How to Lose Weight and Save Money
Sunday, April 26th, 2009Contributed by member SwapSavers owner of www.swapsavers.com
Cook your own meals: The only way to truly know the calorie content of what you eat is to prepare the meals yourself. By cooking your own meals you can substitute for less fattening or lower calorie choices when necessary. Most recipes list calories, fat grams and other useful information to help you keep track of your daily intake. When you eat at restaurants or fast food places you eat more calories and fat grams since the portions are typically larger then what you would have at home. Furthermore it is difficult to keep track of calories or fat gram intake. Cooking at home is significantly less expensive then eating at restaurants or fast food places.
Drink Water: Tap water is free and free of calories. If you were to only drink water for a week you could probably save at least $20 or more depending on your current drinking choices. Most drinks contain 200 calories or more, whereas drinking water has zero calories. Water has numerous health benefits. By drinking water you eat less since people tend to think they are hungry when they really need water. Water helps your body to break down fat which increases fat loss.
Turn off the TV: If you eat meals while watching TV, you are often unaware of how much you eat. Research by Eliot Blass found, people eat between 31 and 74 percent more calories while watching TV. Most people watching TV are motionless which burns few calories. In terms of energy consumption, watching TV will cost you about $100 per year in your electric bill and your cable bill about $600 per year.
Workout with a friend: Working out with a friend will help you stay motivated and provides extra support or new ideas to keep your workouts interesting. You can carpool with your friend to the gym to save on gas.
