The Vegetable Diet

Perhaps the easiest diet I have ever successfully been on is the vegetable diet. With a husband who likes hearty meals, it was especially difficult for me to find a way to prepare meals that we both enjoyed, and that I could have while on a strict diet. One day I discovered that we both liked vegetables as small side dishes, and I decided to capitalize on that by making vegetables a huge new part of my daily diet. There are a few pitfalls and tricks to this vegetable diet I have learned, however. Keep reading to avoid the beginner's mistakes that I made, and learn how to make veggies your new best friend.

First, I immediately started replacing my starchy side dishes, such as mashed potatoes, with another vegetable. My husband didn't even notice. If he had to have a potato with his meal, which even I needed from time to time, we baked them and I had total control over the amount of "extras" that went on them. Most nights, however, it was no problem to whip up two vegetable dishes with zero calorie butter spray to comprise two thirds of our meals. I still made whatever main dish I liked, but I was able to employ excellent portion control by eating a lot of veggies first. Another trick I used was completely avoiding the use of salt while the vegetables were on the stove, since salt can absolutely kill the health value of any food. I put a salt and pepper shaker on the table, and we salted our foods separately. This actually worked out for other dishes as well.