Dieting on a budget
The first full week of 2009 has come to a close and my mind has turned to dieting – I’ve even bought used books on the Sonoma diet and the Structure House diet. One tells me what kind of foods I should eat to drop about 10 pounds in 10 days (yes, I know this is unhealthy) and the other one tells me the psychology behind why I eat (uh … I get stressed and I consume food … I win a large contract at work and I celebrate with a cookie instead of salad … I run short of time and I scarf a cheap frozen dinner instead of eating something nutritious and loving.) In short, I spent about $25 dollars last week in an attempt to drop about 10-15 pounds before April and hopefully a goodish amount after that (I recently read that people who are a size 14 are the happiest people in the world – I’ll get down there and let you know what I find out.).
Although I have tinged some of my words with sarcasm, I do earnestly want to eat healthier and lose weight in the process. And for some odd reason, I do enjoy reading diet books – the foodie in me especially enjoys it when they have recipes in the back pages. I’m something of a nut when it comes to cookbooks.
But as I’m reading the Sonoma diet book, I’m realizing that this is somewhat daunting. I love this diet in theorem – who doesn’t want to eat a diet that relies mostly on veggies for a day’s calorie intake, while letting you eat whole grains and meat! But as tasty as the recipes look, asparagus is not in season right now, most of the “fresh” tomatoes still taste like they came off the back of a truck and shrimp? I’m a pauper, not Oprah.
My dieting process would be much cheaper and probably more successful if I could exercise a little more self-control (as well as “exercise” in general), but man … it is so much easier to put the weight on than to take it off. So think good thoughts for me my friends!
Posted: January 11th, 2009 under Everyday Living, Where My Money Goes.
Comments: 6
Comments
Comment from whitestripe
Time: January 11, 2009, 10:54 am
i have eaten ‘healthy’ my entire life, i have grown up hardly ever resorting to prepackaged food, nearly every meal i make has atleast three types of veges in it and i almost always cook from scratch. i recently re converted to being a vegetarian and dropped about three kilos which has stayed off consistently. i guess i have never bought the whole ‘junk is cheaper’ idea because my grocery bill has always been lower (even when eating meat) than many flatmates i have had who eat ‘unhealthily’.
Comment from Paul
Time: January 11, 2009, 1:33 pm
I will echo the above – this time around instead of worrying about carbs or calories (the previous two diets I did, which both worked until they didn’t), I’m just knocking out everything that is prepackaged or processed. I can’t say the grocery bill is lower or higher, it probably varies, but you definitely don’t want to eat as much. I don’t buy into every conspiracy theory about everything, but I do believe that some of the additives in pre-packaged food are there to make you want to eat more – even if it’s just additional sodium! I eat a handful or two of unprocessed whole cashews and am satisfied. I eat two handfuls of cashews from the planters jar and just want to eat two more handfuls….
Comment from baselle
Time: January 11, 2009, 11:35 pm
I used to go out and eat restaurant lunches every workday. I would have loved to continue it (yum and its gets me away from my desk), but I decided to bring in my lunch (meat over brown rice) and a homemade snack most days so that I could take the lunch hour and go to the gym. I’ve dropped 5 pounds last month and I’ve saved quite a bit of money.
Also make sure that your afternoon snack doesn’t have a lot of simple sugars. My trainer suggested an odd one – canned beans (kidney, garbanzo, black eyed pea) tossed with tuna. So far its been working.
Comment from lizajane
Time: January 12, 2009, 8:47 am
If I had the right answers, I wouldn’t have started my own dieting blog this year. ([url]http://gainingcontrolovereating.blogspot.com [/url])
I’m trying to focus on control over mindless eating. I did good for the first 4-5 days, and then slid backwards. But I’m going to get back on track! Good luck.
Comment from moonlight
Time: January 13, 2009, 8:50 am
Oh I wish I could maintain my good habits and get rid of my bad habits. I NEED to lose a whole bunch of weight…. at least enough to fit comfortably into my jeans!!!!!!!!!
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