Sport Nutrition on a Serious Budget

Sport Fitness
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MichaelA

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Let's just start off with the fact that I'm poor. I can't afford most of the nice food that people on these boards eat. At the same time I want to eat right, so I've been going through nutritiondata.com looking for the least expensive foods (bought at the local grocery store) that will still give me the proper amount of daily nutrition. Fruits, vegetables, and meat are all very expensive, relative to my income. Lentils, rice, and oats make up most of my diet. The lentils and rice I eat with a bit of broccoli for Vitamin C, I have a carrot everyday for Vitamin A. The oats I eat with a glass of milk for some calcium and B12. Most of my protein comes from the lentils.

People here are always recommending lean proteins, so I checked out prices at the store and online for various lean protein foods and calculated the price in cents per gram of protein each food would cost. As a baseline I picked a 6oz can of chunk light tuna, which is 80 cents around here. Here's the list of lean protein sources and their costs relative to tuna as a percentage:

ON Natural Whey: 75%
Tuna: 100%
Cottage Cheese: 220%
Egg Whites: 375%
Chicken: 500%


Therefore chicken and other lean meats are completely out of the question, along with eggs. Cottage cheese is feasible to an extent, especially if I get the generic store brand, which is somewhat cheaper than the Friendship brand I did the calculation with, but it would still be a luxury. Tuna would be fine, but then you have to worry about mercury and other contaminents. In the end the cheapest lean protein source is the powder... would using whey powder as a chief lean protein source work out?
 
this should answer your question

http://www.fitness.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13182
 
Well, I guess that's that as far as the whey powder goes. The idea of eating that stuff at all is somewhat creepy to me.

I'm not sure how much eggs cost at my local Costco, because I don't know of a local Costco. There is a BJ's around here. The only problem with Costco is purchasing a membership, which would only be worth it if I did a majority of my shopping there. I looked through some stuff on the web and came up with the figure $1.20 for 18 eggs from Costco. That would make egg whites 80% on my scale, which is cool. On the other hand those must be some really cheap eggs, couldn't there be dangers like those coming from chickens pumped full of chemicals or something along those lines? Also, in order to get a large amount of protein from them you'd have to eat over 12 egg whites a day. Where does all that yolk go? Do people who use eggs for protein just have garbage bags full of egg shell and yolk?
 
I eat 12 whites a day and yes, I throw the yolk in the garbage. BJ's should have very comparable prices. If you know someone that has a card you can just use it. The cashiers do not check the card to see if it's yours or not.
 
yes, mud butt...god awful, foul, wallpaper peeling mud butt.

but seriously, you can't afford food? then I don't think a rockin bod is the most important thing you need to worry about right now.

how did you manage to eat before? Aside from meat, eating a healthy diet is a hell of a lot cheaper than buying boxed dinners, frozen dinners, prepackaged foods, or fast food. I mean, I pay like $1.19 for a bag of rice that'll last me 5-6 days, eaten twice a day.

Without decent nutrition, no amount of physical exercise is going to pay off.
 
malkore said:
yes, mud butt...god awful, foul, wallpaper peeling mud butt.

but seriously, you can't afford food? then I don't think a rockin bod is the most important thing you need to worry about right now.

how did you manage to eat before? Aside from meat, eating a healthy diet is a hell of a lot cheaper than buying boxed dinners, frozen dinners, prepackaged foods, or fast food. I mean, I pay like $1.19 for a bag of rice that'll last me 5-6 days, eaten twice a day.

Without decent nutrition, no amount of physical exercise is going to pay off.
Click to expand...

Lots of pasta, lots of white bread, very few vegetables (expensive) and fruit (expensive), no meat (expensive). I've never bought frozen dinners or fast food, even before I tried to eat healthy because they are expensive (or don't taste good). Really my diet now is not very different from my diet before now, just increased the amount of legumes and healthy fats (I eat cheap generic peanuts for those). I also stopped with the white bread and started eating oatmeal for breakfast. All these things combined with a minimum amount of fruits and vegetables to get the necessary nutrients are economical enough. This diet is still carb heavy though, and I'm trying to figure out how to make a 40/40/20 diet on the money I have. On the other hand maybe a 40/40/20 diet is not really necessary. I'm not trying to bulk or anything, more just trying to lower my body fat percentage, develop and maintain a certain amount of muscle for everyday activities, and maintain a healthy body in general.
 
I think a BJ's membership is the way to go for you man. Chicken is about 1.79 to 1.99 per pound. So you buy $5 worth and you have enough for 1 piece for 5 days. If you cant afford that, than I dont know what else. Also everything else is much cheaper there and you can get in larger quantities. Where the hell does your money go?
 
tonymcclellan said:
I think a BJ's membership is the way to go for you man. Chicken is about 1.79 to 1.99 per pound. So you buy $5 worth and you have enough for 1 piece for 5 days. If you cant afford that, than I dont know what else. Also everything else is much cheaper there and you can get in larger quantities. Where the hell does your money go?
Click to expand...

Hm, I'll have to go check that place out. Never really considered it before, seemed like there must be some catch I wasn't aware of. Chicken is over four times that price at the grocery store. Money goes to bills, plus some people simply are below middle class. Just the way it is.
 
Understandable. Ya I only buy chicken from supermarket when price is 1.99 or less (yesterday was 1.79). I know there is an annual fee for BJ's which is like $40 dollars or something, but it will pay itself back in the long run. Same thing with a Sam's club, there prices are very good but you gotta pay a fee up front.
 
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