The M&M tidbit is crazy! I've really had my eyes opened by counting calories and carbs in everything. You think just ONE of something won't be so bad, but then you realize that it's multiple servings per can or bottle or packet... Those numbers add up QUICK! The saddest discovery was that our favorite brownies from Walgreens had 500 calories and 52 carbs... There was a time when we had one for dessert every night! Now the thought of it makes my stomach hurt, haha. Sad but good progress! It blows my mind how much I was eating number-wise before. We got REALLY bad about eating out several nights a week... I looked up my go-to meal from Chili's - 2300 calories. Just in dinner!
HOLY COWZA!! That is CRAZY calories for a dinner! Don't even TELL me what it was! Good for you for looking it up and making CHANGES!
My portions of things have really changed dramatically. Now that I'm on a higher protein diet, I typically try have 8-10oz of chicken for dinner. It doesn't really sound like a lot, but Y'ALL. That's a lot of chicken. I usually only make through about 6, and that really takes some pushing.
Actually that sounds like quite a lot of chicken to me! I rarely eat more than 3-4 oz of meat at a meal when I do eat real meat. Occasionally I might have a 6 oz sirloin if I am out for steak.... but that sees like a lot of meat to me! I wouldn't have enough room in my belly for my veggies! That being said I am not good about making sure taht I get enough protein, so I should probably take a page from your book!
I've also been shocked by the
prices of eating better - it's just me, my DH2B, and our dog (who, by the way, I am starting to make homemade treats for because I don't trust a lot of the ones from the store... too many horror stories!) and we easily spend $100-$150 a week on groceries because we're buying so much protein and so little junk and cheap filler... A pack of chicken breasts at our Kroger is $5/lb! Costco has them for $2/lb so we have my FIL2B pick us up some periodically, but it's still $26 a pack... Thankfully we're getting better at buying in bulk when we can or when we find a sale and freezing it, but that doesn't work for everything. It doesn't help that, if I were to have deli turkey for lunch one day, I'd take about 4oz of turkey to get my protein in. That only gets me 2 lunches out of a pack of turkey, and with DH2B doing it, too, it goes really quickly! And because we don't buy the junk and we already buy store brand of everything, coupons don't help us much at all. It's so frustrating! I wish it was easier to eat healthy on a budget than it is to go to McDonald's!
Changing our diet has definitely been eye opening in several areas!
But think about the money in medical bills you are saving by being healthier!! And plenty of healthier options are pretty budget friendly.... beans (especially if you cook the yourself instead of canned), regular oatmeal (much cheaper than the instant packets), large tubs of plain greek yogurt instead of those tiny cups of things like oreo crunch yogurt, plain brown rice instead of those rice-a-roni boxes...... but it does take WORK to keep the budget under control when eating healthier!
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We had a really nice shower Saturday evening! DH2B's parents and some of his mom's friends made some wonderful food, but we ate so much bread and heavy stuff! They make this wonderful bread with some sort of creamy artichoke spread on top, and it's absolutely divine... But oh my word, after a piece of that, I felt like I was going to die, haha. His mom knows red velvet cake is my favorite, too, so she had one there. DH2B and I split a small piece but it was still so, so sweet. Between the heavy food and the sugar in the cake (and 3 glasses of wine....

) I ended up leaving with the WORST stomacheache, and I was miserable the whole rest of the night. Guess that's good because it means my body is OVER all the junky stuff that used to be a regular part of our diet, but I sure wouldn't want to do it again any time soon! Haha. The only thing I ate yesterday was a hot dog for lunch because I still felt so gross!