Healthy Eating on a Budget

To build muscle and lose fat, you need lots of healthy foods. Proteins to build & maintain muscle. Carbs for energy. Fruits & veggies for vitamins, minerals and fiber. Water for hydration & recovery. And healthy fats to help fat loss.

Unfortunately, the rising food prices make it hard to eat healthy. Your paycheck is most likely not rising as fast. Worst case you're student which makes it even harder. These 10 tips will help you eat healthy on a budget.


1. Buy Whole Foods. Unprocessed foods are cheaper and more nutritious than processed foods. They also give you total control over the ingredients. Avoid anything that comes from a box 90% of the time.
Proteins. Ground beef, frozen chicken breast, tuna cans, calves' liver, cottage cheese, plain yogurt, eggs, milk, whey, ...
Carbs. Pasta, rice, oats, potatoes, beans, apples, bananas, raisins, broccoli, spinach, cabbage, ...
Fats. Olive oil, fish oil, flax seeds, real butter, mixed nuts, ...


2. Buy Cheap Proteins. You need 1g protein per pound of body-weight per day to build and maintain muscle. Eating whole protein with each meal also helps fat loss as protein has a higher thermic effect than other foods.

Keep the steaks & salmon for special occasions. Buy eggs, milk, whey, mackerel, tuna, calves liver, frozen chicken breast, cottage cheese, ... Read the post with the 10 cheapest sources of protein for more ideas.


3. Buy Frozen Fruits & Veggies. Unfreeze berries in microwave and eat warm with cottage cheese. Put frozen spinach in a colander the night before and try one of these recipes the next day. Try also frozen beans & broccoli. Benefits:
Save Money. Often half the price of fresh. Almost infinite shelf life when kept in freezer. And you can buy in bulk to get more discount.
Save Time. Frozen fruits & veggies are pre-washed and pre-cut, which saves preparation time. Time is money.
Nutrient Dense. If frozen right when picked, frozen fruits & veggies can contain more nutrients than fresh ones.


4. Buy Generic Food. And store brands. Raw foods like rice, pasta, eggs, milk, cottage cheese, frozen fruits/veggies, ... taste like brand name foods once you get used to them. But they'll save you money on packaging & advertising.


5. Buy Supplements. They're cheap and make your life easier, however whole food is better. You can use supplements, but make sure the bulk of your diet consists of whole, unprocessed foods.
Whey. Cheapest protein you'll find. 1 scoop ON whey is 24g protein/30g serving. At 2 scoops/day, a 10lbs bag will last 10 weeks for 84,99$.
Fish Oil. Cheaper than fish. 1tsp Carlson Fish Oil is 1600mg omega-3. At 1tsp/day, 1 bottle will last 40 days for 23,04$.
Multi-vitamins. Vitamin deficiency is common. 1 bottle AST Multi Pro 32xcontains 100 servings and will last 6 weeks for 17.03$.


6. Buy in Bulk. Especially when you have promos running. Foods like pasta, rice and oats are easy to stockpile. If they're on sale, buy as much as you can afford & store to last you until the next sale.
Side of Beef. Not necessarily cheaper, but you have better quality meat.Buying a side of beef gets you 100lbs meat at 3,60$/lbs.
Supplements. You often get free shipping and discounts when buying in bulk. Make a 4 month order for you, friends & family and split the costs.
Frozen Fruits & Veggies. Check tip #1. Saves money, saves times and nutrient dense. Buy mixed berries, spinach, broccoli, beans, etc.


7. Buy In Season Fruits & Veggies. Food grown in season tastes better and is cheaper. Root vegetables in the Winter. Apples & squash in the Fall. Broccoli & berries in the Summer. Check this, this & this guides for more info.


8. Buy Calorie Dense Foods. Whole milk, potatoes, rice, pasta & oats are filling, healthy and easy to stockpile. They'll help you get your daily caloric needs fast & cheap, and make gaining weight for skinny guys easier.


9. Buy Discounted Meat. Grocery stores often discount meats by up to 70% as they approach expiration date. Buy several pounds and store in your freezer.


10. Buy From Local Farmers. Or farmer's markets. They aren't always cheaper, but you get tastier & better quality food and they often give you free stuff when you buy a lot. Find local farmers in your area here & here.

Sources : CHef April Greer , www.specailK.com , www.Choosemyplate.gov

Pass the Butter ..

Margarine was originally manufactured to fatten turkeys. When it killed the turkeys, the people who had put all the money into the research wanted a payback so they put their heads together to figure out what to do with this product to get their money back.

It was a white substance with no food appeal so they added the yellow coloring and sold it to people to use in place of butter. How do you like it? They have come out with some clever new flavorings....

DO YOU KNOW.. The difference between margarine and butter?

Both have the same amount of calories.
Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats at 8 grams; compared to 5 grams for margarine.

Eating margarine can increase heart disease in women by 53% over eating the same amount of butter, according to a recent Harvard Medical Study.

Eating butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in other foods.
Butter has many nutritional benefits where margarine has a few and only because they are added!

Butter tastes much better than margarine and it can enhance the flavors of other foods.

Butter has been around for centuries where margarine has been around for less than 100 years .

And now, for Margarine..

Very High in Trans fatty acids.

Triples risk of coronary heart disease ...

Increases total cholesterol and LDL (this is the bad cholesterol) and lowers HDL cholesterol, (the good cholesterol)

Increases the risk of cancers up to five times..

Lowers quality of breast milk

Decreases immune response.

Decreases insulin response.

And here's the most disturbing fact... HERE IS THE PART THAT IS VERY INTERESTING!

Margarine is but ONE MOLECULE away from being PLASTIC... and shares 27 ingredients with PAINT.

These facts alone were enough to have me avoiding margarine for life and anything else that is hydrogenated (this means hydrogen is added, changing the molecular structure of the substance).

Open a tub of margarine and leave it open in your garage or shaded area. Within a couple of days you will notice a couple of things:

* no flies, not even those pesky fruit flies will go near it (that should tell you something)

* it does not rot or smell differently because it has no nutritional value ; nothing will grow on it. Even those teeny weeny microorganisms will not a find a home to grow.

Why? Because it is nearly plastic . Would you melt your Tupperware and spread that on your toast?

To Eat or Not To Eat

Most of us have done our share of out-of-control eating, whether it’s polishing off a family-size bag of potato chips without noticing or eating all the chocolates in the Valentine’s sampler—and we’ve probably felt at least a little guilty for overindulging. But if you find yourself having those “slip-ups” fairly regularly—or if your eating causes you so much shame that you have to do it in secret—your eating issues might be cause for concern.




Whether binge-eating problems are diagnosed or fly under the diagnostic radar, researchers are just beginning to understand their impact on the population. Last year, researchers at Harvard’s McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, polled 2,980 Americans in the first national survey of eating disorders. They found that BED is the most common eating disorder, affecting some 3.5 percent of women and 2 percent of men—making it more than twice as common as bulimia and more than four times as prevalent as anorexia. While BED and other binging behaviors aren’t as well recognized as anorexia and bulimia, “some of the driving forces behind them are the same,” notes Cynthia Bulik, Ph.D., director of the eating disorders program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and co-author of Runaway Eating: The 8-Point Plan to Conquer Adult Food and Weight Obsessions (Rodale, 2005). All involve “the consistent use of food or food-related behaviors (such as purging or exercising excessively) to deal with unpleasant feelings,” she notes, coupled with “the feeling that these behaviors are out of control.”




Of course, for bingers and other disordered eaters, overeating in response to stress becomes a stressor in itself,” notes Boggiano. “It becomes a vicious cycle of feeling bad about overeating, then eating more to distract from the guilt.”




So before you put that next cookie or finish of the carton of ice cream just think to yourself "Do I need this ?"





 sources are from www.eatingwell.com