Springtime Slim Down Salads

With summer approaching, it is time for the spring slimdown

With summer approaching, it is time for the spring slimdown. This is when you do everything you can to slim down and get ready for the bikini season. It is the time of year to start enjoying delicious, healthy salad, maybe even starting to make healthy salad your mantra. While you can focus on your overall caloric intake, it’s best to focus on nutrients, good fat sources and proteins to keep you lean and vigorous.

It has been stated that we absorb more of the nutrition from the greens and other vegetables in our salads when we eat them with a good source of fat. It grieves us to say that cheese will not serve this purpose, although cheese is fat. Rather, we need to look towards sources of good healthy fats. You can use things like avocados, Nature’s Eats Nuts, seeds, coconut and olive oil as a healthy source of fat. These fats automatically will turn your salad into a healthy salad and can be incorporated into easy salad dressing as well.

When you are on a mission for a spring slim down, it is best to rely on healthy salads to help do the trick. You may choose to rely on easy, healthy salad recipes until you feel confident enough to get creative on your own. There are always a few rules of thumb to follow when you are taking on becoming a master at spring slimdown salads.

1. MAKE THE RAINBOW
When deciding what to put into your salad, always have the goal of incorporating a variety of colors. There is a rainbow of nutrition that all the various vegetables have to offer. Cover the spectrum with foods like radishes, red cabbage, cucumbers, red bell peppers, various herbs, broccoli or cauliflower, jicama or tomatoes. The more colors, the merrier; just make sure to pair any intense flavors of herbs or vegetables together so that they complement each other. If you are not sure, do a little taste test and check it out.

2. PICK HEALTHY FATS
Make sure that you are incorporating a couple of healthy fats into the salad to heighten the nutritional absorption and overall health benefits. This also provides you the opportunity to add different textures and flavors to the salad. Healthy fat sources include Nature’s Eats Nuts, avocados, coconut, olive oil, and other other healthy oils. Another option is to add seeds like hemp seeds, chia seeds, sunflower seeds or even sesame seeds. If you do decide to add some sort of cheese, try to stick with either goat cheese or feta and use sparingly.

3. RAINBOW OF FLAVOR
In addition to bringing in the different colors of the rainbow, you want to create a rainbow of flavor in your salad as well. Since you already have picked out the veggies and your greens as well as your healthy fats, you can now add another dimension of flavor by adding fruits- either fresh or dried. Some great examples of items you can use are berries, apples, pears, grapes or dried fruits like Nature’s Eats Raisins, Dried Cherries, Dates, Dried Blueberries, and more.

4. SIMPLE BASIC SALAD DRESSING
Since your salad will already contain so much flavor from the crisp, delicious veggies, good healthy fats, fruit tang and sweetness, all you need is a simple salad dressing. One of the best simple basic salad dressings is made up of 4 ingredients: juice from one lemon, a few tablespoons of olive oil and salt and pepper to taste.

As we move into the season to slim down, it is smart to add more healthy delicious salads into our life. Enjoying one or two fresh salads with healthy fat sources will help anyone slim down. Just try it out, you have nothing to lose but weight.

Written by Lisa Saremi