How Changing My Eating Habits Made Me Healthy, and Save Money

Over the last two years, I have slowly changed my approach to food. How I approach food today is very different from how it was a few months ago. It is an ever-changing habit and one that is often learned through trial and error. When I moved to the US, my diet was so different from what I grew up with that I ended up gaining some weight. The weight gain,  however, wasn’t my main concern. I was always feeling tired and sleepy even after a good nights sleep. I would often sleep in the afternoon and wake up well after the sun has set, and then sleep immediately after dinner.  I hated feeling so tired all of the time wanted to get rid of it.


After intensive research; I came to realize that everything in my body from my emotions to the functioning of each an every cell is dependent on food. I knew I had to change my lifestyle. I decided to have more home cooked meals and joined a gym. This change really helped me in combatting the tiredness. I was no longer sleepy and my routine was back to normal. However, I did not lose the weight and no matter how much I exercised, the weight scale didn’t show the desired result.

A few months later, I decided to change my eating habit again and it proved to be the most important and effective change I had ever made. I needed to lose the weight because my BMI was on the dot 25 which is overweight. It was important for me to be in a healthy weight range, which is between 18.5 to 24.9. No, I did not become a vegan or vegetarian. I changed where I buy the ingredients from! To begin, I had to prioritize finding better quality versions of the following 5 ingredients;

1. Meat: The first step was to find a meat shop. A few food-related documentaries on Netflix was all it took me to know about the horrendous life those animals are made to live and when I found out most supermarket sell factory-raised animals, I had to quit buying from them immediately. The diet of those animals are absolutely horrifying and meat from sick animals are also sold, often mixed with meat from healthy animals. Eventually, I found a butcher that only sells grass-fed meat. The first time I cooked with the meat from the butcher shop I couldn’t believe how different the meat tasted! I have never looked back since. 
2. Dairy: I stopped buying milk from the supermarket and nowadays I order from a farm that delivers milk to me weekly. For yoghurt; I discovered this yoghurt brand because they actually use live cultures, unlike some other brands where the cultures are dead! Dead cultures make the yoghurt useless. 
3. Fruits and Vegetables: Most of the produce I buy is organic and comes from the farmers market. I only buy produce from supermarkets when it’s winter or when I can’t find a particular ingredient at the farmers market. I will discuss later how I am able to afford organic ingredients. 
4. Bread: I stopped buying loaves of bread sold in the supermarket that are loaded with preservatives! Have you seen the ingredient list for a simple bread in the supermarket? In reality, bread should only have flour, salt, yeast, and water??? I either make my own bread or buy from here. The ingredients list on packaged foods became my best friend and I started to avoid snack and sweets that had too much going or too many ingredients I couldn’t pronounce. 
5. Oils: I had to research where I can buy authentic good quality oils from and eventually found quite of few of them and the good news is that they are sold at the supermarkets.

All these changes made me quit eating out daily, weekly or even monthly immediately. This is because I became so conscious of the ingredients I use, I can’t afford to dine regularly at restaurants that also care about ingredients as much I do. Hence even though I love dining out, for the time being, I only dine out when I am on a holiday or when I am celebrating.

Not eating out regular helped me save so much money! I cook dinner every night and I must admit I don’t eat a hearty meal every night, but everything I eat is homemade even if it’s just scrambled eggs. The money saved gets me the good quality ingredients and even then I don’t spend as much as I would if I had dined out. Knowing whether weekly shopping is cost-effective or not is also important. I quickly realized that weekly grocery shopping wasn’t working for me as I was wasting vegetables, so I plan meals for two or three days and shop according. Less wastage and less money spent. Last summer was the first time when I started going to the farmers market regularly. Once you find that perfect stand at the farmers market, the loyalty will give you special discounts and reliable ingredients. In fact, good small business owners generally give discounts to their regular customers and never compromise on quality. This is why it’s best to shop small!

I am not an expert in food, but I know my body better than anybody else. I know how I feel when I eat certain things, what helps me, what gives me energy and so on better than anybody else. Everything I wrote here, I learned through research, watching some documentaries and then eventually testing it out myself. No everything that people recommend to me works. For example, I joined the gym to lose weight because that’s generally recommended, and I realized that for me, only exercising is not going to give me the results. I had to change a lot more in my life. Nowadays, for exercise, I walk as much as I can and swim. I enjoy the two very much and I think this works best for me.

In the end, it’s really up to you to find what works for you! You might look at this article and think I am too obsessive about everything, but that’s how I am. Once I am passionate about something I can dive into it till I reach the ocean bed. This kind of passion might not be for you and that’s okay because even if you make one minor change, step by step, it can make an impact in your life. I know it’s not easy to just suddenly give up on eating out especially since it’s such a big part of our daily life, but making wise choices about what you order, and incorporating homemade food in your diet as much as you can, will make a difference.

Food is very important to me as I have seen the massive impact it can have on my body. Investing in skincare is a very popular idea these days and I am also a believer in it but, I also think investing in health is even more important.

For those of you wondering, yes I did lose weight and currently, my BMI is 23! I must add that I did not lose the weight in a matter of weeks or months. It took me more than a year to get to my desired weight. I did not want any drastic change and wasn’t too hard on myself. Currently, my focus is on generally being healthy and active!

Photo via here.