Is Your Salad Making You Fat?

Are you wanting to lose weight, get healthy, "toned", or increase your lean muscle? Are you also eating salads in a hope to propel you to reach these goals? If you are, please stop NOW! When I talk with clients about their current eating habits almost all of them say something along the lines of "...I eat a lot of salads, fruit, and vegetables but I just can't seem to see results." There is your problem. You're eating salads, fruit, and vegetables and probably not nearly enough protein. Each person has different goals and in order to reach these goals you need to manipulate what you eat. But regardless of your goals, one thing is certain, YOU NEED PROTEIN and you need to eat enough calories to fuel your metabolism! You're also going to need the correct ratio of other macronutrients as well, but protein is going to be a key factor in whether you see changes or not. So what is wrong with your salad? It Contains WAY Too Much Fat. Don't get me wrong. Fat is a necessary macronutrient, but you've got to eat the right amount. No one wants to eat plain lettuce with no dressing or other toppings (how miserable). Let's break it down:

• 2 tablespoons of Hidden Valley ranch contains 14g of fat! And who actually measures out only 2 tablespoons?

• 2 tablespoons of Newman's own Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing contains 9g of fat. I won't even get into caesar dressing. That's the fattiest of the fat list.

• You probably also like to add more than just dressing to your salads. How about nuts? Cheese (yes please)? 1 ounce of almonds contains 14g of fat. Oh but this is "healthy fat", you say? Regardless of whether it's healthy fat or not, fat is fat and each gram of fat is going to contain 9 calories. Now combine that with only 2 tablespoons of your dressing and your about at 30g of fat for one meal. Yikes.

• Moving on to cheese. For this example we'll stick with parmesan. It's about in the middle with fat content. 1 ounce of parmesan cheese contains 8g of fat. Do you really only measure out 1 ounce though? Be honest.

Oh and what about bacon as a topping? 😬 More fat. Restaurant Salads

Buckle up and prepare to hold on for dear life.

Let's look at a popular restaurant in Utah that offers salads.

Zupas. The salad with the least amount of fat at this restaurant is the Mangoberry salad and it contains 18g of fat! http://cafezupas.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/CafeZupas_Nutrition.pdf The salad with the most amount of fat....drum roll please... Is the California Protein Cobb weighing in at 56g of fat!

Applebees is a popular chain restaurant that you can find anywhere, so let's look at those salads next. Their salad with the the lowest amount of fat is at 21g. And the most....This is a shocker...has 94g of fat.

Bottom line I'm personally a big believer in counting your macros so if you want to use half or even a full day's worth of fat on a measly salad then go for it as long as it fits your macros for the day! My issue is when people only eat salads or choose salads at restaurants with an intention of being "healthy" or obtaining results (changes in body composition). Be aware and do your research before you automatically make a salad selection and mistakenly pat yourself on the back for making a "healthier" choice. Tips for making a better salad choice: 1. Choose light or fat free dressings 2. Forego the dressing altogether and use pico 😍 2. Add double meat to your restaurant salads 3. Leave the cheese! 4. Skip the nuts 5. Ask for dressing on the side 6. Don't order a salad. Instead, you can order a lean protein source such as chicken or white fish with rice (or baked potato) and steamed veggies on the side!