The Cheap Man's Weight Loss Plan

Here are some of my best tips for fattening up your wallet as the rest of you slims down: Wholesale Clubs (Costco, BJ's, Sam's Club, etc.) These places arguably deserve their own blog post. There's nothing special about them from a weight loss perspective per se, but they really accelerate your savings. Part of the reason I found calorie counting so easy was because I have certain foods that I eat frequently or daily, so I know the exact serving size and calories. Also, buying in bulk reduces your need for additional grocery runs or at least reduces the number of things on your weekly list. Value store shopping also enables you to buy huge bulks of this cheap man's essentials like fruits, veggies, nuts and coffee. I haven't done the math of cost per snack, but a value club bag of walnuts or almonds split into single servings ready to deploy whenever you start to feel a little hungry is probably one of the cheapest and healthiest snacks that you can possibly buy....

Yes, everything you're heard about breakfast is absolutely true. It is the only meal you should be sure to eat even if you're not hungry. Your last time skipping it should be the last time you ever do. Allow me to explain why: It is the least expensive meal to make and anchors your diet by smoothing out your blood sugar levels for the rest of the day. In practical terms, this means you're less likely to find yourself famished later and binge on more calorie-laden and expensive food. Also, psychologically it gets you immediately back on track after a disastrous calorie day. Feeling guilty about guzzling beer and stuffing your face with cake in a 3000 calorie orgy the night before? Get up and plant the flag with your power breakfast the following morning. You'll already start feeling better and forgive yourself for letting go for a night. I can't tell you how empowering it feels to be at a party where people are asking about your weight loss while you're eating ...

I know that for most people, fruit is usually an afterthought - a garnishment or filler that you can easily do without. I can't think of the last time - or the first time - I've ever craved it. But, let me tell you: fruit is one of the great, underrated foods of all time. It has become the anchor of my diet. It's never exactly what you want, but it's cheap, low calorie and nearly impossible to overeat. Ignore the naysayers who say they contain too much sugar and you should limit how much you eat. They are natural, unprocessed sugars and contain very few calories. No one ever got fat eating fruit. Fruits require about zero prep time and add quite a bit of bulk to an empty stomach. Also, with an assortment of different fruits and a little skim milk, they can be blended into a smoothie that'll easily hold its own against any high calorie dessert. Some frozen berries mixed into some plain Greek yogurt is also a pretty awesome snack. Some fruits are sweeter than othe...

Managing hunger and self-control is the main difference between skinny and overweight people. Like any new workout plan, the worst pain comes when you first start out but it quickly becomes a lot easier. Overweight people tend to think that skinny people just won the generic lottery and just don't crave food like they do. Or, they think they have some superhuman willpower or metabolism that allows them to eat crazy amounts of high calorie food and burn it all off. In most cases, this could not be farther from the truth. I didn't used to eat 3500 calories a day just because I was bored. I just ate whatever my body craved at whatever time and in whatever quantities it demanded it until I was full and my body got used to this way of life. In the Intro thread, I compared your current hunger cravings to a lazy relative who spends his day stuffing his face on the couch and that disrupting his slothful habit was akin to wacking a hornet's nest. This really is something you need...

Since half the purpose of this blog is to help you save money, you should get into the habit of thinking small. What I mean by this is you should learn to think like a smaller person by eating less and max out your savings by spending less on smaller portions. In your mind, you should already be visualizing and thinking about yourself at your target weight. A svelte guy like you doesn't need to eat that much food! We've already had a discussion on beer, but it is really something that you should get used to limiting to special occasions and in limited quantities. It's just too calorie rich and unfilling to fit it into your daily budget, but if you can make one or two work here and there, more power to you. Obviously, you'll have room for a little more in your calorie budget once you reach and are maintaining your target weight. This goes for any alcoholic drinks. Where I'm going with this is that I'd recommend shrinking your dining-out bill by eliminating alco...

Whenever you start a diet plan, you'll find that many people are always quick to give you unsolicited advice about what you should and shouldn't be eating and drinking, in what quantities and when. This article will cover some of these most popular myths, and why you should disregard them on your weight loss journey. Most of the people advancing these myths mean well, but they have idea what they're talking about and most of their advice is flat out wrong. Usually, they arrived at these beliefs because they glommed onto some clickbait article because it fits nicely into their list of excuses for why their last diet failed, or it runs down some food that they weirdly resent. It becomes an emotional thing for them, so don't bother trying to talk them out of it. Knowing that you can safely disregard their disinformation is enough. Diet Soda Makes You Fat This is a mathematical impossibility. Ultimately, a calorie is a calorie is a calorie. Your body will either g...

I found this system to be overall pretty easy, but know that if it required nothing of you, everyone would already be doing it. People would ask me when I first started, "Has it been hard?" My response was, "It's easy and difficult and then it gets easier." The easy part is that you know what you need to do: you've got your nutrition log and you know what you've eaten and what you can still eat at any point on any particular day. The difficult part is that your body will be furious with you when you first start. Your body right now is the deadbeat uncle/brother/cousin/whatever that is used to eating bonbons on the couch to his heart's content and is never asked to do any work. You can't expect him to have his bonbon supply restricted and being asked to go do some stuff without inciting his rage. Again, depending on how aggressive you set your goals, you can expect your body to react similarly. Another thing: don't be discouraged because yo...

Ok, now that you've read through the high level stuff, let's get down to brass tacks: The reality is, you're going to want to make some changes to your daily routine, but how much you do depends on how much you want to lose and how quickly you want to lose it. There's nothing wrong with going at a slower pace, but I would just advise that you adjust your diet enough that you're seeing enough consistent enough gains that you stick with it. Remember, as long as you're still logging food, odds are you're still losing weight. I've already mentioned that you'll need a pedometer or fitness tracker. That needs to become a permanent extension of your body. You don't need to be a gym rat (in fact, you should have already cancelled your gym membership by now), but it's hard to be completely sedentary and still run calorie deficits. Or, put another way, a little bit of activity will give you a lot more wiggle room in your diet every day. A 10,000...

Welcome! Presumably, you've arrived here because you're drawn to two of my favorite hobbies: losing weight and saving cash. Until 5 months ago, I thought that each of those two things were incompatible with the other. I always thought that being fit meant either getting used to shelling out big bucks for expensive gym memberships and overpriced health food, or that saving money meant getting used to back pains from your wide-ass sitting on a fat wallet after passing over the high-price hipster wrap shop for a $1.50 McDouble. Well, I'm happy to report that you can indeed lose weight on the cheap with minimal sacrifices to your current lifestyle. On July 10, 2017 I weighed 198 lbs and as of December 21, 2017, I now weigh 160 lbs. I have not set one foot in the gym, on a treadmill or lifted any weights, and I have saved several thousand dollars in food costs. I'm not here to sell anything. I'm just sharing my strategy. The weight loss industry is built on...