Salad only? Nope. It's too little food. Depending on what you're used to, there is a 12-hour gap between dinner and breakfast (if you eat dinner at 8 and breakfast at 8, that's reasonable, but earlier). You can't use a salad for up to 12 hours without food; a salad is basically some green leaves (that means water), tomatoes, a teaspoon of olive oil and vinegar. You need something more important to keep you alive at night (or at least eliminate stomach cramps and stomach acid).

Weight loss is related to a good diet (diet means eating habits, not a special restrictive diet designed to lose weight) and exercise. An inadequate dinner is not a good diet, it is an unbalanced diet.

A more balanced but lighter dinner would be a bowl of vegetable-rich soup with 30-50 grams of bread, rice or pasta (depending on your body size), a salad with an egg or a piece of cheese (e.g., fingers or middle fingers together), or a small portion of meat or fish (the size of the palm of your hand), or an equal amount of veggie protein (including legumes), or yogurt, and finally fruit. Then you have lots of veggies and only a few carbs and proteins that can make you feel fuller, with a variety that will ensure you get all the nutrients you need, including fat. It's not a diet, indeed, it's just sensible poop.

A better idea for losing weight is to start cutting back drastically on drinks and snacks. Review your day: How much soda do you drink? How often do you eat candy or chips? Cut those out. Give you one piece of candy, a small bag (25-30 grams) of chips and a soda a week, just to satisfy yourself when you really need some junk. Drink plenty of water, eat a piece of fruit if you're hungry, or even a teaspoon of jam or peanut butter toast (or similar spreads: they're high in sugar but lower in calories than a bag of chips), or 3-4 nuts.

Macaroni salad, pasta salad, and Jell-O salad won't help with weight loss. Drowning the salad in dressing won't help either, nor will putting croutons, cheese, or processed meats in the salad.

If you are interested in reaching and maintaining a healthy weight, make salads with dark leafy greens.

It's best to make your own salad dressing. We use herbs and spices and a little olive oil to make it viscous, then shake it vigorously into the salad so a small handful covers all the leaves. Vigorous shaking also thins the salad so we can put more green leaves in the bowl to get more fiber and vitamins from it. Otherwise, the salad may be mostly air.

If you don't make your own salad dressing, pay special attention to the sugar, sugar substitutes and fat in the dressing. They add up quickly.

It's healthy to add lots of colorful vegetables (e.g., carrots, tomatoes, bell peppers) on top of leafy greens. If you don't have much protein left for the rest of the day, add nuts, beans, eggs, canned fish, or even a whole steak.

Also, homemade salads are much better. Many of the so-called "healthy" salads at restaurants and fast-food joints are loaded with fat-boosting ingredients and are higher in calories than entrees!