How can you?

United States
May 24, 2008 2:46pm CST
Everyone says that to loose weight you need to eat right and excerise. sounds easy right? well if you are like me and many other families how in the world can you eat right when all the healthy food cost so much more than all that junk food? I mean apples are like almost $2 a pound! and bag of salad is right around $3 and my fav. are cherries and they want $6 a pound!! i think what they need to do is raise the price on junk food and lower the price on healthier foods. and maybe lower the price on gym memberships too! they say that most people are obese because they eat the wrong foods and they dont excerise. well if everything that was good for you didnt cost so much i personally think we would have less obese people in this world. I want to loose at least 60lbs because i know i am overweight but like i said, i am a middle class family of four, me my husband and our 2 kids, and with everything going up, its hard to buy the good foods, unless you do like me and catch them on sale. do you all agree?
5 people like this
9 responses
@dragon54u (31636)
• United States
24 May 08
It's very expensive to stay healthy! I'm running into that problem, I lost 65 pounds and have 40 to go. Everything good for me is very pricey! I've always maintained that there are so many fat poor people because they can only afford the cheap, unhealthy foods like macaroni & cheese. It'll get worse now that food prices are rising. You may not need to buy so much, do you keep a food journal? That was a big help to me, I thought I was hardly eating anything but I was picking all day, something here, a little something there, and I was surprised at how much I was actually eating! I planned better, got my day structured and started controlling my portions. 1/2 cup of cottage cheese is NOT a bowlful!! That's how I lost weight, not depriving myself but watching my portions.
2 people like this
@mommyboo (13174)
• United States
25 May 08
Portion control is a BIG part of learning to be healthier and also controlling hunger and weight loss. Once you know what a portion of something is, you can adjust other things you eat with it to make up a meal and therefore feel fuller even if you have eaten fewer total calories. While it is true that unhealthy things tend to be cheaper, many poor people qualify for WIC and food stamps, and WIC covers healthy options, and food stamps can be used for healthier options as well. Nobody is saying they have to purchase mac and cheese and ramen noodles and pepsi with the food stamps, they could just as easily buy some bulk pasta, ingredients for sauce, various meats, fresh or frozen or canned veggies, etc.
@dragon54u (31636)
• United States
26 May 08
It would be nice if nutrition education was required before getting WIC and food stamps.
@syeryn (573)
• United States
25 May 08
Eating healthy is not cheap. Recently my daughter and I began to eat healthier and after the shock from our first trip to the grocery store, we took a drive to our nearest farmers market. We can buy bulk there for next to nothing and since we are spiltting the food between two homes there is very little waste. Even with the higher gas prices it is still worth the trip we make once every two weeks to the market.
2 people like this
@mommyboo (13174)
• United States
25 May 08
In addition to farmers markets, I have also heard of food co-ops where you pay a certain amount per week or bimonthly and you get a certain amount of seasonal produce and other things. I don't know how expensive this is because I don't do it, but I have heard good things about it. People who are single or just couples or a small family of three vs a family of 6-8 can share the cost with another person and then split what they get so nothing goes bad.
@earthsong (589)
• United States
25 May 08
Having a large family I found myself turning to convenience foods for quickie dinners when our life got more hectic. Between two jobs, two high schoolers, two elementary schoolers and other obligations it was really easy to buy the cheapo packaged items. My kids were sluggish and my hubby and I were putting on weight and I knew out diet had to change. If you are careful and plan it right you can feed yourself decently without spending more than $10 a dinner, and its not all boxed or processed foods. Maybe cherries and apples aren't in the budget, but you can make way more salads buy buying a head of green leaf lettuce a cuke and a tomato for about the same cost as buying a bag of salad mix. And even if you do have to fall back on prepackaged food and processed items you can pair it with a fresh food item to cut back on some of the bad stuff. And you don't need a gym membership to take a walk after dinner. I always wanted a gym membership and when I could finally afford one I realized that I just wasted all that money because I never went regularly. Its a good concept, but if you can't motivate yourself at home having a gym membership won't do it for you. If you have the space post on your local FreeCycle group for some exercise equipment. We got a treadmill and an exercise ball for free from members of our local FreeCycle. Now, we have a very limited grocery budget. We are not one of those families that can go to the store and spend $200 a week, if I did that we wouldn't have much else. I spend between $80 and $100 a week, and some times that it cutting things close. I feed a family of 6 for that amount, and no one ever goes hungry. Well, my 14 year old son thinks he does, but I think he has hollow legs LOL
2 people like this
@leeloo (1492)
• Portugal
25 May 08
I think that everyone has the same concern the prices of natural or healthy alternatives are more expensive worldwide then junk food. For the past 2 - 3 years I have noticed a marked increase though, what I use now for fruit and vegetables for a week would give for a month not too long ago and thus the tendency to buy processed food is greater eg in tomato sauce made from scratch with real tomatoes has become too expensive and I tend to buy pre-made sauce. I still rarely buy true junk food eg burgers though I still buy pizza. Fortunately there is always the farmers market.
2 people like this
@saundyl (9783)
• Canada
25 May 08
The prices on healthy foods being so high and encouraging people to eat junk food is so true. I've been working at loosing weight and I fall off the wagon at times because I just cant afford the healthy foods every time i go grocery shopping. I have found that i can offset the costs of vegetables like carrots, potatoes, some apples, and fruits by growing them in my garden. Its a nice thing to be able to depend on and...I hope this year to be able to have enough produce to last a while. I know theres many people who aren't lucky enough to have the space to have a garden but even growing a few herbs in plant pots helps out.
1 person likes this
• United States
24 May 08
Food prices are rising, that's for sure. I shop the sales and have found with some changes I still spend the same amount on food. I have still managed to lose 30 pounds in the past year. I have done so by portion control, cutting out empty calories and being more active. I LOVE food, but I have learned to eat less at each meal. It's very difficult at first, but over time it gets easier. Bagging food into smaller portions can help you realize how many calories you are really getting. I was in great shape when I was younger and so got in the habit of eating a lot. Now I am older and do not have the physical job I had then, so I needed to learn to slow down. I also try to cut out junk foods as much as possible. I didn't give them up totally, just cut way back on them. You do not need to buy health food to eat healthy. It's just a matter of balancing things out. Okay, a bag of apples cost $2.00 a pound, but you eat one apple at a time. A bag of chips costs about the same and I know I used to eat half a bag in a sitting. In the long run the apples are cheaper. There are many changes that can be made despite the rising food costs. As for exercising, I didn't join a gym. Walking is great for you and costs nothing (except maybe the cost of a pair of sneakers.) Just make sure to drink lots of water. I also started playing with my daughter more, basketball, soccer, whatever. I even coach her soccer team now..lol. It's very hard at first, but gets easier and makes you feel a lot better.
1 person likes this
@mommyboo (13174)
• United States
25 May 08
There are ways to eat healthy and still be somewhat frugal. Sometimes you need to shop around though! I use the sale flyers each week to decide where to buy my staple items. Odds are, there will be one store where I can get the majority for cheaper than they are normally priced. I tend to go to the mexican markets as well for things like produce, as well as warehouse type stores like WinCo and Food4Less, or Costco where I can buy in bulk. Unlike you, I do not agree with raising the price of 'junk' food. I believe that the rising costs of everything is a problem, but the answer is NOT to just raise the price of something in order to make it less attractive to consumers. Consumers always have a choice and changing the prices when the value of the product doesn't change is an unfair and indecent practice. I laugh about this enough seeing that I bought a dozen eggs yesterday for $1.33 at WinCo yet the grocery store down the street from my house where I do the majority of my shopping charges almost $3 for a dozen eggs. I feel that if one place offers a dozen eggs for $1.33, that is the value of a dozen eggs and I will NOT pay more than that. I do know that some insurance companies offer incentives to subscribers in the form of rebates for joining gyms, or money put into their flex pay plans if they are a gym member, plus there are places like YMCAs that offer sliding scale low cost access to gym equipment, fitness classes, etc. For those who want completely free options, there are free websites online with meal plans, calorie calculators, exercise databases, support forums, many local school tracks where you can walk and jog, aerobics and other fitness classes that are very low cost or free offered by many community centers locally, etc. It is not always easy or readily apparent to see these things but they are out there and worth digging for and finding.
@mikeysmom (2088)
• United States
25 May 08
i agree with you completely. i feel the same way. i need to be eating primarily fruits and vegetables and whole grains and chicken, fish and turkey but the prices are through the roof. we have been going to food banks to get food the past month because things are so bad for us and it is all carbs and highly processed at that. kind of hard to lose weight. things are getting a bit better but we are behind so it will be awhile before i can afford the good stuff again.
@aplaza (630)
• Netherlands
25 May 08
This very issue has been very high on my pet peeves list for years now. Fresh Fruit and Fresh Vegetables are very expensive here too. Just a few weeks ago I was appalled, horrified and totally outraged when I picked up a 250 gram bag of green beans. It cost 3.29 euro! Whats so special about effing green beans to warrant such a ridiculous price? I wondered. Well naturally I then had a very strong urge for green beans and stubbornly marched over to the frozen food section. Thats where I picked up a 400 gr bag of the exact same beans for 69cts. And they taste great too. So I can certainly advise to keep on stocking up when stuff you use is on sale but also to look for el-cheapo alternatives like frozen foods. After all food is usually frozen very quickly after it's been picked which means it's probably way more fresh than it would be at a supermarket. Farmers markets, which were mentioned earlier are also a great idea if you have one in the neighbourhood. Although these days I find that they aren't as inexspensive as they used to be.