Salad Bouquet and Weightlossophy tip #5: Spend time on Non-Eating Food-Related Activities

Celebrate the beauty and flavor of simple vegetables with a festive design. Plus the weight loss tip of the day.

Over the last two days I published the first 4 guiding principles that helped me lose 55 pounds over 7 months. This is my 5th Weightlossophy tip.

Spend time on non-eating food-related activities

  I am obsessed with food, have always been. I am one of those who remember places by the foods they ate there. A huge portion of my thoughts is dedicated to food, often even when I am actively doing something else. I suppose that’s just how I am and I have to accept it, especially since for me food is one of the greatest joys in life, and I don’t want to deprive myself of it. 

  But thinking about food does not necessarily have to lead to munching. You can direct all this food-addict energy into other food-related activities that will actually distract you from eating. Like planning what you are going to eat, looking up the recipes, doing grocery shopping, reading restaurant reviews and menus, cooking, counting calories (additional benefit of Tips #2), taking pictures of your food, and blogging about it (yes, yes - that’s one of the main reasons I started a food blog). 

  

  A perfect example of a non-eating food-related activity is the Salad Bouquet recipe below. Yesterday evening I spent at least half an hour thinking about the design. Today I spent another 30 minutes actually “building” it. Then at least 1 hour taking the pictures (we barely have any windows at home, so my only chance at natural light is on our small balcony in pretty ridiculous conditions ;-) ). And now finally writing this up. This gives you 2-3 hours happily dealing with food and consuming 0 calories. Not too bad, I think.

Salad Bouquet

Source 

Improvised

Taste 5 (out of 5)

Difficulty 2 (out of 5)

Ingredients

- 4,5 thin round slices + 1/2 tomato (10 cal)

- 4,5 thin round slices daikon radish (5 cal)

- 10-15 small lettuce leaves (10 cal)

- 2-3 twigs watercress

- 1-2 twigs parsley

- 1 medium bell pepper (30 cal)

- 1/2 mini cucumber (10 cal)

- 1 tbsp no-fat yogurt (10 cal)

- 1/2 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice 

- 1/2 green onion

- salt and pepper to taste

Total 75 cal, 1 serving

Instructions

1. For the vase: Cut the top and the bottom of the bell pepper. Clean the remaining cylinder and fill with lettuce leaves, parsley and watercress twigs. 

2. For the flours: Place the thin round strips of daikon radish and tomato in a raw so that the overlap slightly and roll them all together to create a “rose”. For tomatoes it might be easier to use thin strips of tomato skins, especially for the finer “petals”. Place the roses inside the lettuce. With vegetable peeler cut thin slices of mini cucumber and arrange them “artistically” all around.

3. For the dressing: Peel 1/2 tomato, and blend together with the yogurt and the lemon juice. Add the finely chopped green onion and use the bell pepper tip (the one without the stem) to serve the dressing.

Afterthoughts

You can serve this salad as an individual dish, but it would probably fit better as a decoration for a large salad bowl on a dinner table. Of course, if you have a large salad, you can use one additional pepper to accommodate a larger amount of dressing.