Monday’s Weight Loss tip: Leafy Greens

Ok, so it’s not Monday, but Monday was a holiday, kids were home from school and it threw my whole week off. So let’s just say today feels like Monday.

Today’s weight loss tip: eat leafy greens!

Am I trying to tell you that salads help you lose weight as if that were something you didn’t know? It’s true, salads do help you lose weight but not for the reasons you might think.

Yes, salads are low-cal, filling, and full of fiber, but did you know that leafy greens contain digestive enzymes to help break down the rest of your foods, too? While I DON’ T believe that you need to live on salads to lose weight, I DO believe that healthy bodies need leafy greens to fully process foods.

When I’m trying to lose weight, I find that simply replacing one meal a day with a meal based in leafy greens is enough to get the metabolism moving. I saw this in action one summer about 15 years ago when I was working as a receptionist and ate a Wendy’s salad for lunch for a month without changing the rest of my diet. At the end of the month I had lost almost 10 lbs.!

Personally, I like to add a handful of lettuce or two to leftovers, tunafish, soup, whatever I’m eating. It might be a tortilla with beans, tomatoes, salsa and a pile of lettuce. Or, like in my last Egg McMuffin post, a mess of lettuce to go with my whole grain English muffin and egg. Here’s a post on a tomato and avocado salad I like to make in the summer. I like to eat this way even when I’m not trying to lose weight, just because it makes me feel like my body is running at optimum efficiency.

Yesterday, I made a huge cauldron of chicken soup with posole and green chile. I pulled a Jessica Seinfeld and ran a sheaf of kale through my food processor before adding it to the soup at the end of cooking. My kids scarfed it down, none the wiser that they were getting leafy greens in every bite. (recipe to come shortly)

So, just adding this one element to your diet can do wonders. Try it!