Everyone has been to health stores like Whole Foods and have seen how expensive their food can get. They offer ultra-premium foods that are organic, non-GMO, grass fed/finished, wild-caught, etc.; which is what jacks the price so high. Not everyone can blow hundreds on healthy groceries every week, but eating healthy doesn’t have to be so expensive. In fact, the reason healthy foods seem expensive is because people exaggerate what it means to be healthy.
Eating healthy is not necessarily expensive. It seems expensive because when people think healthy, they think of ultra premium products like organic, non-gmo, grass fed/finished, etc. While these products are definitely healthy, they’re not the only ways to improve your diet.
Why People Think Healthy is Expensive
Most people see food in two extremes; it’s either healthy or unhealthy. In reality, healthy is a spectrum. There are plenty of foods that can still help you get healthier despite not having every hallmark of a “health food.” In fact, viewing foods only in their extremes feeds into the dangerous “all-or-nothing” mindset of fitness.
All-or-Nothing Mindset
People with this mindset basically think, “If I can’t have the very best foods all the time, I might as well not try.” This might sound ridiculously extreme, but a lot of people think like this without realizing it. In fact, the all-or-nothing mindset is more common with an actual workout routine.
When people start an exercise routine, they’re normally super motivated and plan to workout as much as they have time for, which is usually 5-6 times a week. They plan out exactly what to do in the gym, when to do it, and how long until they reach their goal. The whole plan can look perfect on paper, but there’s always one factor that’s never really considered: life. As soon as the routine is disrupted because of a family emergency, busy day at work, or any unexpected event; many people will drop the routine entirely.
This is the same trap people fall in for dieting. If they can’t have food that’s perfectly healthy, why bother trying at all. In reality, it’s not realistic to have a 100% perfect diet, so it’s important to accept “good enough” instead of perfect. That’s not to say that dieting does not require sacrifice. All successful diets need some form of sacrifice. What this means is you don’t need to absolutely perfect.
Fitness Marketing
Fitness companies are always trying to sell you something, especially supplements. Because of this, they often over-glorify the important of things like BCAAs, beta-alanine, and other compounds you likely never heard of. However, if you’re overweight, you’ll achieve 90% of your healthy benefits from simply losing bodyfat.
A great example of this comes from Omega-3 fatty acids. Unless you supplement with this, or eat a pound if fish every day, you’re deficient in this nutrient. Inadequate Omega-3 can lead to a higher risk of chronic diseases and elevated inflammation in the body. However, if you’re overweight, you can achieve the same benefit from simply losing bodyfat. According to Science Daily, losing bodyfat will also reduce inflammation and the risk of chronic disease. Not only does fat loss have the same benefit, but it also means you don’t have to spend premium prices on supplements and omega-rich foods.
To be clear, we’re not saying Omega-3 supplements are a waste of money. The point is that unless a doctor told you to take a specific supplement, focusing on fat loss can potentially give you all the health benefits you’ll need.
Below lists additional foods that can be considered healthy. Below that, we talk about what you need to do to focus on fat loss.
Cheap Foods That Are Still Healthy
Frozen Meats and Fish
Protein is one of the most under consumed nutrients in people who exercise. Although the US Recommended Daily Allowance is only about 60g for most people (0.8g per kg of bodyweight), people who exercise can require at least double that amount. Some of the benefits of protein include:
- Long-lasting fullness for fewer calories than carbs and fats
- Better exercise recovery, which leads to more progress and less soreness
- Potential muscle building, which can help boost your metabolism
Although certain plants have some protein, meat and fish are the best sources because you can get a lot of protein for very few calories. With that said, you don’t always need the organic, grass-fed, wild-caught, etc. Getting frozen meat and fish in bulk is not only cost effective, but also more convenient than buying raw.
Frozen Vegetables
Everyone knows that vegetables are good for you, and this is for two main reasons. First, most vegetables are nutrient dense; they have more micronutrients than calories. Second, most of them are packed with fiber. Fiber has the same long-lasting fullness as protein along with the following benefits:
- Helps control blood sugar by slowing down carb digestion
- Adds bulk to your stool, making digestion in general a smoother process
- Helps keep the gut healthy by feeding the good bacteria in the intestines
Similar to frozen meat and fish, frozen vegetables offer the same nutritional benefit as fresh produce for a fraction of the cost. Again, you don’t need to get the organic or non-GMO every time. Mixed vegetables are great because of the variety of nutrients, but it’s recommended to get as many green vegetables you can. Green usually means high in fiber, and the darker the green the better.
Rice
Rice does not make you fat, and carbs don’t make you fat. The only thing that causes weight gain is eating too many calories. With that said, rice is completely healthy when used in the right serving sizes. Here are some of the benefits rice has on top of being extremely cheap:
- Easy to digest
- Blood sugar control during a workout
- Quick recovery after a workout
Calories: What People Should Really Be Focusing On
If the key to most of your health benefits is fat loss, then calories should be your primary focus for dieting. There are thousands of diets out there, but they all cause fat loss the same exact way; you eating less calories than you burn. So how do you find out how many calories to eat? Here’s a quick step-by-step guide:
1. Find out your TDEE
Your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) represents how many calories you burn a day. The easiest way to find this is by using an online calculator, like this one from ACTIVE.com. After inputting your height, weight, and other metrics, it’ll give you an estimate of how many calories you burn every day.
2. Create a Protein Goal
Before you cut calories, it’s important to set a protein goal first. If you cut calories without hitting your protein goal, you’re likely to lose weight from muscle loss rather than fat loss. Some people say they don’t mind as long as they’re smaller, but losing muscle never looks good. On top of that, losing muscle without losing fat will make you far less healthy in the long term.
Most people should be eating one gram of protein per pound of bodyweight. Earlier we said the US RDA is much lower than this, and that’s because the RDA is only concerned with deadly nutrient deficiencies. In other words, 60g of protein a day will keep you alive, but it does not promote optimal health.
Lastly, if you’re severely overweight (100+ pounds of extra bodyfat), then you should use 0.8 instead of 1 gram per pound of bodyweight. The protein is suppose to support lean body mass (LBM), which is all the tissue in your body that’s not fat (muscle, bone, skin, etc.). So if you carry a lot of bodyfat, you can get away with less protein.
3. Create a Calorie Deficit
Now you can start cutting calories. A calorie deficit means eating less calories than your body burns, so eating anything under your TDEE will cause weight loss.
Its recommended to start with 300-500 calories below TDEE. It’ll be enough to see decent progress every week, but not so much that you feel like you’re starving every day. Just make sure you’re hitting your protein goal everyday to prevent muscle loss.
4. Monitor your progress
According to Dr. Layne Norton’s book Fat Loss Forever (https://amzn.to/3kgQo38), there are three recommended ways to monitor fat loss progress:
- Measure your bodyweight daily
- Measure bodyfat percentage at least 3 times a week
- Measure circumferences 3 times a week
By using a bodyfat scale, you can measure both bodyfat and weight at the same time. Otherwise you can use any other bodyfat device like calipers.
Also, you’re taking multiple measurements a week because each metric (weight, bodyfat, and circumference) can be manipulated by water and food. To prevent those from messing up your data, take an average for each at the end of each week. When you’re comparing your weight loss progress week-by-week, be sure to only compare weekly averages and not singular weigh-ins.
If you find the three metrics staying the same or increasing across weekly averages, you can try cutting 200 more calories and seeing what happens.