s/o - Eating healthy fats for weight loss (and on a tight budget!)

[Carolyn R]

I would love to hear some success stories! What does a day of eating look like for you?

Many people responded to a thread I had posted about weight loss saying that eating more healthy fats had helped them lose weight. When I did more reading (online, and an Enig book from the library), I was a bit overwhelmed.

While I think organic raw milk, coconut oil, etc, sound wonderful...my reality is a REALLY tight food budget.

We receive WIC, and have a huge garden in which we grow many of our own veggies. We also have grape vines, a rhubarb patch, and red raspberry bushes. Along with my extended family, we raise several pasture-fed beef a year that we butcher ourselves and share among each other.

So I guess what I'm wondering, in addition to my opening questions, is has anyone on a tight budget lost weight this way? I'm pretty much at the mercy of grocery store milk, butter, etc.

Thanks in advance!

[lil_earthmomma]

I'm on a tight budget!

Awesome for you about the beef! That's a big deal!!!

Grocery store butter, cream, etc is fine. "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good." (Mark Sisson)

Organic Virgin Coconut Oil is the one splurge I make, mostly because it's the only coconut oil available to me! I buy Thai Kitchen Coconut milk.

I have lost 60 lbs eating primal. (check out marks daily apple if you haven't already.)

Obviously as we become more able to we will buy more organic etc etc etc.

A typical day looks like this:

around noon:

Omelette filled with bacon, mushrooms, spinach, a bit of cheese.
or
Eggs and bacon and veg a million other ways!
or
BAS (big ass salad. Salad filled with meat or hardboiled egg, and a nice fatty homemade dressing. Mmmmmmmm! Oh and veggies of course!)

Dinner:

Lots of meat, some veggies.

For lots of meal ideas check out the paleo/primal/grain free thread in the Traditional Foods forum!

Treat after dinner:
berries in heavy cream
or
small smoothie with coconut milk
or
3 small squares of dark dark chocolate (very satisfying)

[phathui5]

Avacados and nuts are both healthy fats and the cost isn't too bad if you stick to recommended portion sizes. I eat at leat 2-3 avacados a week and it really does keep me feeling full.

[corrie43]

I lost 25 pounds when I cut out a lot of sugar and white flour and added avacados, bacon and coconut oils to my diet. You can find some good deals on coconut oil on amazon.com. I also added nuts to my diet. All those are pretty expensive, but considering how filling they are you can cut down on a lot of other foods, fillers ect. My grocery bill has gone up, but it is worth it to me.

[Purple Sage]

Originally Posted by lil_earthmomma

"Don't let perfect be the enemy of good." (Mark Sisson))

Love it!

I'm on a tight budget, too. I already shared my typical day's meals but just wanted to add that I don't buy organic meat/eggs/dairy because we simply can't afford it. And we get the cheapest cuts of meat, which are also often the fattiest. Chicken thighs and chuck roast are staples. We buy steak in bulk but only if the price is right, and it sounds like you've got a much better source of beef than we do.

I do splurge on decent coconut oil, but we get conventional cream and butter (less than $2/lb at my regular grocery store).

It doesn't cost all that much to eat this way. Besides the coconut oil, the only other big splurge is Ezekiel bread which costs threes times what a regular loaf of bread costs. Other than that, we do a lot of ethnic foods so we get rice and spices and that sort of thing at a little Indian grocery store which is really cheap. And frozen veggies are fine if fresh are out of season and expensive.

Nuts, for some reason, do not help me lose weight (quite the opposite) so I don't waste the money on them - they're too expensive, anyway.