How to Eat Healthy When on a Budget By Victoria

Organic food is more expensive than a bucket of KFC. This is part of the reason why so many people are unhealthy. Becoming a paragon of health seems so difficult whereas sitting down and ordering in seems easy. It’s even harder if you’re on a budget as you simply can’t afford a lot of healthy food. This is no excuse to continue paying homage to McDonald’s though!

You can eat healthy on a budget. Here are some of the ways you can eat healthy without spending a lot of money.

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Whole Foods
Whole foods are foods which haven’t been processed. They’ve been harvested and thrown in a box, essentially. These are cheaper as they don’t go through the usual processes to add more flavorings and preservatives. As someone who is aiming to eat healthier, it’s better for you because you have full control over the ingredients. You don’t have to worry about anything which has been added to the recipe.

Whole foods apply to any type of food, such as proteins, fats, and carbohydrates.

Choose Cheap Proteins
Getting your daily intake of protein is the biggest expense as proteins are commonly associated with meats. Steaks are expensive and will leave a hole in your wallet. For day-to-day use, get your protein through cheaper alternatives like eggs and whey. It might not be as tasty but it’s much cheaper.

You should consider buying a variety of cheap proteins to take care of your daily intake. You need at least 1g of protein for every pound of body weight to maintain muscle. If you’re trying to gain muscle you’ll need slightly more.

Buy Frozen
A lot of healthy eaters never consider frozen foods. We’re often told these are bad because they’re less nutritious. Part of the reason for this belief is because we often criticize frozen food like fish sticks. It isn’t the freezing process causing the problems. It’s the fact the food was never healthy in the first place.

Frozen foods have a number of advantages to them. Firstly, they’re always prepared before being frozen. You don’t have to waste time cutting them and removing anything before they’re ready for cooking. They also have a longer shelf life so you can buy them in bulk. Frozen food is roughly half the price of fresh food. Buy frozen food in bulk from independent stores to take advantage of bulk discounts.

What a lot of people don’t know is frozen food locks nutrients in. The nutrient richness of fresh food declines over time, from the moment it’s harvested. Frozen items lock the nutrients in, so you can actually get more nutrients from frozen foods.

Buy Own Brand
Store brand items are not lower in quality. The only real difference between store brand and big brand is a lack of advertising. Once you get used to the taste of store brand you’ll wonder why you were paying so much for well-known brands before. The nutrient content is often exactly the same as their star-speckled counterparts.

Switch to Supplements
Supplements like fish oil can help you fulfill your need for vitamin B12 and other obscure minerals, but you shouldn’t rely on them. Yes, they’re cheap, but they don’t have any calories. You should only use these if you’re meeting your need for calories yet failing to meet your need for specific minerals.

Use the Seasons
Fruit and veg have different seasons. If you buy some strawberries in the winter it will cost a lot more than in the summer. Grocery stores need to import the strawberries from other countries when they can’t be grown in the US. This adds on to the overall price you pay. If you eat the same thing all year, you could be unwittingly throwing money away.

Work out the seasons for each of your favorite foods. Only buy these foods once they’re in season. It won’t seem like much. A few cents here and a few cents there. Over the course of a year, it would equal a few hundred dollars.

Calorie Dense
Buy calorie dense foods like potatoes and pasta. They aren’t necessarily going to fulfill your needs for vitamins and minerals, but they’ll fill your belly quickly. This method is ideal for smaller people who want to gain weight and bulk up. They’re full of carbohydrates the body can break down.

The problem with eating healthily is we all have the stereotypical image of eating lots of greens. Most green vegetables don’t have a lot of calories in them. They’re packed full of nutrients, but they won’t fill your belly. It’s why you would need to spend a lot of money to sustain a diet eating fruit and veg exclusively.

5 eating styles that can lead to weight gain

www.BeHealthConscious.Org

• by The Editors of Prevention, 

Photo by Thinkstock

The last dish has been washed, and as you sit back and watch Modern Family, what’s in your hand? A pint of Haagen-Dazs or a cup of tea? On weekends, do you watch your calories as carefully as you did Monday through Friday, or do you take a healthy eating vacation and go to town?

Certain ingrained habits—even seemingly minor ones—have a significant effect on your weight. The hard part, too, is that even when you make the decision to, say, eat more fruit or hit the gym one more time a week, past behaviors can sneak in and undermine your best efforts. Those patterns can be grouped into five basic eating types. Chances are, you’ll identify with one or more. Once you recognize your type (or types), you'll be able to develop strategies and solutions tailored specifically to your needs.

5 worst eating habits for your waistline

Type # 1: The Weekender   You live "by the book" all week, only to throw it out the window on Friday night. Or maybe you travel a lot for work or pleasure, and as soon as your surroundings change, so do your eating and daily calorie-counting habits.
Fix It: 
Go (mildly) wild on Wednesday. It's hard to resist going nuts on Saturday and ordering the mac ’n’ cheese when you've been buttoned up for 5 days straight, so consider working one splurge night into your week. If you inject a little food-related fun into the weekdays, you'll be less likely to "reward" yourself with major damage on the weekends.

What to eat to lose weight on the weekend

Type # 2: The Calorie Drinker One of the biggest diet mistakes is thinking that if it's something you sip, the calories won't stick. Unfortunately, liquid calories are stealth fatteners—they go down quickly, making it easy to drink more and rack up the calories—fast.
Fix It: 
Make smarter switches. Whether your weakness is sweet coffee drinks or soda, there's a way to alter your particular poison so it doesn't sabotage your progress. Skip the sweetener (and whipped cream) in coffee and drink seltzer instead of sugar-packed soda. You’ll save hundreds of calories and barely notice the change.

4 health reasons to stop drinking soda

Type # 3: The Low-Hanging "Fruit" Grabber  These days we're confronted with calories everywhere we go, from bagels in the conference room to king-size chocolate bars in the checkout aisle. In an environment with such an abundance of cheap, easy calories, temptation lurks around every corner and chips away at your willpower.
Fix It: 
Track every single bite. It's always important to track your meals, but in this case, it's extra important that you take note of everything that slips between your lips. Until now, you probably haven't been "counting" all those free samples at the supermarket, but they can easily cost you 100 calories or more. Seeing how all those extra bites add up is motivation enough to make you say no to the free muffin sample.

Try this free tool to help you track calories, portions and fat

Type # 4: The Stress Eater  Do you find yourself looking for solace in a red velvet cupcake after a long, stressful day? Do you empty a bag of tortilla chips whenever your mother-in-law is in town? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then stress eating is a part of your life--and probably a major hindrance to your weight loss.
Fix It:  Name that theme.  Are there any common themes among your stress-related binges? Do they generally occur at work? Do they happen mostly in the evenings, when you’re dealing with family, bills, or housework? If you know that a certain situation or person tends to push you over the edge, prepare yourself for the stress that will inevitably come. Just being aware that a binge-inducing situation is on the horizon can help you brace for it and lower the chances that you'll give in.

Never gain stress weight again

Type # 5: The Judger  Do you wonder why you're not losing weight when you seem to be doing everything right? You may be falling for healthy buzzwords on a package of high-calorie processed food. Even actual "healthy" foods--some of which offer many benefits--can be calorie bombs.
Fix It:
Don't buy into marketing gimmicks. Read every food nutrition label and decide for yourself whether or not something makes sense for your calorie budget. Also, stop personalizing your food choices. Try not to categorize them as "good" or "bad"--and definitely don't apply that black-and-white thinking to your character. Eating an apple does not make you a "good" person any more than eating a cookie makes you a "bad" person! If you're an ecoconscious eater, "good" and "bad" have other connotations for you. While your efforts to green our planet are applause-worthy, don't forget that words like organic, sustainable, and grass-fed do not necessarily mean "low in calories." Being good to the Earth doesn't automatically mean you're making good choices for your waistline.
Finally, beware of healthy calories. If eating larger portions of lower-calorie foods is your thing, that's fine, but some foods can throw you off your budget when you indulge with too much abandon. For example, almonds are often touted for their nutritional power--and they do pack lots of protein and a nice dose of vitamin E and monounsaturated fats. But if you eat just 1/2 cup of almonds (easy to do in one sitting), you're taking in 400 calories.