Advertisements does have an impact on us. If you watch television for ten minutes there will be at least one food commercial tempting you. Invariable the next time you are out shopping for food at the supermarket or finding a place to eat, you will remember the ad you saw or heard.
This constant bombarding has caused us to become a nation of overweight and sick people. If you were to compare the eating habits of people just fifty years ago to the way we eat today it would become obvious why there is such a dramatic increase in diseases like cancer, heart problems and diabetes.
The typical dinner on the table when your parents were youngsters consisted of more wholesome food stuff . . . and people were not as sedentary as they are today.
Dr. Monica was able to demonstrated how eating a simple and cost-effective diet and staying active will have a positive impact on our health. Check out how he was able to do it in the following article.
How to Lose Weight by Eating Healthy—for Just $3 a Day
That’s a full day of meals for less than you’d usually spend on your morning latte.
A diet that is healthy, tasty, and cheap can feel like an unattainable trifecta—especially if you want to go cheap cheap. But balancing your weight and your wallet is possible, as economist Mark Bonica, Ph.D., and dietician Kerryn Story, M.P.H., set out to prove when they teamed up to develop a $3-a-day diet that Bonica followed for a month.
It started out simply enough. Bonica had always been interested in the question of eating on an extremely limited budget and decided to combine his curiosity with the opportunity to turn his health around. He recruited Story to provide nutritional counsel and support, and the two of them blogged daily about the experience (you can check out the blog here). After a 30-day trial of eating on $3 a day (calculated by adding up the price-per-ounce of everything Bonica consumed and cooked with), he lost 10 pounds—and lowered his cholesterol and fasting glucose levels, which got Bonica out of pre-diabetic range. The researchers will be presenting their results at the upcoming 2014 Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo happening October 18-21.
MORE: The Secret to Weight-Loss Results, No Matter Which Diet You Follow
First things first: Bonica and Story didn’t develop a magical diet that you can copy to the letter. It’s much simpler than that. Bonica’s success came from straightforward clean eating combined with super mindful spending that required him to kick his most unhealthy habits, like drinking soda and eating out. Luckily, if you want to lose weight on a budget, his $3-a-day diet is full of guidelines you can steal for yourself—provided you’re willing to do your own food prep.
Bonica averaged 1,700 calories a day (you can get a ballpark estimate of your own daily caloric needs here) and exercised at least 15 days out of the month. As for what he was eating and what you should imitate: “A lot of it is just simplifying your meals and being creative with what you can buy,” says Story. She suggests getting your protein from beans, whole-grain rice, and eggs. She also recommends stocking up on frozen vegetables and buying in bulk whenever you can. If you’re a salad lover, you should know that on a strict budget, your fresh produce will be made up of what’s in season or on sale. The rest is all about the prep: Bonica cooked in bulk over the weekends (he even baked his own bread!) and kept track of every cent he spent (and ate).
MORE: 8 Weight-Loss Tricks You Should NEVER Try
To stay on budget, Bonica used a spreadsheet to keep track of the price per ounce of all his purchases, from brown rice ($0.0347/ounce) to bananas ($0.03/ounce); this made tallying up his daily spending easier. It might take a few days to get a hang of knowing what $3 worth of food looks like, but the proof is in the pudding. “It forced me to keep track of everything,” says Bonica. “I became dramatically more conscious of what I was consuming.”
When it comes down to it, the preparation and attention it takes to adhere to a strict budget might be all you need to lose weight—so long as you stick to some basic healthy guidelines in the process, like watching your calorie and fat intakes. After that, it’s all about creativity, a little DIY, and some serious attention to detail at the grocery store. Of course, what sounds simple is a lot harder in practice—Bonica says it was not an easy month—but consider giving it a try. It could leave your wallet heavier and you lighter.
Original post found at: http://www.womenshealthmag.com/weight-loss/cheap-weight-lossP.S. In addition to eating a healthy and cost effective diet, we should stay active by incorporating some form of consistent exercise in each day.
P.P.S. Visit exercises for diabetics today where you will find information on exercising properly . . . . at home or in a gym.
