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Eating Healthy on Budget
In these tough economic times it can sometimes be difficult to justify buying healthy food. We live in a time where coke is cheaper than milk and children go to school to learn all day, often with sugary cereals in their tummy’s and limited nutrients in their lunch boxes. Food security is continuing to decrease which means families are finding it more and more difficult to afford basic food yet obesity rates are continuing to rise rapidly. However it is not all doom and gloom.
DietDitch Top 5 Budget Tips.
- Eat fruit and vegetables in season and grown in your local area. These foods will be cheaper and fresher which means more nutrients! Eat soups in winter and save the salads for summer when salad greens are more affordable.
- Buy foods such as nuts in bulk as they are often cheaper per weight and bag them into serving sizes at home.
- Include more dried legumes and pulses such as chickpeas, beans and lentils, in your diet which you can pick up for next to nothing at your local market.
- Make it yourself… Make bran muffins or wholemeal scones or biscuits, these can be frozen individually for later and are less expensive, and healthier than store brought options.
- Plan your meals in advance and only buy what you need for the week to reduce waste, and plan to make good use of leftovers for lunches.
Remember, for additional DietDitch recipes, log on to our free dedicated recipe website www.DietDitchRecipes.com for healthy recipes that wont break the bank.
It’s How Much You Are Eating That Counts
We all know that to live a healthy lifestyle we need to eat healthy food and exercise. So you may be asking yourself, why do you still hold on to unwanted weight when you are doing all the right things?
The answer lies in HOW MUCH you are eating.
The Weight Equation Goes Like This…
- energy in – energy out = the amount of energy your body has to store.
Your body needs energy just to get through the day which is known as your basal metabolic rate. Exercise adds to the amount of energy your body utilises and the food you eat acts as this energy source.
Even though eating a healthy diet is important, it is really the overall calories you consume every day that count. So yes if you eat more energy from a healthy diet of fruit, vegetables, yogurt, lean meat and whole grains than you expend, you will gain weight. It is that simple.
Chocolate Diet
Does this mean you can go on a chocolate diet? Essentially yes this does mean you can eat chocolate every day and still lose weight – as long as you are expending more calories than you consume. However, it is much easier to control your weight when you are eating less calorie dense foods like salads and soups.
Do you have a friend who eats whatever they want and doesn’t put on weight? Studies show that thin people who eat fast food such as a burger and fries for lunch, will naturally compensate later in the day for this high energy meal by eating less at dinner to equal out their energy equation.
On the other hand, over-weight people do not seem to compensate as well and end up eating more calories in the day than they expend, leading to weight gain.
How Many Calories Should You Consume Daily?
Males need around 3000 calories per day on average, and females 2000 – 2500 calories per day. These numbers will vary depending on activity level, height and genetic differences. So the one simple step we have to take to lose unwanted fat is to expend more than we consume. No secret!
Move It or Lose It
Gentle Movement
Part of the DietDitch lifestyle is to add gentle movement into your day and we like to do this with walking. Having said this there are walks and there are walks. It is lovely to go on a stroll on a sunny afternoon, maybe along the beach or at your local park. All that fresh air can only be good for you.
To increase your cardiovascular fitness however, there has to be a bit of huff and puff and some effort. We do not want you to overdo it so make sure your ‘puff’ is a light one. If you feel you want to step it up a bit maybe you could try the walk, jog, walk sequence – walk for a minute or two, jog for a minute or two. Carry this sequence on for 20 to 30 minutes and you will soon find your fitness increasing. When your fitness level improves you may want to add a minute sprint into the equation as well.
The Hill
The other good way is to find a hilly track and make it your own. This way you expend more energy going up and less coming down, more going up, less coming down and so it goes. This is commonly referred to as the ‘multi peak’ method rather than the ‘bell peak’ where you start off slowly and increase to a peak once and then slow down on the other side.
Whichever way you choose, push yourself a little for the best results.
Do You Buy Into Diet Guilt?
Ditch The Guilt
Guilt is a biggy for many people who are on the diet bandwagon. How many times has someone said to you “Don’t eat that, you will get fat”. Has this statement in ground itself into your subconscious to be there forever?
Do you still feel like you will be overweight forever if you have just one piece of cake or a chocolate bar.
Our Belief System
Statements of this type have helped forge our beliefs that food is either good or bad. These beliefs may be the reason why we are holding ourselves back.
Along with this goes fear and guilt which many of us are now associating with food. How did it get to this?
How did it become so complicated – life is all about opposites, both positive and negative and of course there will be times when you will feel guilty about certain things in your life, but do we really need to associate this negative emotion to food because you eat a piece of cake when you are ‘not supposed to?’ Why do we do this? It is just cake.
Start Over.
On the DietDitch program we are all about leaving our limiting beliefs behind. We are ditching the guilt and the fear, moving forward to where we will choose health as our first priority.
We want you to get off the treadmill of being on a diet and all the negative connotations associated with this. The guilt will be ditched as a result of this letting go. We are going to stop attaching guilt to food.
How Will We Do This?
Let it happen naturally by identifying the reason why we are overeating. It really is not about the food. Work on the emotional energy around overeating by accepting the responsibility once and for all. Don’t blame anyone or anything else.
Now claim your power back - I have an idea for you. I would like you start to loving your body. Go on – your body is not so bad and in fact it is a wonderful piece of nature. Then I urge you to write in you journal 5 comments of gratitude in regard to your wonderful body each and every day.
Let It Go
We have all heard the saying ‘what you resist persists’. We often get so hung up about what we are eating, what we weigh, why we haven’t lost weight. It is now time to let these negative thoughts go. This is why on the DietDitch program we don’t want you to weigh your food, do excessive workouts, keep food diaries, or lose weight quickly. These processes are not going to serve you.
We want you to feel excited about what you are doing – sort out your stuff, ditch your guilt, and accept yourself to the point where you are ready to step into the new you.
Goals
Your goal may be to let go of the guilt forever and we have used a couple of scenarios previously which we will revisit here. The first one is to put the guilt you are feeling in a helium filled speech bubble above your head – like an old comic book, and let it go forever. Or secondly pack all your guilt into a suitcase, put it in a taxi and have the driver take it to the airport and put it on a plane. Don’t have your return address on the case.
Change
I know some of you will be thinking this is just lip service talking about letting go of guilt, goals, and starting over. I agree there may be deeper issues that need to be addressed for many of you. However we are all adults and we have the choice to change. And I repeat, let’s ditch the guilt and stop the negative self talk. We can do this.
Will You Eat Anything?
Food Fads
We live in an age of “food fads,” gluten free, dairy free, wheat free, fat free – the list goes on and on. There are some individuals, about 5% of the population, who may have genuine food intolerance’s that have been diagnosed by their GP or dietitian, where the rest of us think we will jump on the next Hollywood diet fad and eliminate whole food groups from our diets.
My message to you is if you don’t have a food intolerance, don’t think that cutting out an entire food group will make you lose weight. It may just make you miss out on vital nutrients.
