Skipping meals doesn't help you lose weight in most cases. Your body optimizes for the expectation of not having food and stores more energy.

Eating smaller, filling meals helps more. I actually don't know of anyone who's lost weight from salads. Usually they're just left feeling hungry and usually add dressing to compensate (which just gives you completely unfilling calories).

Yeh I experienced the same

Can you expand on what you do at the gym and when you started your most recent routine?

As always, abs are made in the kitchen. See: skinny folk

Initially I lost weight but hit a plateau later and got demotivated