No More Diets

Salad upsets my stomach, what sort of diet do I do?

Nearly all traditional diets prescribe lots of salad. In many ways, it’s the perfect diet food. It has very few calories and quite a lot of bulk - although I do find that without some protein and slow-release carbs with your salad the full feeling tends not to last too long. And you have to be careful with dressings too - if you add more than a tablespoon (15ml) of anything the perfect dieter’s meal turns into a dieter’s nightmare. Salads in restaurants are a particular problem.

Whether it’s a good salad or a bad salad, doesn’t matter to you though. If salad doesn’t agree with you (or you hate salad) don’t eat it!

This probably counts out 90% or more of the diet books on the market which have a rigid meal plan.

I guess, what you’re asking me is what do you eat instead to get the low calorie/high vitamin combination that salads provide. The simplest thing is to replace salad with cooked vegetables (which are gentler on your stomach) and eat a little fruit too so that you get a good helping of vitamins and minerals that the salad would give you without going overboard on the calories.

If you don’t like or can’t eat too many cooked vegetables then you have to get a little creative with them. You may find that you tolerate them better if they are pureed or incorporated into soup or pasta sauce and this can go a long way towards getting your healthy quota of 5 portions for the day.

The thing is you don’t need any particular food or food combination to lose weight - you just have to avoid eating too much of whatever you choose. Particular food groups are essential for good health though and this includes fruit and vegetables. It’s just not necessary to eat them in the form of salad.

I don’t recommend any particular diet - diets are a temporary thing that may work for a time - but weight just piles back on when you return to “normal” eating. I recommend that you gradually change your eating habits step by step until you are eating (and enjoying) modest portions of healthy delicious foods every day (with the occasional splurge on less healthy food, which is good for the soul) and that you eat that way for the rest of your life.

And this works salad or no salad.