I was hungry for a big salad for lunch today so I piled a bunch of mixed greens in my huge bowl and added some crimini mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, and kalamata olives. Then it was time for some dressing.
I decided I wanted something spicy so I added a couple of table spoons of organic salsa from Costco. It was just what I needed and, as it turns out, a healthy option for a couple of reasons.
First is the obvious calorie difference from even a good homemade dressing at around 100-120 calories per tbsp as opposed to the salsa at 40. If you eat 4 salads a week - and you should eat more than that - just switching the dressing to salsa on 2 of them per week will reduce the calories by 160 per week. That may not sound like much, but over the course of the year it amounts to 8320 calories a year or more than 2.37 lbs of weight.
The other benefit is the kick the capsaicin adds to your metabolism. Particularly at lunch time a little kick to the metabolic rate means you burn more calories, but the efficiency also means that you will have more energy since you will be using it more efficiently.
These things together can mean much more weight loss than the 2.37 associated with the dressing change. Possibly as much as double. Even if you go to 4 lbs with no other changes you win big. Hey you might even like it so much that you switch the other 2 salads over and make it closer to 8 lbs or more a year.
The third thing you got is the lack of fat coating your greens means that your body can more completely deal with the greens in your salad so you get more benefits than if it were dressed with an oil based dressing.
So, one little change gets you free weight loss, more energy and a more nutritious meal and it tastes great as well. I hate cliches, but this one is a win win.
More soon.....
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