Sandra Lee on the Food Network Channel

I don't know if anyone watches the Food Network Channel, but if you haven't Sandra Lee has a show that is great for budgeting meals that are delicious and there are so many varieties of meals. She goes one by one with each ingredient on where you can find it and how much money it will be. At the end of the show she totals it all up and shows how much money you spend for just that one meal. All her meals feed about 5 people which is great for families or great to have for left overs! Here she is with one of my favorite meals, BBQ Chicken Pizza, she makes that is fairly cheap and should fit in just about any budget!

How I got interested in this subject

Growing up I was the type of girl who worked out everyday, grew up playing all kinds of sports from 1st grade and played 3 types of sports all through high school. Needless to say I've been in great shape all of my life. Coming to college I was definitely on a college budget. I didn't have a job, a car and I went to school full time. Therefore eating healthy wasn't really in the cards for me. Northwest thankfully graced me with a recreation center that was free of charge to go to when I needed to get a good workout. I tried working out on the days I was free from the chaos of my first year being in college. I wanted a social life as well and doing so took a lot of time out of the weekdays and weekends to work out and actually think about eating healthy.

I ended up gaining 50lbs during my first year of college. By the time I had really noticed, it had already been a year and a half and I was used to eating the things I wanted even though when I did go and workout I thought I had done enough to erase the eating mistakes I accomplished for the week.

When I finally decided I needed to begin a path of healthier eating and a healthier lifestyle I began my vigorous workouts daily. I went to the store and the Northwest Station to find what healthy choices I could choose to better my eating habits. Now we all know that it is much more expensive to buy things at the station and the selection they had at the time and now are for fast cooking products, frozen products like pizza and full meals made especially for college students. None which were up my alley for healthier eating. So I then ventured off to HyVee to see the selection they would have. Obviously they had a huge selection of foods I could buy to help me eat healthier, there was only one problem I couldn't get much of it because of prices, still being on a small budget.

I had to explore many options and over come many obstacles to get to where I am now. I am as healthy as can be and finally have lost the weight I gained freshman year and some. Through my personal experience I want to share all the tips I have for anyone who had to go through what I did to become healthier and lose weight when on a budget.

Introduction

Dieting and eating healthy can cost time and money. A lot of healthy foods these days cost more than the regular or off brand food you buy. Do prices of healthy foods turn you away from them because of price? Do you often choose fast food over going to the grocery store because it's cheaper? What about trips to the gym? Do you have enough money to buy a gym pass? Or do you even have the time on top of school, work, family, and social life? I'll be exploring Nutrition on a budget this semester, incorporating this topic with obesity in the US, college students on a budget with food, low income families on a budget with food and so on.