Healthy Eating on a Budget

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You don't have to abandon your diet in a tough economy. Find out how to make healthy, low-calorie choices on a budget.

If only your waist could be as skinny as your wallet! If your belt-tightening is not just a necessity but a weight-loss goal, these may be challenging days for you.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), food costs increased 5.5 percent in 2008 and are likely to increase another 3 to 4 percent in 2009. The cost of eating out also increased about 4 percent in the past year. But, despite these statistics, it is still possible to stick to a healthy diet without busting the bank.

Calorie Counting on a Budget: Shopping Guidelines
 
Fortunately, there are smart ways to overcome the current costs for food. Here are some general guidelines for healthy food shopping when counting calories and pennies:

• Buy whole foods. The more preparation that has gone into a food, the more it will cost. For example, a head of lettuce, whether it’s romaine or iceberg, costs less than bagged salad. The same applies to meats — buying and roasting your own turkey breast is usually a fraction of the per-pound cost of sliced turkey at the deli counter.
• Cook more of your own meals. Cooking at home is easier on your budget than eating out or buying meals precooked and gives you total calorie counting control.
• Buy in bulk. Put your freezer to good use; large bags of frozen vegetables and fruits can save you money over fresh produce. Apply the same strategy to bulk meats, especially when they are on sale.
• Buy in season. Buying fruits and veggies in season is always easier on your budget.
• Try dishes with beans and rice. Both beans and rice are budget-friendly, especially when bought in bulk, and can add fiber, nutrients, and texture to any meal. They can be a healthy, low-fat meal on their own, as well.
• Watch the sales. If you’re wondering where to shop, keep an eye on sales announcements. You can find deals at almost any store.

Calorie-Counting on a Budget: Stretching Your Dollar

 

Donna Weihofen, RD, MS, a nutritionist at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics in Madison, recently did some comparison shopping in her local area stores to find out which foods offered the best calorie counting and cost bargains. Her results reflect the budget diet recommendations created by national groups such as the USDA.

 

“Of course the lowest-cost proteins are dried beans and eggs,” says Weihofen. “Then the next step up is canned beans, milk, and whole chicken. And the next step up was chicken thigh, then chicken breast, then deli chicken. Chicken is really a bargain, but the deli chicken was out of sight compared to the rotisserie chicken.”

Weihofen recommends taking advantage of the opportunities a whole chicken (rotisserie or baked at home) presents. Use the leftover meat in a chili, stew, or soup later in the week. And of course, the bones can be used to make stock for another soup later as well.

Weihofen also found that whole baking potatoes present a cost-saving opportunity, as does buying frozen vegetables. “Frozen red peppers are cheaper than buying the fresh peppers, for example. If you just weigh that stuff out, you’ll see what the difference is,” she says. Another trick for cost saving is to think in terms of versatility and multiple meals, especially if using bulk ingredients: A bean chili today might become the filling for a taco or wrap tomorrow.


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Calorie Counting on a Budget: Putting Together Low-Cost Meals
 
If you are sticking to a specific diet plan, you may wonder how to make all this work — calorie counting, tracking carbs and fat grams while stretching every dollar. Just apply what you know about portion sizes and calorie counts to low-cost foods. Here are some ideas for specific diet plans:

• Low-carb diet. For a low-carb meal, serve baked chicken (from your whole chicken) and mixed frozen vegetables, or a crustless quiche made with budget-friendly eggs.
• Low-fat diet. Chicken and bean chili with a baked potato and lots of frozen veggies followed with a seasonal fruit for dessert makes a tasty low-fat meal.
• Low-calorie diet. One cup of mixed bean chili with a cup of cooked frozen veggies served over one-half cup of rice provides a filling 450-calorie meal.

Dieting on a budget takes creativity, especially when some of the best low-calorie foods, like fresh fish and berries, are expensive. But, with smart shopping and a willingness to experiment with new foods and flavors, calorie counting on a budget is not only doable, but can be fun, too.

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Calories: How to Know if You Go Too Low

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Eating too few calories may actually hamper your weight-loss goals. Here's how to tell if your calorie counting is counterproductive.

Cutting calories is the approach most dieters must take to meet their weight-loss goals. But every once in a while people take calorie restriction too far, ultimately making weight loss slower and more difficult by slowing your metabolism.

Figuring out the right number of calories for you on a daily basis depends on your age, gender, and activity level. In general, the younger and more active you are, the more calories you can consume. And men are able to eat more calories daily than women. For example, the U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines says that women 19 to 30 years old should consume 2,000 calories if they have a sedentary lifestyle or 2,400 calories if they have an active one; for men of the same age the range is 2,400 to 3,000 calories.

Defining the Low-Calorie Diet

It seems logical that if calories are the problem, you would want to eat as few of them as possible to speed weight loss. As a general rule, people need a minimum of 1,200 calories daily to stay healthy. People who have a strenuous fitness routine or perform many daily activities need more calories. If you have reduced your calorie intake below 1,200 calories a day, you could be hurting your body in addition to your weight-loss plans.

“The big picture is to consume enough calories with a balance of nutrients and engage in physical activity for good health management to achieve one’s weight goals. Consuming less than 1,200 calories per day may make it difficult to meet vitamin and mineral needs via food,” says nutrition therapist Andrea Spivack, MA, RD, LDN, with Penn Behavioral Health at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Tempting as it may be to continue with your low-calorie weight-loss plan and simply take a supplement, Spivack points out that there are some key nutrients which are only available through your diet.

Occasionally, obese people will go on a very low-calorie diet — 800 to 1,000 calories per day — for a brief period of time in order to achieve a specific weight-loss goal, but then will switch to a diet with more calories to reach and maintain their desired weight. Such a diet is usually supervised by a doctor or nutritionist so that it is nutritionally balanced. Unfortunately, weight regain is common after these restricted calorie diets end.

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Why Low-Calorie Diets Slow Your Metabolism

If you are on a very low-calorie diet, you may wonder why the numbers on your scale aren’t budging, but your diet buddy is slimmer by the month.

The reality is that different people respond differently to low-calorie diets. When your body senses that food may not be in plentiful supply, it may slow down your metabolism as protection against the possibility of starvation, even if you are obese and deliberately trying to lose weight.

“In some people, the metabolic rate [how fast the body burns calories] is only slightly reduced to make up the shortfall in energy difference, while in others it is far greater. It is this variability in the metabolic rate with energy restriction that causes much of the variability in weight loss between people,” explains Leanne M. Redman, PhD, an instructor of human physiology at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La. Redman and colleagues have been studying the impact of very low-calorie diets on weight loss and other measures of health.

Calories: Are You Getting Enough?
 
Here are signs that you are not getting enough calories:

• You are having a hard time sticking to your diet plan. It's hard to stick to extremely low-calorie diets, which can hurt your long-term success. Boredom and hunger can both undermine your weight-loss goals.
• Your weight loss is stalling. A study of 48 overweight people compared the results of a calorie restriction diet, diet and exercise, and a normal diet over six months and found that many of those eating the lower amount of calories had increasingly slow metabolisms as time went by. This translates into slowed weight loss.

You can use online tools, such as My Calorie Counter, to help you track your daily calorie intake. MCC allows you to set a target for daily calorie consumption and can tell you throughout the day how you are doing.

If you are still interested in a low-calorie diet, consult a doctor or dietitian who can help you create a nutritionally balanced diet that won’t leave you hungry and frustrated.

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