The economy is something that is on everyone's mind these days.  In fact it's pretty easy when looking at your expenses to consider dropping that gym membership, or putting off joining Nutrition for You to save money.  It reminds me of a comment made by a friend of mine, "It's expensive to eat healthy."

It's not.

In fact eating healthy will save you money.  It really comes down to where you eat and what you eat.  Members of Nutrition for You work with real nutrition experts on more than just calories and macronutrients.  We work with you to find ways to make real long-term changes to your life-style. One of the aspects of working with us is how you approach what and where you eat and how that can make you healthier and save you money.

Saving money by where you eat

Many of us love to dine out.  We have our favorite restaurants and eat out a few times a week.  But dining out is expensive and you often have to pay more to be healthy at a restaurant.  How often have you seen something like $1 extra for egg beaters ™ or egg whites instead of eggs? And you know that filet mignon (a lean meat) is a lot more expensive than at rib-eye (medium fat meat).

The price of a single meal at a moderate priced restaurant for one person can often feed an entire family if you cook a meal at home.    The cost of common food items, flour, bread, milk, fruits and vegetables are all sky rocketing.  You feel this at home, but you fill feel it even more at your favorite restaurant because restaurants pass that cost on to you with their service markup.

Another problem with dining out is that you really don't know how the food is prepared.  You might find that the entree you ordered is drenched in butter when it arrives to your table.  You've already ordered and paid for your food so you're not turning back now!  This is not healthy and expensive.

Dining out is not necessary a bad thing, but it can be very expensive.  Don’t give up your health and fitness tools so that you can dine out.  If you have grown accustomed to dining out try to cut back and prepare your own meals at home. You’ll find that you can easily incorporate egg whites at a fraction of the cost of a restaurant and you can save significant money by choosing leaner cuts of meat from your grocer rather than from a restaurant.    Get to know your kitchen again and you may find that you are a great cook and that you will be eating better, healthier, and certainly save yourself some money.  

Saving money by what you eat

A couple of the latest trends with supermarkets and food companies are increasing prepared and pre-packaged foods for convenience.  Supermarkets and companies like Weight Watchers save you time by creating prepared foods and they charge you a lot of money for it.  Prepared foods that aren't "boxed" generally don't have enough nutrition information for you to know what was used in them and sometimes you pay up to $6 and $7 a pound for prepared foods.  Just think about how many dietary staples you can buy for a pound of prepared food!  Prepared foods like Lean Cuisine at least provide you nutrition information and many of them are a good way to have a quick meal while on the go, but don't make every meal come from a box.   They are selling you portion control.  Portion control is extremely important, but you can prepare the healthy food yourself and freeze the extra portions for later meals.  Make your own portable healthy entrees and don’t pay extra for a box.

Beware of packaging gimmicks.  Remember that re-packaging foods into smaller convenient packages costs you money.  Those 100 calorie packs are a waste of money.  Beside the fact that most of them are nutritionally useless, they cost more and you are getting less for your money.  They are great for portion control, but you can do the same thing with a snack bag and a kitchen scale.    Remember that if you see individual portions and single serving portions you are paying a lot of money simply for the convenience.   Make your own snack packs and you will have healthier snacks and save a lot of money.

Plan for the future

Just like any financial plan you should also plan for the future for your health.  We teach people to lose weight and get healthy and to keep it off for the long term.   Eating well and being at or near your ideal weight and body fat will help you stay healthier.  And staying healthier is great way to reduce the likelihood of costly weight related problems in your future.    

So remember it doesn't cost more to eat healthy.  It will save you money, and you will be happier in these tough economic times if you commit to improving your nutritional quality of life.