Well, this is one of those half true things.
1. On the one hand, I can remember my days of working at Wal-Mart to get thru graduate school and got really, really fat doing it.
I'm paying for that now, through the nose. Now please understand I could have made better choices and other overweight people with similar low paying jobs can too. Let me be clear on that.
I am just pointing out that my circumstances made it easier for me to make poor food choices.
I don't think this necessarily has to do with the fact it was an $11 an hour job though; it was the fact money was tight and I was otherwise stressed.
At the time, I was going through some pretty bad depression, I was going to graduate school, I was paying off my debts, etc.
I think in the mix I just forgot to take care of myself. My other problems just seemed so much more immediate. I'm kicking myself now of course but it is what it is.
But my point is I think that happens to other people who work low paying jobs, if there's something else in their life that saps their time, willpower and attention, they simply turn to food that's easy to guzzle down and immediately gratifying (so sugar, salt, carbs, the comfort trifecta).
All that to say, I know as a lifelong comfort eater, you have to start feeling better about yourself as a person and believe you deserve better health before you even get it in your head to want to make changes.
Unhappy people do unfortunate things. It's a terrible cycle, you are unhappy, you eat poorly, that makes you unhappier still and it repeats. It takes some kind of breakthrough or epiphany in personal development to realize what is happening and stop it.
2. I've recently lost 30 pounds and I've done it with lifestyle changes to the way I eat and what I do every day. I have a lot more weight to lose of course but I feel like it's more of a matter of maintaining the new, good habits at this point.
Sure eventually I'm sure I'll start looking to refine my approach, but here's my actual problem: I had conditioned myself, over many years, to eat very, very badly.
I have slowly, since about May of 2014, so about six months into this process now really, been changing what I eat. I've done this by eating more of the foods I like that are better for me to eliminate the need to eat the foods that aren't good for me.
So maybe six months ago, I might have eaten a processed sugar laden confectionary for breakfast if I ate breakfast at all, drank a soda at work, eaten a sandwich with a sugary beverage and possibly a piece of fruit and some other side item that was probably too salty, then dinner would usually sound okay (like chicken and rice), but I was making it with processed convenience foods 3/4 of the time and getting lots of bad stuff with it.
Now I eat a piece of fruit, two whole wheat slices of toast with carefully measured toppings (it's most of my sugar for the day), drink mostly water at work, eat fruit and nuts with a little peanut butter or lean protein for lunch, and dinner is a big pot of vegetables cooked in a more healthy fat choice like olive oil with a lean protein.
Is my diet perfect? No, I'm slowly improving it however. But compared to what I was eating just earlier this year, my salt, sugar and carbs are way, way down to the level of sanity, not 4 times as much as I'm supposed to be eating, and even my fat intake is right at what My Fitness Pal says it's "supposed" to be, so it probably needs to be lower but it's not at critical mass either.
Now I tell you that to tell you this: My grocery budget has not increased one nickel.
I attribute this to several things:
- First, since I'm counting calories, fat, protein, sugar, carbs, etc. I have to plan my meals out on a website with a database of nutrition information. There's simply no other way to do it, I have to line it up.
Since my meals are planned, I no longer buy impulse foods, and I consume less food overall.
- Fruits and vegetables are not really any more expensive than the processed side dishes and stuff like that I used to eat.
- I eat less meat now, and meat tends to be expensive.
Admittedly, in terms of sheer calories per dollar, this diet is a bit more expensive. I admit that. But because I'm eating a reasonable volume of food now instead of an insane amount of food, it's equaling out.
However I don't buy that it's necessarily out of your financial reach to eat better, because for most people eating better means eating less and eating foods that tend to be a little less costly anyway.
However, to make this diet work, I've had to drop a couple hundred bucks on some better kitchen tools, better knives that can quickly process a large zuchinni for instance.
That could be a barrier to entry for people who don't have a couple hundred bucks to drop I suppose.
