Losing weight and trying to be healthy is not the easiest task in the world. It requires changes that need to be made in our lives and daily routines. Besides exercising five days a week, we need to monitor our diets because our caloric intake is what really makes or breaks the weight gain/loss. We’ve all been there where we’ve thought to ourselves, “If I just ate nothing but salads forever, I’d be soo healthy.” Well, I’m here to tell you that I actually did eat salad for every meal for a week, and the results were not what you would imagine. Here is what happened.
The first day is when your motivation is your highest. Of course, the longer you stick to changing your goals your motivation can be maintained. So here I was, eating a salad for breakfast, lunch, dinner and an occasional snack in between. And I felt soo cleansed. Which was the goal right? To feel refreshed and clean on the inside, healthy. Mission accomplished… for now.
The second day of eating salad for every meal was less than ideal. The first day, I still have excess food from before I started this experiment, so I had some fuel to keep me going. I hadn’t had carbs for over 24 hours. And I know with the whole Keto Diet being a popular trend, where you have minimal carb intake to help you lose weight faster, it’s not exactly the healthiest to have no carbs. It turns into energy when you consume them.
No carbs mean getting tired a lot quicker and boy was I tired. Going to work that day was dreadful, but being committed to the experiment, I continued to eat my salad for dinner that night.
This is the day we ALL dread when dieting; the day that we feel hungry. By this point, my body had realized I had decreased my average caloric intake and it wasn’t too happy about that. Even though I ate salad for every meal, it wasn’t enough to satisfy my hunger. Sure, right after I finished my meal I felt satisfied. But after an hour or two, my stomach would grumble like crazy.
Then came the second day we all dread from dieting; being bored eating the same thing! So, I made this commitment that I was going to eat salad for all three of my meals, including snacks, for a week. I was four days in at this point, I wasn’t trying to mess this up for myself. But I was so terribly bored with the same taste every day, all day.
So I decided to turn this into a positive and play around with my salad dressing choices. Instead of balsamic vinegar dressing, which is one of the best for you with no calories what so ever, I went out and got Caeser, Italian, and Thousand Island. We’re they the best choices? Maybe, maybe not. But I was desperate at this point.
The most shameful of them all. I caved. Now before you judge me, because on day four I was all talk about not messing up, being so far along. This wasn’t something I planned on. It started off going to the mall with my friends. I planned ahead, knowing we’d stop to eat at the food court I knew exactly what I was getting from Salad Works.
But then we sat down and one of them had bought my weakness, a chocolate frosty from Wendys. I was drooling. She could sense the pain in my eyes and offered me a bite. My brain started arguing with itself: No I couldn’t, but just one bite couldn’t hurt, I’ve come so far in my experiment, but it’s such a small scoop.
Before I knew it I was tasting the delicious half frozen, creamy chocolate dissolves on my tongue and glides down my throat. Then just as quickly I found a large frosty in one hand and a receipt in other. I savored every bite. The guilt I felt after wasn’t from me caving, it was from how desperate I had felt wanting the frosty. That’s when I started thinking this salad a week thing wasn’t the healthiest idea, mentally. But with two days left I decided to finish it.
There wasn’t anything special about the last two days. It just combined everything I had felt over the week into one. I was hungry, tired and bored all at once. I felt awful. Maybe it was because my body needed some time to adjust, but it was most likely because I wasn’t getting the right nutrition that I needed. The food group pyramid exists for a reason, people. I just couldn’t wait for the week to be over. At the beginning of the seventh day, I weighed myself and I had lost five pounds, but that wasn’t fat because it’s not possible to lose that much in a week. It was water weight.
The day after my experiment, I had had enough. I was tired, I was really hungry and I was bored with the taste of salad for everything. So I stuffed my face with all kinds of pasta, cookies, chicken cutlets, all of the good stuff. Clearly eating more than you can consume isn’t healthy either. Which is why I came to the conclusion, that eating a salad every day, all day, will actually hurt you in the long run.
You are not getting the proper foods that your body needs to function such as carbs, dairy, mild sugar, grains. Living off of salads is not how our bodies are programmed to work. And at some point, you might end up stuffing your face like me, and all that “cleansing” goes down the drain. I would not recommend eating salad for every meal to help you be healthy. Eating a balanced meal in moderation is the way to go.
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