Having trouble with food. Help please!!

Im having a bit of trouble with eating right.. its not that I cant or wont but its harder because I dont buy the food in my house, so usually its all junk food or high in calories. Sometimes we dont have alot to go grocery shopping with so we dont have alot that i can eat around here, so thats why I have been so dependant on fast food, even tho i hate it. It makes me feel unmotivated because the eating portion is harder for me than most. And believe me, my family totally supports me, but they say that healthier food is more expensive which is only partly true. So i was wondering if i could get some advice on the situation.. The healthiest things i have in my house are in no way really healthy. Just stuff like hot dogs and sandwiches. Please help!!

I went shopping today:

When I started my effort to trim down, I began by eating a bowl or a cup of Special K cereal with a banana. HEB's generic of this cereal, without almonds, was $1.99 for an 18 oz box - signfiicantly larger than the 'name brand' which runs at about $2.79 for a 12 oz box. I coupled that with a banana (cheap in bunches, I bought five for $1.07). I enjoy the cereal but lots of different cereals are in the 120 to 130 cals-per-cup range. I buy fat free milk in gallon size and it cost me today $1.99.

As a snack any time of the day, I have vanilla yogurt to which I might add blackberries ($1.99) or raspberries. I buy my yogurt in 32 oz cups and then use my plastic containers to take it to work or at home I just pour it in a small cup. Add the berries.

I also bought two apples ($1.50), five oranges ($1.00), a loaf of Nature's Own Honey Wheat bread ($2.29, plus I got a HEB generic loaf free that I gave to my boyfriend).

I eat sandwiches with ham, olive-oil-based mayonnaise (Kraft), American Cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and avocado. The cals on that are very reasonable. For dinner, I might just grab some tostadas, add some beans, lettuce, tomato and a bit of cheese.

There's breakfast, lunch and dinner...and a snack.

Can you give examples of what your family usually buys, and what you buy/consider healthy?

UD

Do you go out and help do the shopping?  You might want to try that, so you at least get SOME input on what goes in the shopping cart.   Fruit instead of cookies, brown bread and brown rice instead of white... If you're spending your own money on fast food, spend the equivalent money on good food.  A can of tuna, some spinach, tomatos and pepper should be cheaper than most fast food dishes, and much healthier for you.

Clint

well. we usually buy comfort foods, like mac and cheese, cookies, ice cream. but i want to add alot more fruits and vegs and things that i can eat at home and also take to work with me since i spend most of my time there. Things that are low sodium as well since i need to cut back on that. its been rather high lately. And yes, I do go shopping with my mom, but that doesnt mean i have input lol. Well, I just got a raise so maybe I can go shoppin on my own one of these days.

Well, here's what I do... I eat my breakfasts and lunches at work, and only have supper and late snack at home.

For breakfast, I either take a protein / meal replacement shake, or a cup of cereal with some skim milk.  The shakes aren't particularly cheap ($3/serving, I think), but it's less than the coffee and yogurt I used to buy at a local coffee shop.  So being healthy saves me money there.  The cereal is also cheap compared to that. 

And for lunch, I use the protein from the night before (often a chicken breast, salmon, steak, whatever), and either brown rice or a salad with it.  I'll make up a bunch of rice at once, and freeze it in 1 cup servings, so it's easy to grab in the morning.  Cheap compared to a frozen dinner or eating out, which is what I used to do.  I've got some other recipes I'll make occasionally (Sante Fe Beans and Rice is a good one), and freeze 5 portions of it for use during the week, in case there's not enough leftovers the day before.

Snacks are often a piece of fruit once per day.  I LOOVE pineapple, so I'll buy one and cut it up on Sunday.  Put it in 4 ounce containers, and one pineapple ($5 up here) will last me an entire week.  Another snack might be a Kashi granola bar, a handful of nuts and/or raisins, etc.  Again, they're easy to grab in the morning

Just some ideas.  Hope it helps!

Clint

Original Post by jeauneil:

well. we usually buy comfort foods, like mac and cheese, cookies, ice cream. but i want to add alot more fruits and vegs and things that i can eat at home and also take to work with me since i spend most of my time there. Things that are low sodium as well since i need to cut back on that. its been rather high lately. And yes, I do go shopping with my mom, but that doesnt mean i have input lol. Well, I just got a raise so maybe I can go shoppin on my own one of these days.

Can you try showing her the price of these things compared to the price of a bag of aples and some salad veg? Or say let's get ice cream like usual but some muesili and mixed berries instead of the cookies?

If you just got a raise would you be able to have your own shelves in a cupboard and the fridge and just buy your own food? A week's worth of food for one person isn't that expensive. Junk food is! If you think about like a takeaway from a chinese it'd cost about 5/6 pounds/equivalent in dollars, wheras that amount would buy you two or three night's worth of dinners!

I think a good place to begin would be with fresh fruit.  A 3 pound bag of apples costs about the same as a medium size bag of potato chips.  Ask them to pick up (or better yet go to the store with them) $5 worth of fresh fruit for you.  Bananas are always inexpensive.  Look for fruit in season - right now it's berries, peaches and nectarines.  Watermelon is especially cheap this time of year.  Watch for specials and take advantage of any store coupons.

Once you get into the habit of adding two fruits a day to your diet, try getting them to buy some fresh carrots.  If expense is a factor, then go for regular carrots and peel them yourself.  If not, then the little carrots that are alread peeled and ready to eat are ideal. 

All you would be doing is asking them to take the money they spend on unhealthy packaged food (you pay for the packaging you know) and put it into fresh produce. 

I grew up on that diet, too.  Lots of mac 'n cheese, cookies and hot dogs - and no sense of what portions to eat.  I'd suggest 2 things to break these habits a lot earlier than I did...

-Keep a diary of what you eat every day and add up the calories.

-Keep your own stash of healthy food for snacks.  Dried fruit such as apricots, for instance.  Canned tuna for lunch every once in a while.  

You say you don't buy the food at home, that the food at home is not healthy because healthy is too expensive, and that you rely on fast food. 

Running to the supermarket and buying salad fixings and lean meats, or cans of tuna and some sandwich wraps is surely cheaper and better for you than eating at MacDonald's.  If you have enough of your own money to buy fast food, you have enough money to buy something better for you.  Just take the initiative and try to avoid bad for you things just because they're easier to get to. 

Also, like other posters said, your "gorcery shopper" needs an education in cost analysis at the grocery store.  Maybe a little "quality versus quantity" could help too.  In the end you may end up paying less in health insurance and medical bills if you put in the initial investment to keep your body healthy.

Original Post by thhq:

I grew up on that diet, too.  Lots of mac 'n cheese, cookies and hot dogs - and no sense of what portions to eat.  I'd suggest 2 things to break these habits a lot earlier than I did...

-Keep a diary of what you eat every day and add up the calories.

-Keep your own stash of healthy food for snacks.  Dried fruit such as apricots, for instance.  Canned tuna for lunch every once in a while.  

 Dried fruit is very high in sugar, and calorie packed.  For example, a quarter cup (32g) of dried apricots have 17.5g of sugar, and 78 calories.  So they're healthy, but should be used in moderation for people trying to watch their calories.  About the same amount of raisins is 85 calories, and 17g of sugar.

Clint

I mentioned dried apricots because their GI is low compared to raisins, and also because I find it easy to binge on raisins. Lots of other dried fruits would work just as well - cranberries, blueberries, cherries, etc.  Any of them is way better than eating cookies, chips, salted nuts, granola or other processed food snacks.  They're something you can keep around without having to worry about refrigeration too.

Original Post by kayola:

You say you don't buy the food at home, that the food at home is not healthy because healthy is too expensive, and that you rely on fast food. 

Running to the supermarket and buying salad fixings and lean meats, or cans of tuna and some sandwich wraps is surely cheaper and better for you than eating at MacDonald's.  If you have enough of your own money to buy fast food, you have enough money to buy something better for you.  Just take the initiative and try to avoid bad for you things just because they're easier to get to. 

Also, like other posters said, your "gorcery shopper" needs an education in cost analysis at the grocery store.  Maybe a little "quality versus quantity" could help too.  In the end you may end up paying less in health insurance and medical bills if you put in the initial investment to keep your body healthy.

I couldn't agree more. Per serving nothing beats dried beans in terms of price, and they are great base for pretty much everything. Regular or quick cooking oats sold in big jars are also pretty cheap and are healthy. For fruits and veggies you can look in to frozen ones. They are usually cheaper then the "fresh" ones.

UD

well i dont like spend tons of money on fast food. I only did if i could afford it. Then i started going to subway instead of McD just cuz it may not be the best but its still better than McD. Thanks everyone for the input, it has all been solved and now our refrigerator is full of vegies and fruit ^_^ yay! Thanks again everyone!

Awesome!  Good news, and good luck!

And yeah, I think Subway is usually a much better choice than McD's.  Extreme Pita (or similar) is another good option, I think.  Anytime you can go somewhere that you can select exactly what goes on your food is a bonus.

Clint

Unless you can get your mum to buy health things,
or some healthy things for you.
you could just exercise more.
yes, you are not eating the healthiest things,
but if you run everyday (outside for free) then you should burn it all off anyway.
maybe take up a sport at school or something.
that swimmer American guy ate 12000 calories a day and most of it was crap.
but he could because he did so much swimming he burnt it all off.