Another idea. How do you feel about salads without lettuce? We do a lot of cucumber and tomato salads. I use either VERY thinly sliced cucumber, or sliced tomato, sprinkle on a little salt, then add balsamic vinegar and let it soak for about 10 minutes, toss, then serve. My husband loves it, too. You can also do cucumber and tomato together, and you can try out other flavored vinegars. Plain white vinegar is not so good (not bad, just boring), but pomegranate vinegar, red wine vinegar... lots of choices out there! Vinegar has very little fat and calories. For some reason straight vinegar on a lettuce based salad with no oil or anything is very unimpressive to me, but I do love other cucumbers and tomatoes with just vinegar!
You could also do a Greek salad. You say you're not a big fan of oil and vinegar dressings, but what about for a Greek salad, where oil and vinegar is the standard dressing? When we have Greek salad, I just toss together lettuce, sliced tomato, sliced cucumber, sliced bell pepper, Greek olives, and some feta cheese, then we top our own plates with olive oil and red wine vinegar. So yummy! Of course you'll need to watch how much oil, olives, and cheese you use, but those are all good things and I don't feel the need for much olive oil on Greek salad.
As for sweets, I don't have that much of a sweet tooth, but if I want something sweet and fruit doesn't cut it, I do have a little treat. One (small) square of chocolate, or 5 M&Ms, or 3 of the new Mini Starbursts. I let myself have a sweet treat once a day if I want, and that usually ends up being about a third or half of the days.
Another idea. How do you feel about salads without lettuce? We do a lot of cucumber and tomato salads. I use either VERY thinly sliced cucumber, or sliced tomato, sprinkle on a little salt, then add balsamic vinegar and let it soak for about 10 minutes, toss, then serve.
I am doing this more and more. I still have some argula and spinach but in place of a lot of greens I am eating kimchi and seaweed. Delicious.
Lettuce is just one salad ingredient. I eat salads without lettuce all the time, including tonight which was a lentil and beetroot and cooked green beans salad with some cheese in it. It was a big meal actually.
I am doing this more and more. I still have some argula and spinach but in place of a lot of greens I am eating kimchi and seaweed. Delicious.
Seaweed salads and kimchi are two of my favorite ways to eat salads. So delicious and really good for you as well!
As for condiments, I am trying to be better but I am a girl who loves her mayonnaise. I always argue, "mayo is low carb! Pile it on!" And I know I need to be better; been trying more mustards and horseradish/wasabi mixes. Same goes with salad dressings; love ranch, blue cheese, etc. I've been trying more oils (like avocado or coconut) and vinigars and it's alright!
Even if you were to eat a whole large avocado that's like 350cal, I'd rather spend the calories on that instead of croutons.
heheheh, totally agree, especially since I have to eat gluten free, but right now when I am sooo close to goal the 350 cal avocados might make the difference. I've never been a goopy condiment person anyhow. I didn't even like drippy or messy stuff when I was a kid. I've always done the 'dip your fork then spear the salad' style too; most dressings can overpower the delicate flavours of some salads.
Liana
I like mayo, so I go with the fat free. I love Ketchup! I eat it, but a serving or so, only a few times a week. Mostly because my food choices, don't call for it.
Mustard, yay! Comes in all kinds of flavors.
Horse radish, I use, but careful. I get home grown from a friend. It could be used by the military, it's so potent.
Home made dressings and dips, are actually not that hard to make and or invent, depending on your taste, just takes some experimenting.
If you have to have the full fat version, make your salad or whatever, and take a small portion, put the whole thing in a big bowl with a lid and shake the heck out of it to spread the dressing around. You'd be surprised how far a little will go, if you shake it up!
So just for the heck of it, today I tried eating salad with a dressing that was a thinner consistency than I'm used to (Italian dressing) could not stand it. Then tried vinegar/evoo blend thing I have, still didn't like it, so then I struggled to eat down this weird liquid-y salad I had lol but yeah lesson learned!!
I felt so unsatisfied and kept craving stuff so I think I'm going to try making dressings with greek yogurt and see how that pans out. Or I'm going to reduce to regular fat dressings to the bare minimum and get used to it. I got used to a lot of things, so this shouldn't be too hard right?!
Thank you all for the suggestions! You guys are fantastic! (and wow some of the stuff you guys eat sound amazing!! I feel like I'm missing out )
I'm crazy about condiments and usually leave some space for them each day. I've tried to cut out some but honestly I love them so much I couldn't ever get rid of them completely lol
So just for the heck of it, today I tried eating salad with a dressing that was a thinner consistency than I'm used to (Italian dressing) could not stand it. Then tried vinegar/evoo blend thing I have, still didn't like it, so then I struggled to eat down this weird liquid-y salad I had lol but yeah lesson learned!!
I felt so unsatisfied and kept craving stuff so I think I'm going to try making dressings with greek yogurt and see how that pans out. Or I'm going to reduce to regular fat dressings to the bare minimum and get used to it. I got used to a lot of things, so this shouldn't be too hard right?!
Thank you all for the suggestions! You guys are fantastic! (and wow some of the stuff you guys eat sound amazing!! I feel like I'm missing out )
A liquidy salad dressing is something that you can get used to. I'm just saying it to be supportive. It's just a mind set to tell you the truth, in Europe I've never had a salad that has gloopy dressing on it and they survive just fine. I don't know why here in America a salad is not a salad unless it's swimming in cream.
When you make your salad, do you spin your lettuce? After washing it put it in a spinner and get all the water out. Then pat the lettuce with paper towel. This removes all the water. Then the oil can really coat and flavor the lettuce and it won't be so liquidy.
I'm not talking calories here, but I want to address the issue of fat free things. In some cases I can understand the need for low fat dairy items that use skim milk to create them. But there are certain items like fat free cheese, fat free mayo that are not actually food. I mean mayo is like 98% fat!! How can you remove the fat and still have mayo? If you were to make it home made (which you should, it's totally delicious!!) you'd need eggs and oil, and a bit of mustard and vinegar and then you whip it into mayo. Tell me, how do you remove 98% of the ingredients and still have mayo? I'll tell you how, you take out anything that is food like and replace it with crap. And there you go, you got fat free mayo.
Sorry for the rant, fat free mayo brings out the worst in me lol
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