Skip to main content

Turning Fat Into Cash Like Water Into Wine


Hey Cheapo! What's that in your cart? A 10 pound box of disgusting, 25% fat hamburger patties for $30? Why, yes. Yes, it is.

Actually, friends, this is what cash looks like before it gets processed through your body and into your bank account. You see, the wife is at Bunco tonight, so I'm on my own for dinner. And, damn if I didn't have a hankering for a Five Guys burger. Since I had the time, I decided to go to BJ's and make my own burgers instead.

One of my favorite slim fast food hacks, when I'm short on time and willing to dig into my wallet for more cash than the McDonalds dollar menu requires that is, is a Five Guys regular size burger (2 patties - 220 calories each). I ditch the bun for a lettuce wrap, hold the cheese (sorry) and the ketchup (you'll get used to it) but load it up with every other vegetable topping available. Instead of ketchup, I have them put on steak sauce and hot sauce. I don't order any fries or soda, and I'm out of there for about $7.50 after taxes.

Again, I just count the burger patties since the vegetables would be more hassle to calculate and itemize than they're worth. So, call it a 440 calorie meal, and you won't leave there hungry. (Just resist the free peanuts or at least take a handful for a snack later, if you want. Don't forget to count them in your budget.)

Let's take a look at the nutrition breakdown of those Five Guys patties:


And compare them to the Cedar Canyon patties:


Ok, so it appears Five Guys uses 18% fat burgers to Cedar Canyon's 25%. And, with Five Guy's burgers, I'm only taking a 440 calorie hit versus Cedar Canyon clocking in at 660 calories. That's a pretty substantial portion of my daily calorie budget, but fortunately, I had the room today.

On the other hand, with Cedar Canyon, I'm getting another 1.4 ounces of beef on my plate (94g = 3.3oz for the Five Guys patty), and with 40 patties in the box, I can eat this meal 20 times (!!) before I've spent the same $30 as 4 trips to Five Guys.

However, I did incur another expense on my way home...


So, it's 19 degrees outside, and I didn't feel like standing over my grill while these cooked. I haven't had one of these babies since college, and it was only $15 at Target (or two more trips to Five Guys). However, this thing should last me years.

But, what about all the vegetables, you ask? Well, if you've read my Intro and Mechanics threads, you'll know that I always keep vegetables on my weekly shopping list, so I had extras of those around anyway. I guess that does subtract some from Cedar Canyon's huge price advantage since Five Guys throws them in for free, but it doesn't change the cost equation all that much.

So, how did it all come out?


Not too bad, I'd say. The grill is smaller than I thought, so I had to cook everything in stages. In fact, I couldn't even squeeze 2 patties on there at once until they cooked down a little bit. The remaining burger grease kind of eliminates the need for olive oil, so I don't have to worry about adding in those calories (not that I usually ever cook with it anyway). I forgot to buy tomatoes, but fortunately I had some salsa as a sub.

Was it as good as a Five Guys lettuce wrap burger with all my fixin's? No, but it was a lot better than I thought, and I still have a substantial amount of cow left in my freezer.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Second Look at Exercise

I'll be a first time dad in the next week or two, and I'm already dealing with the time crunch and cheapo routine disruptive life events. Being a cheapo means improvising, so sometimes you need to rethink methodologies to adapt to changing circumstances. My 9 month pregnant wife has been joining me on my dog walks in order to get some exercise herself, and she can't go as far as I can for as far along as she is. Also, she has a hankering for dining out more often than we normally do, so it adds a little more guesswork to my calorie estimates when my margins are already running pretty thin. Add in doctors appointments, chores and other prep tasks, and a lot of my extra time for walking is just vanishing. It's only going to get harder once this baby gets here. It's my fault for allowing my weight to run away from me such that I'm in a position now to where I'm trying to lose a lot of weight quickly before the baby arrives. I'm losing weight steadily...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Mechanics

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

Chopping Down Costs & Fat

I've spent a lot of time talking about how gym memberships are a complete waste of time and money. For most people, they make about as much sense as skipping all your errands to spend the day taking joyrides up and down a toll road. The fact is, we all have chores that need to get done around the house which all represent opportunities for exercise and cost savings by not paying someone else to do them for you. They may not be as physically demanding as splitting wood, but they all involve doing things that need to get done anyway and, more importantly, occupying your time by doing something other than eating, the leading cause of fatness. Now, I'm not proposing that you start tilling your garden with a fork just to keep yourself out of the kitchen. There's always a delicate balance between efficiency, exercise, cost savings and enjoyment of the task at hand when deciding where to spend extra money for efficiency's sake. For example, I know that I could get my...
Post a Comment
Read more