Diets. They arent that difficult at all!

Hi again!

So I recently moved here to Johannesburg , and I live on my own. So needless to say that all the food shopping and cooking is done by me.

I have always heard from everyone everywhere the excuse that being on a diet is expensive and people hide behind that excuse.

I have discovered that this is untrue. I have found myself spending a fairly normal amount of money on food which is the same as what i used to spend when i was eating unhealthy.

I have a few points that I had to figure out over the past 2 months before its finally working out for me in a good way.

1. Know what the principle behind your diet is

The diet that I have been following is a low carb, high protein diet. The main principle behind any weight loss diet is a calorie defecit. What this means is that you consume an amount of calories everyday that is lower than what your body needs to function. When you body realises that its not getting enough from your food , it will start using up stored fat. 

Now , there are many calorie calculators out there and using any one will tell you what your recommended amount of calories you should be eating in a day. Mine is 2700 , but my daily diet only covers about 1600 -2000 calories. 

In addition to this , I also know that carbs and sugars are usually stored as fat. Where as protein usually gets used for muscle building etc. So i simply cut carbs and sugar out of my diet and just eat protein and vegetables (not the starchy veg like potatoes).

Its working out quite well for me so far, its been a month and I can already see my body starting to change.

2. Build a meal schedule.

So now that I know what I should be eating , I need to buy the food , cook it and eat it.
I figured out early , that when i went shopping, I didnt understand how much of food to buy , or what to buy. There are alot of factors when it comes to purchasing food , cost , quality , preparation , quantity. If you dont know how much food you need , you will always end up buying more than you need. 

My solution to this was firstly building a weekly meal schedule and figuring out how many chicken breasts , fish , steak , etc that I needed to buy. Once I figured this out , next time I went shopping , it was so easy to see how much I needed for a month. I bought exactly what I needed for that month and it worked. I spent less than I usually did and had more than enough food to last me the whole month.

3. Cooking.

So the next part i had to figure out was how to cook all the food I bought. I knew how to cook , i just didnt want to spend large amounts of time cooking dinner after a long day at work. So what I did was quickly figure out what was the easiest way to cook the food in the shortest possible time. I have a george foreman grill , that cooks my steak and chicken in less than 10 mins everyday. I buy frozen vegetables , which are already prepared and keep for a long time , and steam them in the same 10 mins that the protein is cooking in. so by 15 mins after coming home , dinner is ready.

To reduce the time further , I have my chicken and steak marinade already made and ready for when I am cooking.

These are not definitive steps or laws but they are working for me really well.

Eat Clean.Train Hard.
Krishin