Salads Do The Dip

You may think this is an odd action plan. However, we’ve found that people don’t realize how calories can secretly creep up very innocently.  The fat of dressings and oils adds up quickly and can sabotage your weight control plan quicker than you can say, “I’ll have Ranch -please.”

Have you ever heard anyone or maybe you’ve said this yourself…”I don’t know why I can’t seem to lose weight- that’s all I do is eat salads.”

Well, It’s not the salad that packs on the pounds – IT’S THE DRESSING!! A regular size salad with lettuce, carrots and a few tomatoes only has 35 calories. The dressing, which is oil based, has about 120 calories per tablespoon. It doesn't matter if its Ranch, Blue Cheese, Thousand Island or Italian dressing --they all have 120 calories per tablespoon because of the oil.

Now, who can stop at one tablespoon?  Let’s do the math. It’s safe to say, that it’s very simple to pour on the dressing and get as many as four or five tablespoons of dressing on your salad. 

5 X 120 calories=600 CALORIES with almost 100 percent coming from fat! It would take you an hour and a half on a treadmill to burn those calories off.

That once low calorie choice has now become a very HIGH FAT choice, and will most assuredly sabotage your lean eating plan. Given that the average serving of dressing on a salad at a restaurant is a quarter cup, you stand to spare yourself over 40 pounds of body fat over the next 10 years.  And that’s if you’re only eating one salad per week! 

What do you do? DO THE DIP! You still want the taste –you still want the pleasure of eating your salad –right? Put your salad dressing on the side, dip your fork in the dressing, then spear your salad with the fork and then eat.  It’s that simple. You still get the same taste. You will cut out 95 % of those unwanted calories and still enjoy your meal. You can do this with any type of sauce or gravy. Bon Appetite!