Fed up of crap diet and low income, anyone else?

[Piglets31]

I'm a healthy weight and slim, but my diet is bad and I've gained a pound this last month.
I find healthy eating to be quite expensive, I work 6 days a week and also tutor a couple of hours one evening, so twice a week I'm out from 7:30am-7:30pm.

So on those days I cant just take a packed lunch with me as that won't keep me going, I need various snacks too. I live alone so don't have anyone else to fall on for financial support.
I am working on getting a better paid role as im just fed up of 6 days a week to make ends meet.
Because I'm out all day and also try to walk most places to save money, I'm low on energy if I don't eat often, but healthier things are expensive, it's just a vicious circle.

I do have a sugar addiction but just finding it impossible to cut down, and I don't drink at all, don't smoke etc. It's one of the few pleasures in life.

Don't know where to start, im hungry around every few hours too, I try to not eat after 8pm though. Feel stuck in this cycle, when you're skint it's very easy to pick up a £1 frozen ready meal.
When you're out all day and then have to come back and start cleaning and so on you dont really feel like spending ages prepping fresh meals.
Anyone feel the same?

Personally I think its cheaper to eat well than eat crap. Good basic seasonal veg from a market, less expensive cuts of meat like chicken thighs etc.

so, for example:
overnight oats or porridge for breakfast, made with oats, milk and water
Add dried fruit l, banana or defrosted frozen berries for flavour

lunch:
cheese salad sandwich
lentil rice or pasta based salads
home made soup (also useful for using ip random veg from the fridge)

dinner - lots of interesting stuff from chicken thighs or mince, veg, lentils, pasta, rice, eggs (buy from a farm if you can)

make your own snacks like flapjack

Meal plan, batch cook, use the freezer and you will always have something on hand. Have a couple of veggie days.

use Chat GPT to meal plan to a fixed budget from a preferred supermarket.

Lentils and oats are cheap. Batch cook lots of dahl and porridge for breakfast

Snack sized cucumbers, small containers of grapes and cheap apples are a huge start. Also yellow sticker items. When you feel like something go for an apple or a cucumber. Half your crap food, do t try and take it out or you will crave it. Eat as few times a week after eight as you can and drink loads of water. Sorry this is so quick but coming off break!!! Best of luck!!

I’m on my own, currently looking for a job so live on a shoe string budget but absolutely prioritise eating well. Yes it would be easier to reach for the cheap, beige, processed crap but I know it won’t do my mood or body any good.

I know it’s difficult when you’re working long hours but try and focus on eating better. As pp said, it doesn’t have to be expensive - i’ve just Picked up 3 tins of beans from aldi for £1.50 that will form the basis of my meals, add lots of veg, spices too and you have a really tasty meal. I have fish a couple of times a week too, not expensive cuts and often tinned.

It’s a mindset and getting into this way of eating but know that you’re really looking after your health in the process.

Batch cooking really is a game changer op, especially if you have freezer space, I have a whole bunch of cheap but good for me homemade meals that I make when I’m feeling up to it and when I can pick up excess stuff on yellow sticker, and it’s a couple of mins in the microwave, things like lentils, veg and rice, pasta dishes etc

Well.

I do sympathise. But let me
indicate why weight etc is not the same for everyone.

Ive just been away for 6 days on a volunteering holiday. I walked an average of 28,000 steps a day. I did lots of lifting and carrying. I ate about 2000 cals a day and I don’t drink much (couple of cans of cider).

I gained 5lbs. In 6 days. I have to eat <1500 to maintain and go as low as 1200 to lose.

Other than that, totally agree with the above examples of cheaper healthy eating!

If I'm going to be out of the house for hours I keep a supply of John West long life tuna salads available (or the even cheaper Lidl version).

I understand the issue of time, but I don't agree that healthy eating is expensive.

DH and I have recently decided to start eating better as we've gained weight, and our shopping is a good 1/3 cheaper now it's mostly fresh fruit and veg and no snacks.

Why are you trying not to eat after 8pm? That's obviously not going to work if you're out until 7:30.

This sounds like more of a time issue, planning and making/batch cooking healthy food can be done of course but it requires time and mental energy.

Put yourself first and consider giving up at least the tutoring.

You need a freezer to do well at cheap healthy eating. Also since Covid and COL crisis, chicken breast is quite often cheaper than boneless skinless thigh fillets per kilo so don’t fall for that old chestnut. The supermarkets are hoping no one noticed.

Frozen chicken breasts are 1kg for £4.29 at Tesco for example. Frozen green beans dropped into boiling water is very quick and easy as a veg. Don’t need to worry about sell by dates.

dhals are good too in glass Tupperware.

bananas, apples - cheap seasonal fruit, both are good baked with butter and brown sugar in winter and make healthy portable snacks.

could make your own flapjacks for something treatier.

I agree OP, it’s a shame that healthy eating can be expensive. It also takes a lot of planning which is tiring after a long day/week!

Perhaps trying to incorporate frozen/tinned fruit/veg would be helpful, it’s often so much cheaper than fresh fruit and veg. Also try chicken thighs instead of breast and frozen or tinned fish.

I include cannellini or butter beans in salads or quinoa/rice dishes as they are cheap and provide bulk while also being good for you. A chilli made with black beans, kidney beans etc is also very quick and easy, good for freezing too.

But also - if you have had a long day, there’s nothing wrong with a quick pesto pasta or scrambled eggs on toast just to make sure you are fed!!

Hmm.

My "baseline" (if I didn't move all day) is around 1200 calories.
28,000 steps is around 1000 calories, so that would take it up to 2200.
A can of cider is around 200 kcal, so if you're eating 2000 kcal (and nearly everyone underestimates their calories by a bit) + 2 cans of cider, that's 2400 calories a day so I would have been "over" by 200 kcal a day.

Based on that it's very unlikely that you gained 5lbs in 6 days, some of it is probably water retention.

I agree its more time that will hinder you than cost.

Shop well and you can get good value 'wonky' veg or yellow sticker to batch cook healthy and satisfying soups, stews or roasted veg for salads. Having a freezer full of ready to go meals makes life so much easier.

But it takes lots of time, planning and mental effort to do this in advance before you get the benefits.

Have you looked at the batch lady books? Her plans are for a family, but in my opinion makes them even better for a single, as you get so many more ready meals for the same one hour effort. Plus batch cooking reduces waste and buying bulk can reduce costs.

For snacking - fruit, apples, pears, bananas, the cheaper ones. Yoghurt with tinned or frozen fruit, carrot sticks are healthy and filling and can be cheap. Home made flapjacks are not expensive, though do take time to prepare. We also make freezer biscuits or rock cakes and freeze them until we want to eat them.

I agree OP. I think the combination of money and a lack of time makes it really difficult to eat healthily. Yes, porridge is cheap, but it takes cooking (and cleaning) time that isn't available in the mornings. It would be great to batch cook dhal etc, but if you're out all day every day, you really do need to factor in rest time, and shopping, cooking and cleaning isn't restful. And also, you want a varied diet, not just lentils, potatoes, pasta and the other carby stuff that's always recommended for people on a budget. Even a nice root veg soup, whilst being cheap and nutritious, takes time and effort to make.

I think that a lot of well-meaning people recommend cheap and healthy meals for poorer people without realising that firstly, poor people are usually also time poor so can't spend time slaving over a stove, and secondly, poverty affects women more than men, and women have the added responsibility of unpaid caring responsibilities. There's also an unconscious bias that people think that poorer women do not need the same amount of leisure time as men, or middle-class women, when in truth, the financial and practical responsibilities placed on working class women are so huge, they really do need time to destress.

I really, really wish fruit was as affordable as biscuits, and that to make a nice salad would be as cheap to make as an Iceland frozen pizza.

I do sympathise - I work long hours (16 hours at least three days a week) but I spend an hour on Sunday meal prepping. There are loads of good people to follow on insta. I do overnight oats for breakfast, snacks and jar salads with pasta and plenty of protein and take them with me each day. It does take energy though

I'm not on a budget, but I'm very into healthy eating and, for me, it lends itself to eating pretty cheaply.

• Breakfast - porridge
• Snack - banana
• Lunch - a 3-egg omelette with a tiny bit of cheese
• Snack - Greek yoghurt and honey
• Dinner - chilli, made with beef mince, but stretched by adding 3 or 4 of tins of beans (kidney, black, canellini)

I always have frozen veg, potatoes, rice and chicken breasts in.

For example, I went in last night, I had a precooked chicken breast, I cooked a packet of brown rice in the mic, heated the chicken up in the mic, mixed it together and added some BBQ sauce. I couldn't be bothered to add veg but i would have just stuck it in a pan while the other stuff was cooking.

I pre make paninis and stick them in the foreman.

I cut the potatoes up and season and put them into bags of portions ready to go in the air fryer.

I try and do a large meal on a Sunday like a pasta bake or a spag bol or something and portion it up. There are loads of batch recipes if you look - it does save time and money.

And if you don't have one invest in a slow cooked, you can cook almost anything in there and there are plenty of books where its 4/5 ingrediants, stick it on and its ready when you get in and again you can make bigger portions to save for later in the week.

Thank so much for your suggestions, I really appreciate them. I'll try harder and try to look at how to shop more effectively.

Any soup with the consistency of thick lentil will keep you full for a long time. Carrot and coriander with potatoes and then blitzed will cost 50p a portion at the most. I make 2 pots of soup at the one time, that's a weeks worth of soup that you can eat when you arrive home at 7:30.

In your shoes I would lookalike your diet and food shopping with fresh eyes and have a rethink and be totally honest with yourself.

Are you eating a lot of calorie high but nutrition poor foods. For example many ready meals, breakfast cereals and snacks come into this category.

You say you are hungry often. I would suggest you may be need to eat more protein to full you up at meal times. Eggs, cottage cheese, Full fat Greek yogurt are all reasonably priced and fulling. A small tub of cottage cheese is the same price as a Mars bar but more filling.
This should cut out the need for snacking.

Meal planning is helpful.
I'm hearing people say its time consuming and takes mental effort. Everything takes a .mental effort even nipping to Iceland for a ready made pizza takes effort. However I would say planning saves time and money in the long run.
It takes 15 minutes max. People will find time to watch Coronation Street,Eastenders or whatever and then say they haven't got any free time. Do your meal planning then.

Surely that is easier than

wondering whats for tea every night and having to do an emergency dash to Spar or the co op to buy something.

So on those days I cant just take a packed lunch with me as that won't keep me going, I need various snacks too.

On these days I would be having a second meal at work, not just snacks , A sald wrap with cheese ,egg or hummus would be cheap and filling.

What snacks are you having by the way, some will make you feel like crap, won't help with your energy levels and you may as well through your money down the grid.
Also, are you drinking enough water. You need to stay hydrated and this can ward off hunger.

Always cook for 2-4 and save in batches for 1.
So eat 1 save 3...

Thank you, I do need to take a better look.
I try to eat snacks like fruit, cheese, cereal bars but often end up having cookies, cakes, chocolate etc. Which I know isn't good.

One of the major reasons women fail at keeping g to an eating plan is that they don't eat enough. I'd suggest taking two packed meals with you. If you don't want sandwiches twice a day look at pasta, couscous etc.

Aldi do a cheap version of a Nakd bar. So it's just dried fruit and nuts. Very handy on the go.
Also, not sure if you are into Asian food but find a decent Asian super market - we stock up on cheap snacks like seaweed, rice crackers, dried peas / beans.

Wraps! Tuna, cucumber, sweetcorn in a wrap - can take it with you or have at home.
microwave rice, beans, cheese in a wrap. Again travels well in tin foil like a burrito.