The Only 11 Budget-Friendly Groceries You Need to Lose Weight Fast

[00:01] that a lot of you are struggling with and that's that food prices are going up everywhere. And so I really want to talk on this video about how do you eat healthy and be able to keep your grocery list down. And this is a really

[00:17] important video for me because a couple of years back I was asked to come speak to [music] a group of high school teachers. I come from a family of teachers. My husband comes from a family of teachers.

[00:30] >> We have a lot of respect for the teachers in our world and they wanted to know how they could eat healthy in order to boost their immune system. And I they should be eating, the foods they should be avoiding and the response I

[00:46] [music] great, super nice. Um but the foods on your list of eating healthy are way too expensive for [music] my teacher salary.

[00:58] And I've thought for years about that, how I did a disservice to them. So [music] I'm going to make my wrong right now and I'm going to show you exactly how [music] you can eat healthy and keep your grocery list down. So let's dive

[01:13] your grocery list down. So let's dive in. have to do is we have to separate that there are two types of food. There are

[01:26] there are two types of food. There are ultra processed chemical laden food. These foods are highly addictive and they're very inexpensive. So one of the comments I had from these teachers was they're too tired at the

[01:41] end of a very long day. Some of you may resonate with this. And it was just easier to go through a fast food drive-thru. So put in the comments if that is you. I mean this is no judgement here. Um but what I want to show you is

[01:56] why these ultra-processed foods are actually costing you more money even short term. The second category of food I really feel like we need to discuss are whole foods. These are foods that you would

[02:11] buy at your grocery store or at your farmers market. So, these are going to be less expensive and we can talk about organic versus nor- not organic. Um they also are going to fill you up a lot easier. Um but when we look at a meal

[02:27] with whole foods and we look at a meal with ultra-processed foods, it may on first glance look like the ultra-processed foods is cheaper, but I want to show you why it's not. So, let's dive in first to the ultra-processed

[02:41] food challenge. Here's the biggest challenge. When you are eating the ultra-processed foods, so just so we're clear what these are. These are like your chips, your crackers, your your cookies, um your uh it's all the bad

[02:56] oils. It's the canola oil and the highly refined safflower and sunflower oils and your partially hydrogenated oils, your vegetable oils, the soybean oil. These

[03:08] are things you'll find in the in those ultra-processed foods. They make you eat more. So, at the end of the day, even though they're cheaper, they trick they

[03:20] though they're cheaper, they trick they trick your brain into being more hungry. So, you're never fully satisfied on these foods. And it's a really interesting situation because these foods are engineered with a very

[03:34] specific combination to make you eat more. The- these foods are engineered so that you become addicted to them. They are not engineered for health. And here's what they have in them. These foods have refined carbohydrates. They

[03:49] have added sugars. They have industrial fats, they have flavor enhancers. The flavor enhancers might make the whole food look like it's not as tasty, and they make them hyper palatable, meaning that your brain is your your taste buds

[04:05] are like, "Whoa, I love that. Give me more." These ultra-processed foods are the foods of give me more. They are not the food of I've had enough.

[04:18] So, really pay attention to that. And it ultra-processed foods change how our brain regulates hunger. Now, there was a landmark NIH metabolic ward study that was published in Cell Metabolism in 2019.

[04:34] Cell Metabolism is a very well-respected scientific journal. And what they did is they wanted to compare the ultra-processed foods to the whole foods. And they did this by having people eat whole foods and

[04:49] they found. The ultra-processed foods people The ultra-processed foods people consumed 500 extra calories a day. So, people gained weight on these foods more than the whole foods.

[05:04] And the whole food group, when they compared these two, actually lost weight. So, more calorie consumption, more weight gain might be cheaper. In the end, I just want to say more weight

[05:18] gain, more higher blood pressure, more challenges to the body means more medical bills, which is also more expensive, I just want to say. So, they there was diff- a different way in which our body took in these two groups of

[05:34] foods. This one had no nutrients. So, these foods are not they're they're not giving you vitamin A and vitamin C and iron and all the things we need. The iron and all the things we need. The whole foods, you ate less calories, and

[05:47] whole foods, you ate less calories, and you've got all the nutrients. So, what's the most powerful grocery bill strategy? It is to incorporate these whole foods, get off these ultra-processed foods, but combine them with what I've been

[06:04] time-restricted eating or what we call fasting. Now, hear me through because at the end of this video, I'm going to give you a grocery list that you can follow. But one of the things I really want to point out to you is that when we want to

[06:21] reduce our grocery bill, when we want to reduce our waist circumference, when we want to see the number on the scale go down, one of the key

[06:34] down, one of the key things that we can do is eat less often. So, we know that for decades people have been doing breakfast and then a snack, and then lunch, and then a snack, and then dinner, and then a snack. Each one

[06:49] of those times is now adding to your food bill. And if it's an ultra-processed food diet, then you're just going to keep needing those snacks. I can tell you if you do a whole foods diet mixed with intermittent fasting

[07:04] that you will not need those snacks, and the research confirms this. So, what we're finding in the New England Journal of Medicine, this was a 20 20

[07:16] review. It was one of the most popular reviews. Those of you who saw me on Mel Robbins' podcast, the whole podcast was built off of this New England Journal of built off of this New England Journal of Medicine 2020 review, and it showed that

[07:30] Medicine 2020 review, and it showed that time-restricted eating, aka fasting, it was also, by the way, around 15 to 16 hours of fasting. This wasn't long What they showed is it improved insulin sensitivity. It improved blood pressure.

[07:45] It improved inflammation. It improved mitochondrial health and it improved metabolic flexibility. So, when all those things improve, your

[07:57] hunger changes and you will start to buy less food. When you buy less food, you will see your grocery bill come down. I remember when my daughter went off to

[08:09] college and we looked at the eating plan. She was 18 years old at the time. my teenager to fast?" This was the moment I taught her to fast because I said, "Here's Here's the food budget for

[08:24] your dorm for three meals a day. Here's the budget for two meals a day. I'd like to pay the two meal meals a day. It's a lot cheaper, but that requires we train you to intermittent fast. Are you game for that?" And she was and ended up just

[08:39] needing those two meals a day and we kept the dorm food down. You can do the same in your grocery bill. Now, let's talk about the foods that might reduce hunger. So, there's two categories of food that you're going to

[08:53] want to incorporate to reduce hunger. And the first category is protein. The second is fiber. Again, ultra-processed foods, this is going to have a lot of carbohydrates. Whole foods, I want you to get your

[09:07] carbohydrates from things like like fruit and vegetables and potatoes and rice. These are less expensive. They are more nutrient-dense and they're going to get stop hunger so you don't want more food. And they're

[09:22] often the cheapest foods in the grocery store. So, what are some of these foods? Eggs. Eggs are we Eggs are one of my favorite go-to. They have a lot of nutrients, specifically a nutrient called choline in it that helps with

[09:35] brain health. We've got our legumes. Beans are a We've got our legumes. Beans are a phenomenal source for making sure that you're getting enough protein, you're getting enough nutrients, and they're

[09:47] much less expensive. For my menopausal women, I wrote a lot about legumes in Age Like a Girl. You can go in and and check that chapter out. So, some of the

[09:59] legumes, I'll tell you the ones I love the most and I'm totally geeking out on the most and I'm totally geeking out on right now, are chickpeas and lentils. So, and I sprout them. You can just buy them dry, put them in some water, leave

[10:14] a couple of days, and you'll start to see sprouts coming out of them. And then you just take them out and put them in a salad. I I often do garbanzo beans, which are also known as chickpeas, and lentils in a salad every single day. So,

[10:30] very inexpensive. Sweet potatoes. Uh you can do all kinds of potatoes, but sweet potatoes a pack uh so many nutrients and they're lower on the glycemic index. Tofu. For those of you that like tofu, uh remember tofu takes on the flavor of

[10:47] everything that you put it with. So, if you don't love the taste of tofu, you might put some sauce with it or do some tamari or soy sauce. Oats. I know so many of you like oats. Let's just make sure we don't get the

[11:00] packets that are filled, the instant oatmeal that's filled with sugar. You're better off and it's cheaper to make your own oatmeal, and you can for breakfast perhaps, if you're eating breakfast, you could drizzle a little bit of raw honey

[11:13] on it if you want that sweetness. Vegetables and fruits. And I will tell you, I've come full circle on frozen vegetables and fruits. They flash freeze them when and it holds in the nutrients. So, and they're cheaper. So, you may

[11:29] actually go and instead of buying your fruits and vegetable fresh and then having them go into your refrigerator and to start to spoil, maybe you switch and to start to spoil, maybe you switch over to more of the frozen foods. And

[11:43] then we have our canned fish. So, sardines and tuna. If you can get the You can get some of them that are mercury free. Um you can look for that labeling, but canned fish is a is very budget-friendly um and can give you a

[11:58] lot of protein. Now, what's interesting when we look at the our grocery list through the lens of protein and fiber is that research is showing that these two nutrients really kill hunger. There was a 2020 study that

[12:13] showed a higher protein intake can increase the satiety hormones, which is increase the satiety hormones, which is hunger, um hormones such are as our most famous hormone GLP-1 and a hormone called peptide YY that

[12:27] lowers the hunger hunger signals that come from You've heard me talk about it here, a hormone called ghrelin. Fiber does something very similar. There was a meta meta-analysis that shows that higher fiber intake is associated with

[12:43] lower body weight and improved metabolic health. That comes from a 2019 review in The Lancet. And so, when we prioritize protein and And so, when we prioritize protein and fiber, again, you will eat less food

[12:58] fiber, again, you will eat less food overall and less food means a better food bill. So, now we have three major concepts. We have let's get off the ultra-processed foods, let's start to learn to eat one or two meals a day, and

[13:12] the third step is let's prioritize protein and fiber. Easy, right? These are not hard things. Now, let's talk about the foods that disrupt hunger

[13:25] signals. And the research suggests that these highly processed foods, not only do they make you eat more, but they stimulate dopamine signaling, which starts to tell your brain that tasted so good, I

[13:40] want more. So, I bring this to you because as I am encouraging you to get off the ultra-processed foods, you might come ultra-processed foods, you might come over and eat a carrot and be like, that

[13:53] it had a crunch to it, but it wasn't a potato chip. And one of the things we know about dopamine foods is that it might take a couple of days of avoiding them before you get a dopamine hit from a carrot. I

[14:08] am not joking and I don't I'm don't mean to be Pollyannaish. I love a carrot. It gives me I love the crunch of a good carrot that came fresh out of the ground if you have a garden or from the farmer's market. I get a really good

[14:22] crunch on it. I get a dopamine hit from this. Put it in the comments if you're hit. I and largely because I do not eat these

[14:34] foods. They are so highly addictive that I know once I go over there, the carrot's not going to taste the same. Foods in general that are going to be high in fat, sugar, and refined starch are going to overstimulate dopamine. So,

[14:50] the research on this food reward system shows that these highly palatable foods can activate the reward circuit that overrides your normal hunger and

[15:02] overrides your normal hunger and fullness signals. So, this is contributing to overeating, insulin resistance, and obesity. And you think they're cheaper, but like I said, your food bill is actually going to be

[15:16] bigger because you are going to need more food and you're going to be less satis- satisfied. So, okay, is there anything else we can focus on to kill hunger and to lower that food bill? And I want to bring

[15:30] forward one more concept to you, which is blood sugar stability. So, for years we've been taught to look at calories. We've been asked, we've been trained to go and do the fat-free foods. But, all of the fat-free foods

[15:47] and the and the lower calorie foods will start to make your insulin rise. They can cause more fat storage, and they can really accelerate your hunger.

[16:01] really accelerate your hunger. So, when we eat foods that are high in carbohydrates and refined sugars, what happens is you're going to get these blood sugar spikes. Where let's say I have a donut and a cup of coffee for

[16:14] breakfast. About an hour to 2 hours later, I spoke I spiked my blood sugar so high that my blood sugar is now going to tank within 2 hours, and I'm going to need more food. So, then let's say I go and I have

[16:29] a candy bar cuz I'm trying to make it to lunch. I get another huge blood sugar spike, but then within 2 hours I'm going to have a absolute crash. And so, I'm going to be wait like where is where is lunch? I got to get to lunch. Then maybe

[16:45] I go to lunch and I got I have a bowl of pasta, and I don't put a lot of protein on there. There's no fiber, there's no protein. I'm going to come out of that lunch, and I'm going to be sleepy. And I'm going to I'm going to struggle.

[16:59] So, I'm going to reach for some coffee at 1:00 or 2:00 in the afternoon. And that's going to spike my cortisol levels at a time that's not normal. So, what we've really got to get you out of is this up and down spiking. That

[17:16] came out of the University of North Carolina years ago, that only 12% of Americans are metabolically healthy. What metabolically healthy means is you

[17:28] have about three spikes of blood sugar a day. That's one component of metabolic health. So, if you're having eight of these a day, you're going to need every spike is going to bring you back to

[17:42] food. This is why I always love putting a continuous glucose monitor on people. So, with that in mind, we've got our avoiding the ultra-processed, we've got the adding the protein and the fiber, we're adding some fasting in. Let's

[17:57] build a grocery list. And here are some of the things that would go on it. Eggs. of the things that would go on it. Eggs. Hands down, eggs. Um if you can get eggs that are cage-free, they're going to have more nutrients. You might even try,

[18:09] if you have access to something like duck eggs, could be really helpful. Rice is very inexpensive. You can try all different kinds. Um I prefer more of a nuttier rice. Uh so, I go more towards the brown rices because it's still it's

[18:25] going to have a little more fiber in it because it still has the shell on it, whereas the white rice is going to contribute a lot more to these blood sugar spikes I'm talking about. So, you might try forbidden rice, which is the

[18:38] black rice, has is going to have a lot more fiber and brown rice, which is a little bit lighter quality, a lot more fiber, um and uh then a white rice. Potatoes. All kinds of potatoes. You can do new potatoes, you can do the russet

[18:54] potatoes, you can do all kinds of sweet potatoes. Um sweet potatoes are lower on the glycemic index. You can get the purple ones, the you can get the yellow ones, you can get the white ones. Um potatoes are have incredible

[19:10] um nutrients in it, especially the the sweet potatoes, and they're not and they're going to make you feel a little more full. We're back at our our legumes. Huge fan of beans and lentils and chickpeas.

[19:24] They're inexpensive, they're protein-rich, they're fiber-filled. Highly recommend them. Frozen vegetables. Okay, we need to bring some costs down on on your grocery bill. Let's go to the frozen section. Let's

[19:37] stop the the food from spoiling on your countertop and then you have to throw it countertop and then you have to throw it away. Let's go more towards frozen. Chicken thighs. Uh, the chicken thighs are a lot less expensive than the

[19:50] breasts. That dark meat has a different amino acid profile. Highly recommend it and in the in the poultry category, you might even look at ground turkey. It's going to be a little less expensive than maybe grass-fed meat and

[20:06] it will bring in a different amino acid profile. Canned sardines. Sardines, I did some videos on sardines. I even had a woman who found me at a restaurant I was sitting next to her, come up and tell me how she went on a sardine fast.

[20:21] All she did is eat sardines for a couple of days and she noticed a really, um, big difference in her ketone levels. So, if you don't love sardines and, um, I will tell you in Eat Like a Girl, there's incredible sardine tostada

[20:36] recipe recipe in here. It could be also made as tacos, um, where, uh, my Chef Jeff, one of the chefs that contributed to this book, showed how she you can actually put some hemp seeds on the outside of the sardines. So, if you want

[20:52] to make it a little tastier. Um, oats are great. So, let's just make sure that they are whole oats, not instant oats, so they have more, uh, nutrients in them. Seasonal fruit. You can go into whenever anything

[21:06] seasonal, it's going to be a lot less expensive or, you know, my favorite foods fruits are berries and you can get those frozen. And then don't forget your olive oil because olive oil drizzled over all foods is incredibly healthy for

[21:21] over all foods is incredibly healthy for you. Um and is going to add an extra layer of fat to each meal so your blood sugar doesn't spike. The best is going sugar doesn't spike. The best is going to be organic and extra virgin is going

[21:34] to be the highest quality of olive oil if you can find it. But the important thing about these foods is they're not only inexpensive, but they're nutrient dense, they're high in protein or fiber and they will stabilize your blood

[21:47] sugar. Keep in mind, healthy eating, especially when you pair it with fasting, does not require deprivation. >> I want to just really point this out. It will improve your metabolism. It will

[22:02] decrease your hunger. And it will lower your grocery bill. I challenge you to try it [music] for 30 days. Just try it for 30 days. Let me know in the comments >> [music] >> And take note of your grocery bill. If

[22:18] you don't know what to cook, I got a whole cookbook for you. So and it know I show you how to pair it with fasting and how to pair it with your hormones. The recipes in here are great for everybody. You don't have to just be a woman. So

[22:32] you can head in there and get some delicious recipes as well. And I understand the dilemma and right now we need to start to be a little smarter with our food so we can bring that budget down on the grocery bill.

[22:45] >> Hope that helps. If you like this video, you're definitely going to want to check you're definitely going to want to check out the next one.