Being Poor and Slightly Healthy
I'm not health nut by any means. For one, I can't afford it. It baffles me that healthy food is so expensive. When did Corn Flakes become the expensive cereal, and Fruity Pebbles the cheap one? It blows my mind. I also don't really care for a lot of the healthy foods that are out there. I don't like whole wheat bread that much, but I'll take regular wheat bread. Ingredients that I find in "healthy" recipes just seem gross to me--asparagus, spinach, mushrooms. Bleh. However, I AM into looking and feeling good. I try to find the cheapest ways possible to eat better and exercise. I can't afford to go to a gym, and I can't afford to buy organic food, so I improvise. For those of you who are in the same boat as me, I thought I'd share some of the things I try to do to stay healthy. Well, as healthy as I can be doing what I do. ha!
DISCLAIMER: Before anyone tells me that the things I'm about to write about are not really all that healthy or that I'm doing this all wrong, please take into consideration that I just really don't care. :)
EXERCISE: My most favorite thing to do is to go outside and walk or run. It's completely free. The kids love it when I push them outside. I love the feeling I get when I'm done. It's this feeling of having complete control over my body, and it feels good. However, when it gets too cold to take the kids out, and I sure as heck don't want to freeze my butt off, I'm reduced to doing exercise videos inside my house. I really wish I could afford a treadmill or some other fancy piece of workout equipment, but alas, I am but a poor girl. I can afford workout videos. The problem is the ones I can afford are really lame and not that much of a workout. Granted, they were when I first got them, and I was completely out of shape, but now they're not. If you're lucky enough you can find some of the really tough workouts like P90x for cheap, but most of the time you can't. Thankfully, there's this great website I found recently with a ton of FREE exercise videos. And you may be thinking, "Free? Oh, then those must suck terribly." That's what I thought, too, but let me tell you, they worked my butt off! So if you can't afford to buy videos, and you're stuck inside, try using Exercisetv.tv. And since you're reading this, I know you have the internet, so there's no excuse for you now. :)
FOOD: I don't think I could ever be strong enough to just completely change my diet to entirely healthy stuff. I would quit that after the first day and go back to my fatty foods days. My philosophy on dieting is that I eat the same stuff I do now, just in less quantities. I only eat one plate instead of going back for seconds or even thirds. And if I'm still hungry after that one plate, I eat some fruit or yogurt. Eventually, my stomach gets used to less food, and I don't eat as much all the time. Also, one of the most healthy things you can do that everyone has access to is drink LOTS o' water. I've really been trying to drink more water, and I can tell a difference. I read somewhere once that sometimes when we're feeling hungry, we're really just thirsty, so try drinking water first and see if that helps. Another thing you can do that will save you money and make you healthier is stop drinking sodas. I've heard story after story of how so-and-so cut out sodas, and they lost so much weight without really doing anything else. They're not good for you, people. And they're really expensive. When you buy a soda with your meal at a restaurant, that's about two extra dollars you're spending when you could've gotten water for free.
I really like to snack. My kids want snacks all day, and it's really hard to not snack while they're snacking. I'm a sucker for those 100 calorie packs, but they're not very cheap. One thing that I've thought about doing is buying a big box of crackers or cookies or something, reading the nutrition facts to see how much of it would be 100 calories, and making my own 100 calorie packs. It would be a lot cheaper, and the snacks would probably taste better, too. And, yes, I'm aware that it's probably better to just not eat those at all, but I figure it's better than eating a whole box. :)
One last thing that I've started doing involves carrots, and I imagine it could work with any vegetable really. I like carrots, but I always end up buying the whole carrots b/c the baby carrots are ridiculously overpriced. The problem was that the carrots would just go bad b/c they would sit there in my fridge b/c I don't like eating whole carrots. Now, this may seem like a no-brainer to everyone else, but I thought I was being pretty smart. One day I took the whole bag of carrots, peeled them, cut them into baby carrot size pieces, and put them in a ziploc bag. Voila! My own baby carrots! I have no idea why I didn't think about this a long time ago. It's cheaper, and they're tastier when it's the whole carrot. I'm not really sure why... they just have more flavor.
So, there you have it. Johanna's cheap ways of staying (sort of) healthy. Maybe one day when I'm rich, I'll be able to join the masses and have a gym membership and shop at Whole Foods (whatever that is), but I doubt it. I'll probably still eat and exercise exactly the same way I do now because I'm a cheap-skate that likes to eat fatty foods. :)
DISCLAIMER: Before anyone tells me that the things I'm about to write about are not really all that healthy or that I'm doing this all wrong, please take into consideration that I just really don't care. :)
EXERCISE: My most favorite thing to do is to go outside and walk or run. It's completely free. The kids love it when I push them outside. I love the feeling I get when I'm done. It's this feeling of having complete control over my body, and it feels good. However, when it gets too cold to take the kids out, and I sure as heck don't want to freeze my butt off, I'm reduced to doing exercise videos inside my house. I really wish I could afford a treadmill or some other fancy piece of workout equipment, but alas, I am but a poor girl. I can afford workout videos. The problem is the ones I can afford are really lame and not that much of a workout. Granted, they were when I first got them, and I was completely out of shape, but now they're not. If you're lucky enough you can find some of the really tough workouts like P90x for cheap, but most of the time you can't. Thankfully, there's this great website I found recently with a ton of FREE exercise videos. And you may be thinking, "Free? Oh, then those must suck terribly." That's what I thought, too, but let me tell you, they worked my butt off! So if you can't afford to buy videos, and you're stuck inside, try using Exercisetv.tv. And since you're reading this, I know you have the internet, so there's no excuse for you now. :)
FOOD: I don't think I could ever be strong enough to just completely change my diet to entirely healthy stuff. I would quit that after the first day and go back to my fatty foods days. My philosophy on dieting is that I eat the same stuff I do now, just in less quantities. I only eat one plate instead of going back for seconds or even thirds. And if I'm still hungry after that one plate, I eat some fruit or yogurt. Eventually, my stomach gets used to less food, and I don't eat as much all the time. Also, one of the most healthy things you can do that everyone has access to is drink LOTS o' water. I've really been trying to drink more water, and I can tell a difference. I read somewhere once that sometimes when we're feeling hungry, we're really just thirsty, so try drinking water first and see if that helps. Another thing you can do that will save you money and make you healthier is stop drinking sodas. I've heard story after story of how so-and-so cut out sodas, and they lost so much weight without really doing anything else. They're not good for you, people. And they're really expensive. When you buy a soda with your meal at a restaurant, that's about two extra dollars you're spending when you could've gotten water for free.
I really like to snack. My kids want snacks all day, and it's really hard to not snack while they're snacking. I'm a sucker for those 100 calorie packs, but they're not very cheap. One thing that I've thought about doing is buying a big box of crackers or cookies or something, reading the nutrition facts to see how much of it would be 100 calories, and making my own 100 calorie packs. It would be a lot cheaper, and the snacks would probably taste better, too. And, yes, I'm aware that it's probably better to just not eat those at all, but I figure it's better than eating a whole box. :)
One last thing that I've started doing involves carrots, and I imagine it could work with any vegetable really. I like carrots, but I always end up buying the whole carrots b/c the baby carrots are ridiculously overpriced. The problem was that the carrots would just go bad b/c they would sit there in my fridge b/c I don't like eating whole carrots. Now, this may seem like a no-brainer to everyone else, but I thought I was being pretty smart. One day I took the whole bag of carrots, peeled them, cut them into baby carrot size pieces, and put them in a ziploc bag. Voila! My own baby carrots! I have no idea why I didn't think about this a long time ago. It's cheaper, and they're tastier when it's the whole carrot. I'm not really sure why... they just have more flavor.
So, there you have it. Johanna's cheap ways of staying (sort of) healthy. Maybe one day when I'm rich, I'll be able to join the masses and have a gym membership and shop at Whole Foods (whatever that is), but I doubt it. I'll probably still eat and exercise exactly the same way I do now because I'm a cheap-skate that likes to eat fatty foods. :)