Salad Streak

I tried a Salad Streak for 3 weeks. This Salad streak was in no way a meal replacement. I can already imagine the headaches from giving up Rice. This was to help me portion-control my comfort food. I am not modest and will say that I mostly cook such delicious vegetarian fare, that I need help with portion-control. With a big box of chopped veggies in my tummy, it's hard to go for the second or third serving of main course.

Here is the detailed Salad matrix - a grocery list for this exercise:

Veggies	Fruits	Toppings	Cooked veggie additions
Cucumber	Strawberry	Feta Cheese	Boiled Sliced Eggs
Carrots - grated for easier chewing	Navel Orange Mandarian	Groundnuts	Brinjal bhaja/Eggplant chips
Red peppers (and then other colors)	Cantalope	Sunflower Seeds	Sweet Potato Baked Fries
Avacado	Apple - chopped	Pecan	Grilled Chicken with Hot Sauce (from cafeteria salad bar)
Canned Pickled Artichoke hearts		Walnut	Butternut Squash
Canned Sliced Beets			Cabbage sabji
			Beetroot - chopped, boiled & tadka
			Beans Poriyol - chopped, steamed & tadka

I blindly shopped almost all one day to get started and used them for the week. Then shopped the rest as needed.

Lately Lettuce had been making me feel yucky. I find the whole cut, wash & dry routine cumbersome and also a show-stoper for rest of the salad. So I decided to make it a Leaf-less Salad.

Also skipped ready-made dressings - cause some of the bottles last forever, keep piling in my fridge, and make me feel guilty for a long time. So no new shopping. I started with a Lemon-salt-Pepper dressing.

As a result of this streak, there was no weight-loss whatsoever. I guess I am beyond that, given my age and body-composition. What it did do however, is to acclimate my tummy to a much lighter fare. And helped me condition my shopping and planning towards the salad component of a plate. And it helped me get over the ugg-feeling I had developed towards salad thanks to Lettuce.