Thursday, 3 Aug 2006
As a caveat to anyone watching my Cheapass Challenge for nutrition tips or sample menus, I am going to point out that while my meal plan for this challenge is certainly healthier, cleaner, and cheaper than what most Americans eat on a daily basis, it is NOT an optimum diet for maintenance or even from a vitamins/minerals standpoint due to the lack of variety and dairy (calcium) in my meals. That is why I am taking both a multivitamin with minerals and an additional calcium supplement.
It is pretty close to a pre-competition diet before the last few weeks of true hardship when the calories drop even lower and bonuses like raisins and rice cakes are taken away, protein is increased, and carbs are reduced even more.
You absolutely don’t NEED to eat this way to lose fat. I suspect that most people would go crazy from boredom doing so anyway and be back to their pizza-snarfing, chocolate-noshing ways if you tried to put them on my diet. You can eat a much wider variety of foods and recipes (check out my PDF of 175 healthy recipes for getting in shape and staying that way) for just a little bit more money each week (think $35 vs. $15-$22) and still probably spend less than you do now for groceries and dining out.
So just take this for what it really is: an unusual, semi-extreme experiment in budgeting and body transformation performed by one of the few gals on the net who is results-oriented, OCD and penny-pinching enough to see it through to the end.
