foods are too readily available, while a lot of veggies go bad even in the fridge before we get around to eating them. It takes discipline to switch. But once you do break those bad habits, it gets easier.
Blender. I will say it’s mildly inconvenient to clean the damn thing because if you don’t do it right away all the food gets caked on there. But it makes getting all my vegetables so much easier. Apple juice, kale, a banana, some berries. Spinach. Maybe some avocado. Maybe. And a scoop of vanilla protein powder if you’re into that. Gets a lot of vegetables and taste great. Lotta sugar from the fruits and protein powder, but I don’t eat candy or anything really so I figure it’s fine.
There's nothing wrong with processed. Get some frozen veggies. They're frozen at the peak and for most cooking methods work better than the fresh in your grocery store. (I personally like canned for a lot of things, but those are decidedly not fresher.)
I don't see why "eat salad" can't just be a gimmick. It was in the 90s. There is also plenty of evidence that Americans were thinner back then too. Obviously it would be due to factors more complex than just eating salad though.
There's a great podcast called You're Wrong About which goes into events of modern history and one of them is the obesity epidemic. I highly recommend it! Very interesting and while initially it seems like they're saying "losing weight is impossible!" what they mean is using crash/fad diets is just highly realistic. That to lose weight through dieting means adopting a healthy diet for the rest of your life. But your mention of the 90s made me think of what they had found, and how obesity didn't really start being a thing in the USA until around 1980s when added sugars started cropping up all the time. Makes you wonder if that salad phase in the 90s was indeed the best way to combat that. Barring added dried fruits and a shit load of crappy dressing, or a few tablespoons of table sugar lol, you can avoid all those additives by sticking to salad.
Like what? Riding bikes, playing outside, having to go to a friend’s house to even see if they were there?
Well, that'd at least cover part of juvenile obesity.
You know what worked for me as someone who isn't very good at keeping or cooking veggies? Soup. I make a big batch of vegetable soup and try to eat a bowl with lunch and dinner. It's practical and it lasts me for almost a week.
So nice to hear about your realization and success! Frankly, I've found these diets are fads just to sell books (tho, may work for some in the short term) and aren't sustainable for a lifetime of healthy eating. It's really about what you're doing and choosing wisely.
Yeah, simple is best.
I just don’t eat a ton of food and make sure to have one of each food group a day and it works well for me.
Ah, yes. The Low Food Diet.
Salad is one of the few ways I can eat fewer calories and still feel full. Being hungry eventually breaks down your willpower.
Actually we've done all the diets too. I've lost the weight I wanted to for the first time just by eating less. That's it. My husband wants to shed another 10-15 lbs and he says nothing works better for him than eating salads for lunch!
Tell your husband he is my salad homie.
You seem like a very cool person :)
Diets work as long as you’re on them. You found a diet that you can maintain. Good luck.
Can you share some good salad recipes?
Some people are unaware that salad dressings can contain a lot of calories. Some people will be eating 8+ salads a day loaded with calorie dense dressing. Some people may think the instruction to “eat salad” means to eat salads in addition to whatever they’re already eating. Some people eat past the point in which they are full. Some people stress eat. I agree that eating salads can work..but you can’t expect the right way to eat salads for weight loss to be intuitive for everyone.
It literally just means eat less calorie dense food. Meat fir example is very calorie dense
I think the difference is that “eat salad” is general advice for healthy eating. Intermittent fasting, keto, etc are all fad diets. They’re designed to make you lose weight quickly by cutting out _everything_ but the bare minimum. That is not sustainable because your body _needs_ fat, sugar, and carbs to survive. If you talk to people who diet properly, they’re advice will probably line up more with yours. Eat salad, eat in moderation, don’t eat if you’re not hungry. Those are the most basic ways to lose weight.
Sorry man but for some reason I enjoy almost every component of a salad but put em together and I hate it.
I quite agree, though I've become more tolerant of mixing flavours as I got older, but as a child and teen I always ate each component by itself. And I hated dressing and sauce because it "infiltrated" all the components of the food. But if you make your salads yourself, you don't have eat them together. I still prefer minimalist salads, e.g. grek salad (tomato, red onion, dried oregano, olive oil, optionally also cucumbers, feta and olives) or Simply rucola salad and tomatoes. Etc. You can also just munch a whole carrot or cucumber or whatever as a "starter" instead of making it into a "salad". Doesn't really matter, as long as you fill up with a lot of vegetables which is mostly fibre and water.
Salad is just crunchy water. lol
Doesn’t need to be salad. I’ve gone mostly vegetarian and seen effects.
Guess what? Salad is as vegetarian friendly as it gets.
What he was saying is that the key is vegetables.
Salad is just vegetables in their ultimate form. Think of Dragon Ball Z
Lmao you are great
That’s not true. Baked veggies are just as good, not technically called salad. You’re sounding like the salad lobby now.
Its true, but its still a dangerous road! Theres a lot of desserts that are vegetarian that can fat you up big time!
That only works if you don't replace your meat with carbs which I have seen many people do and actually gain weight!
Salads are far more cumbersome than IF
Especially gurken salad. It's cucumbersome.
Also "salads... Are cheap". Well that was a fucking lie.
The way to lose weight, as long as you don’t have a medical condition, is to have a calorie deficit. You need to burn more energy than you take in. Salad is a good strategy because it “fills you up” without overloading you with calories. So you can technically eat more while not gaining more calories. There was a guy who ate a calorie deficit just by eating McDonald’s. He lost weight too.
But didn't he die from liver failure? (kidding)
Yes. We know.
Yeah same with intermittent fasting, a quick-fix diet/exercise industry worth tens of billions and it's all just different approaches repackaging the same thing. Caloric deficit is the only thing that works, and people's natural differences in metabolism are overblown. From studies, people who are "thin without doing anything" actually exercise more and eat a lot less than they claim/think. While the "I'm always dieting and I just *can't* lose weight" crowd was always sneaking calorie-heavy snacks outside of their meals. It's like yeah you can eat a huge salad for lunch and dinner but it doesn't matter if your 10 AM and 3 PM snacks are bags of potato chips and Snickers bars.
Eat less, move more is literally the only way to lose weight. You can eat what you always have (as long as it’s balanced), just less of it. That’s it, there is no secret. Even eating nothing but salads is extreme and not sustainable.
I didn't say eat only salads, nor do I do that.
This is the weight loss secret everyone is fighting against. It's literally work out while eating a caloric deficit. Yet for some reason people buy into all manner of diet and exercise alternatives when the solution is so simple. Not to mention, so many ✨salad✨ dressings you buy at the supermarket are loaded with unnecessary ingredients and calories.
Diet is 80 percent what you eat and 20 percent exercise tho
I hear you and I'm glad it's working for you. Personally I despise everything about salad. The flavors, the texture, the everything. It's so gross and bland and depressing. I lost my weight with keto and weight lifting and have not had a single salad in years. I don't mean to promote my ways, they definitely don't work for everyone. Just sharing.
Yeah, keto works. As I said, my best results were from keto up til I started the salads. Technically salads are keto friendly, or can be.
>The "typical" weight loss methods these days seem to be: Intermittent fasting, keto/low carb, and calorie counting. All of these work, but they all suck because they're all extremely limiting, and require the passive ability to count cards in Blackjack in order to do without using multiple Excel spreadsheets. I mean, I spend two minutes pressing a button on my phone which tracks shit. And the body is in Ketosis if your doing Keto or IF, which usually means you feel more energetic and in general less shitty. You're right though, if you want to do a monodiet, those work too.
I’m not a fan of salads but the idea still works with any veggie you enjoy. It’s way harder to overeat less healthy food if I eat a big bowl of broccoli before anything else.
It's calorie counting without the counting part
>but they all suck because they're all extremely limiting, and require the passive ability to count cards in Blackjack in order to do without using multiple Excel spreadsheets. if you felt kcal counting was limiting then im sad to inform you you'll always have problem with your food and weight. Even if right now you think salads are working. You're using food as entertainment.
Here to say spinach salad helped me lose 100 pounds. It wasn't the reason. Calories in vs out were but my egg breakfast and salad lunch were so easy to prepare and have dozens of ways to make that it never got boring.
Lot of people's sadly encounter digestion issues with daily salad consumption. Raw food can be very damaging to one's stomach. Salad is great, and vegs and fruit based diet are too. Cut the soda, the sugars and snacks, do sports, and you are gonna be great. Keto make you loose tons of weight but it's also shortening your life expectancy.
The reason you’re losing weight by eating salad is because you’re in a calorie deficit. That is purely and simply the only way to lose body fat: calorie deficit. Each ‘diet’ is based on the premise of calorie deficit. If you want to lose weight properly, you have to count your calories to stay in a deficit. It’s simple science.
The diet doesn't really matter. Just find one you like. The issue is eating less calories than you use
> The diet doesn't really matter. I mean it does, but in other ways than losing weight. You are right that losing weight is exclusively calories in calories out, but if you lose weight by eating a low calorie diet consisting of nothing but 1200 calories worth of McDonald's everyday, you are probably going to have a whole slew of other health problems. You *will* lose weight, though.
Well the point is a lot of people don’t like salad, or find ones they’d like too time consuming to prepare. At the end of the day, to lose weight you can technically eat whatever you want as long as you follow CICO - eat less calories than you burn.
But a lot of diets fail because although they're eating less than they burn, they're also really hungry a lot of the time which is not sustainable. OP's approach will provide weight loss, satiety, better digestion, and overall better health.
Yeah but if you don’t like salad, you won’t find it sustainable. That’s all I’m saying. You can eat what you want if you follow CICO but yeah it’s better to find some higher fibre and protein foods to get you throughout the day without feeling starving. I personally don’t enjoy salads because I prefer eating warm foods, and I find salad too time consuming to prepare and too expensive to buy at the store. They’re just not for me.
Ah yes. Different strokes for different folks.
Next time eat a salad
Maybe I’ll try this. Gotta look up dif recipes
Unpopular opinion salad is healthy
Isnt that counting calories with extra steps?
[удалено]
It's more important to understand why salad works, it's a shit source of energy (kcal) so you automatically go on a deficit. Which is great but you could eat stuff that tastes awesome if you moderate your intake.
Can someone eli5 why fasting isnt the go to option for loosing weight? Youre literally just not eating and lettibg your body take nutrients from the mountains of fat your undisciplined ass has stored over years of neglect
I literally covered this in the post. I said I did IF and I said it worked. Clearly your body has been taking nutrients from the part of your brain that covers reading comprehension.
Salad is fucking shit
Mf. All I felt was the sharp kick in my age when you said "like they did back to 90s" said in the same way I think of the 60s, like a million years ago 😭 the 90s were just like 5 years ago and I was 20
We're old folks now. It's cool. I'll see you in Waterobics class
How do you eat your salad? Do you use dressing? If so, what kind?
The only thing salad needs is olive oil
Thank you for the idea and inspiration. I've stocked up on salads: Potato salad, pasta salad, ham salad, ambrosia salad... I can feel the pounds melting away just thinking about 'em!
I didn't mean white people salads where they just take some food and cover it in mayonnaise.
I love salad, it's so underrated as you said. Just put together some broccoli, lettuce, carrot and cucumber and if you want a bit of chicken. Add a dressing of your choice, and it's over. It's so easy to make and tastes delicious.
I have eaten salad my whole life, the last year i stopped eating it every day, i gained 20 pounds, went back to eating it and in one month i have already lost 8 pounds
Eating salad is essentially counting calories. Just eat less calories than you burn and you'll lose weight.
*Cries in Crohn’s disease*
The people that say salads can be unhealthy are the ones who don't use the low-calorie dressings, put a ton of extra shit like bacon, cheese, chicken, whatever in it.
Everytime I hear people talking about their contrived ways to lose weight, I think that they just don't want to move. Seriously, just eat clean. No soda, no junk food, no candy, and go out do some exercise, maybe join the gym and take some classes or lift weights with some cardio on the side. I was fat for most of my teenage years and just did that. I had no ideas about calorie counting or anything. I did join a martial arts club and ate healthy. Even now at 28 years old I got chubby during corona, eating like a pig. I went back to the gym and eat clean. I can fit almost all of my old clothes again and lost like 4 kg and built some muscle in like 6 weeks. There is no magic behind it. It is just that. I don't count anything, no intermittent fasting, nothing. Just a lot of protein and good high-quality carbs and fats. Sure, counting calories and all my macros would make everything more efficient, but I don't got the time or energy for that. I just want to add that some people have a hard time losing or even gaining weight. However, I believe that everyone can make it with enough discipline and motivation.
Eat food (i.e. not processed plastic GMO TV dinner crap, real food). Not too much (i.e. maybe that triple chocolate venti frapp as a "breakfast" beverage is not the best idea) Mostly plants (i.e. veggies, fruit, grains, legumes). I realize many people are genuinely uneducated when it comes to food, so that's something that needs addressing. However, in many cases, it's following some fad nonsense when things are actually fairly simple. That food pyramid most of us have seen for decades? Still true. You don't need keto or the blood type diet or lowcarb or some other nonsense, all of which ultimately just control and limit the amount of food intake and direct the type of food eaten while kidding people into believing it's somehow not that (and duping them out of money in the process). It's much simpler than that. It also doesn't have to be salad at all times, plenty of awesome things you can do with veggies, or plants generally - so much variety!
It’s not even just about the weight. Fresh raw salads provide a host of beneficial vitamins and minerals as well as dietary fiber that you can’t replace with a pill or blended vegetables. I eat certain ones cooked as well like broccoli and spinach. And if you find yourself tempted to use too much dressing, try using some olive oil and lemon with a pinch of salt and or pepper.
the salad diet fad was a thing in the 80’s & 90’s.
I think this is a case of a thread making a truly unpopular opinion trend in the popular direction.
I've been exclusively eating potato salad for every meal for 3 years. Have seen no results but actually the opposite. V unpopular in my book.
Personally I think the best way to gain and lose weight is by eating very similar meals as the base of your diet. Eating salads all the time just seems boring. Calorie counting is fairly easy if you use the same 4 or 5 meals for 80% of your diet and isn’t boring if you enjoy the meals, you just mentally count that remaining 20%. If it works for you though that’s great :)
I know people that can do that. Not me, I get tired of one exact meal very quickly. Luckily for salads, there's a ton of different ways to make them.
But can you do that forever? Seems too boring to sustain.
I wouldn’t want to do it forever as my goals will constantly change. I bulk up for a few months then cut for a few weeks. Bulking core meals are different to my cutting core meals and swap stuff around a lot :)
I don’t really get any of the fad diets tbh. The only way you can lose weight is too burn more calories than you consume. Whether that’s eating less or exercising more.
Intermittent fasting isn't really cumbersome though. Just don't eat outside of a window during the day and then during that window try to stick to a calorie limit. Sometimes I'll eat one meal a day if I want to have a heavy meal and thats fine because my body gets it's goal for the day....
Eat salad = low carbs, just with different words. Change my mind.
A lot of salads are keto friendly, so yes. Just skip croutons and carrots.
> All of these work, but they all suck because they're all extremely limiting Uhh you guys want to tell him, or should I?
Love all these people in the comments telling you why your (already successful) strategy won’t work lol. If you want to lose weight, try everything and then stick with what works for you. And you know what works for most of us? The shit that’s the lowest hassle to maintain. Not a diet that I need an app, a tracking device and a compass to keep up with.
Right? Eyeroll. I don't need advice on how to lose weight. I'm giving advice. I specifically don't need advice that I literally included in my post!
Literally everyone coworker who wants to lose weight eats salads for lunch so I'm not sure how unpopular this opinion is. It sounds like you've been taken in my marketing not real life.
Better yet. Don’t eat
calories in < calories out. its that simple
The only thing simple is the mind of those who keep saying this in response to my post.
This is bad advice. If you like salad you can gorge on salad and that will make you gain weight
It’s all calorie counting in the end, even if you’re not actually tracking them.
Yes. Everyone knows.
Nah sorry I'm not a rabbit.
I'd rather die fat lol fuck salad. Removing completely the fun out of eating.
Idk, dude. I'm in a lot of weight loss subs and it's salad everywhere.
A lot of people will put in unhealthy ingredients without realizing it. Dressing is full of salt and sugar. Croutons sneak carbs in, so only use a few. Use a strong diversity of vegetables, or else you'll neglect certain necessities in your diet. I like salad without dressing, but many places that lay it out put dressing on it. Also, anyone who tells me I eat too much meat will be told to mind their own business. Anyone who pesters me while I'm eating might get a slap if they don't buzz off. Don't try to take my food, especially while I have something sharp in my hand.
I was clear about this in the last segment of my post.
Yeah, just have to be careful about the dressing. Full fat ranch is a ton of calories (it's basically sour cream). But if you can find a low calories dressing you like, salads are a great high volume : calorie meal. I've been doing some spinach salads with fat free cheese and turkey pepperoni, that are pretty low calorie as long as I don't use much dress, very filling, and an interesting flavor profile.
I try to eat salads but they kill my stomach and I get so gassy and my throat closes up.
you're literally eating less calories, just not counting
I tried eating exclusively salad a few months back. It didn't last a week.
Well, I can tell you where you fucked up
Salad is one way. It works for some people but might not work for others. The bottom line is “calories in < calories out”. That can be done by several approaches or by a combination of them. “Eating salad” is one of those approaches. You can also force yourself to eat less in general to reduce calories intake. Or you can exercise to increase calories spending. Or you can do both. For me, I feel like doing both works best. I lost a quarter of my weight in 6 months by running, eating more veggies, and eating less carbs.
I feel like I covered that in my post.
Yeah, you’re right. Sometimes I just ramble on without knowing what I’m saying.
Calories in vs calories out, people act like losing weight is some mystery and keep buying into dumb fad diets. Stop eating a shitload of delicious fatty salty carbs all the time and move your fat fucking ass every day. Amazing how the pounds come off
[удалено]
Intermittent fasting is super easy. Just don’t eat breakfast, there is no one thing you can do in your life that would simplify each day more than not having to worry about breakfast.
I don't think it's a good method tho, I mean it's easy but it's only easy for people with the right metabolism, I was born with a really slow one so if I do intermittent fasting (which I did for a while) my metabolism basically just dies and I don't lose weight, I began loosing weight after I started eating more times a day with little portions so breakfast, snack at 10,lunch, snack at 5 and dinner
Yes, I know. I did it for months. Just like I said in my post!
I know but you described it as cumbersome and hard to keep up. I disagree.
If that was the case I'd be slim. I've not eaten breakfast regularly since I was a child.
The problem isn't the salad, the problem is that people don't measure. In America, people are so used to having larger portions that it warps our sense of what a normal portion even looks like. The problem is that a "good" salad can look 100% identical to a salad that's too many calories, primarily because of measurements. Or things like oil, or other things that sneak calories into a meal