Losing Weight with Fast Food and Freezer Meals

This website is based on the simple belief that you don’t need a gym, organic foods or any other special luxuries to be in the best shape of your life. There are a million websites out there that will tell you that you must eat “cleanly.” No processed foods, only whole, organic fruits and veggies. Prepackaged meals are out! Fast food? Don’t even think about it. If you don’t eat ?clean?, you’ll be stuck in fat-mode forever! (insert evil laugh here)

I don’t think so.

It would be great if we could all eat organic and whole foods. It would be great if we could all give up our fast foods and prepackaged meals in favor of organic veggies, but that’s not reality for most of us. Specialty foods are expensive and not at all practical for busy, budgeted people like this young college guy. So I’m here to sell you on the other way of living! I’m going to show you why you need to embrace the prepackaged meal and get back to fast food if you expect to lose weight on budgeted money and budgeted time.

1. Calories are Pre-counted -

One of the benefits of prepackaged meals is that the calories are right there in front of you. No guessing, just a black and white number. Quick and easy. Fast food restaurants make it even easier because they’ll do the adding for you online. Go to just about any fast food website and you’ll find a “Build Your Own Meal” section of their nutrition info page. You can pick and choose everything you want and see how much it’s going to cost you in calorie points. Couldn’t be easier if they fed it to you.

2. No Danger of Overeating -

This one applies to prepackaged meals more than fast food. When you’re buying things like Lean Cuisine, Stouffers or Banquet Meals you are given a reasonable portion, which is a good thing because most of us couldn’t judge a healthy portion if we had to. Portion control is one of the biggest issues when it comes to weight loss because we can’t judge, A) how much food is too much and B) how many calories are in the food we eat. This problem is solved by buying out of the freezer section.

Instead of getting fast food and buying way more than you need, freezer meals make it harder for you to go back for seconds. If you finish a Lean Cuisine and are still hungry, you have to think twice, open another package and wait five minutes for it to cook before you get your second serving. 9 times out of 10 you will decide you really are full before you even get the second package open.

3. Budget, budget, budget -

The biggest problem with eating healthily is that it is a luxury. It just costs too damn much to buy the organic stuff and that’s why most Americans don’t. That’s exactly why I shop mainly in the freezer section. The meals are reasonably cheap and (for the most part) still taste good. If you’re still not convinced try this little statistic on for size: when I go grocery shopping, I spend only $20 a week to feed myself. Can’t argue with that!

How Healthy Are Freezer Meals?

I should probably talk a little bit about the nutritional aspects of eating fast food and freezer meals all the time. First off, no, it is obviously not going to be as good for you as eating fresh fruits and vegetables and I’m certainly not saying there is anything wrong with eating those things, but in the early stages of weight loss it’s calories that we need to be primary focused on.

Sure, later on down the road you can get into macro-nutrient ratios and the like, but for right now focus simply on reducing your calorie intake. The hard truth is, if you weigh more than you should, it’s because you eat more than you should so don’t worry so much about cutting out any one thing like carbs or sugars. Yes, you should reduce your intake of sweets and other fattening foods, but focus more on getting your recommended calorie intake for the weight you want to be.

Got any other ideas for nutrition on a budget? I’d love to hear them. Remember, I’m doing this stuff right alongside you guys. I’ll take any tips I can get just the same as you. Feel free to leave a comment, or drop an email at the contact page if you’ve got something to share with the class.

How to Get Motivated Without Getting Stuck in Fat-Mode

Motivation is far and away the greatest, most get-in-your-way, stop-you-cold-in-your-tracks hurdle you will face along the road to fitness. No one knows this better than anyone who has ever tried and failed to be fit. Who’s with me in that boat? Raise your hands. That’s right, most of us. Whether it’s not seeing results fast enough or just not being masochistic enough to think that lifting heavy things and being out of breath is a pleasurable experience, one way or another, killing your motivation is the easiest thing in the world.

I think this has more, however, to do with out definition of motivation than it does with motivation being a transitory state. For one thing, it’s easy to get motivated when you’re reading a book about fitness, a blog about fitness, or watching an energetic speaker, but that euphoria lasts only a few days at the most. How many times have you read about some workout routine that guaranteed results, or some brand new diet and gotten head-over-heels excited about doing it? This rush lasts a few days, you’re pumped, you’re diligent and finally, and not surprisingly, you fall flat on your face wondering where all your drive went.

We call this temporary feeling motivation, but it isn’t. Not by a long shot.

That rush is just a temporary euphoria. It’s the same type of endorphin rush you feel on a roller coaster. You cheat death for a few seconds and feel elated for the rest of the day. It’s a one time change in your body chemistry. Your endorphins start pumping, you get excited, you get optimistic, but that’s not the way your body is used to operating, so down that energy plummets until you hit your default mode.

That’s not motivation because motivation isn’t a feeling.

When people say, I feel motivated, they don’t mean “I feel energized and euphoric,” they mean “I feel certain of why I’m doing this.” Motivation is rightness, correctness and assuredness in what you’re doing. It’s knowing WHY you are choosing to do something and knowing that your reasons are worthy of your effort.

Relying on that feeling of euphoria is how to get yourself stuck in fat-mode. As soon as you realize how temporary that feeling is and how ineffective it is in helping to actually motivate you, you’ll be able to start looking at the actual reasons for all your efforts.

I’ve been in fat-mode all my life and it sucks and if you’re here reading this, chances are good it’s a feeling you know well. It isn’t until you clarify why you want to be thin that you stand a chance in hell of being motivated enough to see it through. “I want to be skinny” doesn’t cut it and you probably already know that too. Wanting to be skinny is fine, but the important detail is WHY you want it. Wanting to lose weight isn’t unique, most Americans do, so what you have to do is define why you want it. The Why is the motivation that you can fall back on every time you start to lose focus. You go back to square one, review you list of Whys and rediscover your motivation.

Be a your own fitness salesman.

You have got to sell yourself on all of this effort and discomfort the same way any good salesman would. They wouldn’t tell you that you’ll be skinny if you exercise because you already know that. The outcome is obvious. What they will emphasize is what being skinny can do for you. They don’t sell what skinny looks like, they sell what skinny feels like.

If I were trying to sell you a light bulb, I wouldn’t start by telling you that it will light up your room. You already know that, it’s the obvious function of the bulb. I’d tell you all the things you can do when the room is lit by this bulb. You can read at night, you’ll be more productive and get ahead of your competition because you can work while they sleep, you’ll never have to stub your toe in the dark again. And the list goes on, but what’s important is that I make you focus not on what the bulb does, but what it does FOR YOU.

When you make your list of motivating factors, be sure it sounds like that light bulb list. “I want to be thin” is not a reason, it’s the obvious outcome of exercise and diet. Try reasons like: to have more energy to play with my kids, to live a longer life with my loved ones, to be more attractive to a potential partner, to be more productive. Put it in terms of what you will gain from the outcome of being thin. That way whenever your motivation starts to wain, you can look back at your list and once again sell yourself on the work it’s going to take to be thin.

So what motivates you? When you’re at the end of your energy rope, what makes you dust yourself off and get up for more? Leave a comment below and share what is driving your fitness goals.