Real Life Fitness – Getting Fit With Brent

If you have purchased P90X and followed the diet, you may realize that eating healthy, eating clean can be quite expensive.

In fact, I had taken a break from the diet inbetween rounds and found it very, very inexpensive to get food for my family and feed us for 2 weeks without regard to healthy eats.  So if you are like a lot of Americans, how can you handle the P90X diet plan on a limited budget?

I set out to find good, inexpensive ways to do this since my wife does not follow my diet and we essentially prepare two seperate meals at all times.

So here are some tips I have come up with:

Protein

1.  Protein shakes are inexpensive.  I have been using Body Fortress Super Advanced Whey Protein (Chocolate) from my local Wal-Mart.  At a scoop and a half with 8oz of fat free milk, it provides over 40g of protein (39 of it from the whey).  I purchase my milk in half-gallons to make sure I do not waste.  If that half gallon was to cost $1.50, and assume you could get 45 shakes out of the protein powder (sells for around $15 for me), it would cost $0.19 for the milk and around $0.33 for the powder, or $0.42.  This takes care of roughly 2 protein and 1 dairy from the plan.

2.  Meat – This is where the rubber “meats” the road (sorry for the bad joke).  Protein shakes are good, but 3+ protein shakes a day would be bad.  You have to have some meat or eggs or something in your diet to get more protein.  Red meat should be used ocassionally but not very often (very high fat content).  So what I do is this:  I buy chicken for as cheap as I can find it or whatever I can keep within the budget.

One other thing to consider is canned chicken.  The pro here is that its quick, easy, has 11g of protein for 2 oz serving….but the bad is a high sodium content.  If you can keep your sodium in line, look into Great Value canned white meat chunk chicken.  My Wal-Mart has it around $2.10 a can for a 12.5 oz can.  You have to make some assumptions that a can has 12oz of meat in it, but that provides 4 servings of protein.  I make a lower-fat chicken salad (similar to what is in the Nutrition Guide) using low fat Miracle Whip and pickles (and some pepper).  Want more protein?  Boil some eggs and add the whites to the salad (avoid the yolk).

If you can handle tuna, 5oz cans are around $0.85 a can.  I have a hard time with tuna, but just an option.

Finally, red meat can be tricky.  Again, Wal-Mart has 96/4 lean ground beef for around $4/lbs (5+ servings).  Use this to make a spaghetti sauce (partial veggie in there).  Or, find your local meat market and look for top sirloin to go on sale.  I’ve caught it for $5.99/lb for USDA Choice but usually runs around $7.99/lb.  I cut these into 6-9oz steaks and save them to grill.

2.  Dairy

Dairy is tricky.  It is one of the most expensive options up-front, but can be fairly inexpensive per serving.  Nothing really to add here but do the math on servings per container and find out what you can save.

3.  Carbs

Carbs are probably the least expensive portion of the plan.  Whole wheat bread is very inexpensive as are basic pastas (I know whole wheat is prefered for pasta, but the diet guide just points to pastas not made with eggs or oil).  I prefer bread as it is flexible.  I use it with the chicken salad and knock out 2 protein and 1 carb in one simple-to-eat sandwich.

4.  Veggies

Here is where I found the best ways to save money.  When I first started, I purchased a lot of fresh veggies.  This is fine, but it takes a lot of measuring and you run the risk of them running bad.

What I found to do is this:  Watch your local Kroger sale paper for frozen veggies on their “10 for $10″ deals.  These are easy to prepare, usually have multiple servings in one bag, and becomes a great choice for saving money.  Also, aim for calories and not “1 cup” as the guide suggest.  50 calories is one serving, so find out what 50 calories is.  For instance, peas and carrots is 2/3rds cup for 50 calories, but “California Blend” veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, carrots) usually runs 25 calories for 2/3rds cup.

Also, consider V8.  64oz of low sodium V8 is around $2.50, or $0.31/serving.

4.  Fruits

With as little fruit as you eat a day in P90X (with the exception of Level 3), you should be able to find inexpensive fruit options.  Banana’s are cheap usually.  Another option is finding fresh squeezed juices (i.e. non-concentrate, check the ingredients to make sure they are not adding any sugars).  I have not done the math here, but I’m willing to guess you can get your serving cost to $0.50 or less.

5.  Snacks

This is what can add up, especially on Level 3 (2 doubles, a Recovery Drink,and Protein Bar).  I used to try to vary my snacks:  Rice cakes, almonds, dried fruit, string cheese, jerky, etc, and all of it is not necessarily cheap.  Depending on what your diet goals are will depend on what you need to do.

The biggest budget saver I can suggest is to make your own protein bars.

So there you have it.  There are some suggestions for doing P90X on a tight budget.  It can be done.

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