OK here’s the deal, after many years of having home cooked meals and opening kitchen cupboards to find that food has miraculously appeared each week, I now find myself at uni fending for myself.
Now its not exactly the fending for myself I have a problem with, its the $$$$$ or where I come from £££££…everything is so damn expensive. When I left for uni I thought great, I can spend all that free time training and really control what I eat, for the first two months this was good, I put on about 14 pound (not really much fat) and all was going well, now I have hit a rut and can’t gain any more…b4 you all jump at me with the “EAT MORE YOU PUSSY” stuff, I wish I could.
Ive just read Chris Shugarts , Quality Mass diet and thought cool I want to try that…Then I get a sharp pain in my right ass cheek as my wallet implodes. I train really hard and quite a lot, so I need a lot of food.
Training looks like this:
Mon- BJJ
Tues- Lift & Muay Thai
Wed- Lift & MMA
Thurs- MMA
Fri- LIft, Boxing & submission wrest (train for about 4 hours on Fridays)
Sat- off
Sun- Lift
…I get around 3500 kcal a day and around 270g protein, plus I have Surge after each session. Now I know this isnt enough, I want more but I can’t afford it or im making shit decisions in the supermarket
Basically what im asking is any tips on what to buy?/?/? I dont buy branded stuff or anything like that but I still seem to spend around £50 a week on food, which I think is A LOT considering im only getting 3500 kcal and at the end of the week the place is empty.
Sooo with this damn financial crisis atm… what are you buying?/?
(Btw I live in England so if there are any brits that could help, that would be cool for obvious reasons).
dude, welcome to my world. i spend £50-£75 a week on groceries too plus £100 a month on protein powders.
few tips. oats are cheap. Aldis sell milk 40p a litre. go to holland and barratt and buy nuts seeds, whatever is half price.
add olive oil to everything. chicken is cheaper than steak etc.
(sometimes wonder what some of the huge american bodybuilders would think if they realised how much it actually costs to get big over here. i remmember once some years ago pricing up jay cutlers diet having read it somewhere, it was about £35-£40 a day, and that was some years ago.)
I totally understand where you’re coming from. Food is just getting more and more expensive, and quality food for an athlete is just out of control. But here are a few ideas.
I know Surge is awesome, but maybe with that same money you could buy milk instead? Make sure to get whole milk. There are something like 2500 calories in a gallon! I know some people will disagree with me on this, but it’s an idea.
Also, I know you’re at university. Do you drink or go out to eat a lot? Maybe you could cut down a little bit on that each week, and focus on buying more calorie-dense and nutritious foods. Besides, there are tons of ways to get free beer if you know what you’re doing!
One more option. If your priority is gaining weight, maybe you could lay off or slow down the combat training for a little while. It would make it easier to gain weight, anyway. But that’s obviously a question of what your goals are.
I buy in bulk (deliveries as I don’t have a car) and I pre-cook. I have a big freezer though.
Think of using www.mysupermarket.co.uk , to find the cheapest option for every product. Normally, Tesco’s gets to be cheapest. If you have ALDI or LIDL around, then even better.
Check out Martin Lewis’s www.moneysavingexpert.com , there are forums which talk about eating cheaply. Try his downshift challenge.
If time is an issue - get a slow cooker and use it over night.
There is no way I could have afforded to eat enough “high quality” food in college to keep gaining. That was why I hit up the cafeteria and Mc Donald’s so much and then trained hard enough so the weight went where I needed it.
Sometimes, you do what you have to if there are no other choices in order to see progress.
I don’t know about prices overseas, but food isn’t cheap here either. For the next week, I’ve already spent over 200 bucks for groceries. Needless to say, if I were still in school, I simply couldn’t afford to be this size.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
There is no way I could have afforded to eat enough “high quality” food in college to keep gaining. That was why I hit up the cafeteria and Mc Donald’s so much and then trained hard enough so the weight went where I needed it.
Sometimes, you do what you have to if there are no other choices in order to see progress.
I don’t know about prices overseas, but food isn’t cheap here either. For the next week, I’ve already spent over 200 bucks for groceries. Needless to say, if I were still in school, I simply couldn’t afford to be this size.[/quote]
$200 a week on groceries? Are you shitting me? That seems like a lot.
You miss DFAC food now X?
[quote]makkun wrote:
Think of using www.mysupermarket.co.uk , to find the cheapest option for every product. Normally, Tesco’s gets to be cheapest. If you have ALDI or LIDL around, then even better.
Check out Martin Lewis’s www.moneysavingexpert.com , there are forums which talk about eating cheaply.[/quote]
Thanks i will have a look at those. Will be interesting to see if i can cut costs down a bit.
[quote]alit4 wrote:
dude, welcome to my world. i spend £50-£75 a week on groceries too plus £100 a month on protein powders.
few tips. oats are cheap. Aldis sell milk 40p a litre. go to holland and barratt and buy nuts seeds, whatever is half price.
add olive oil to everything. chicken is cheaper than steak etc.
[/quote]
I know, the powders on top are a killer also…think its still cheaper to use them tho than to eat there equivalent in heathy foods…i may be wrong tho.
1kg medium quality skinless chicken breast fillet: GBP 11.00 = USD 16.36
I spend about GBP 40 = USD 59.50 each week on food - but compared to you I’m obviously really little. I tend to eat what I like, but no fast food pretty much at all.
How does that compare with the prices you pay on average? We tend to be in a massive panic now about food price inflation. Is that comparable to what you experience in the States?
[quote]Badunk wrote:
I shop at Asda. It’s cheaper than my local Lidl as well. Dunno about Aldi, though, coz it’s a bit out of the way for me.[/quote]
LIDL and ALDI both undercut competitors’ prices by limiting their product range and saving on presentation. BTW - whenever I compare my grocery costs between Tesco and ASDA, Tesco wins hands down. But that may be just the choices I make.
Tesco round here isn’t cheap at all. Asda is by far the cheapest for all my food. I wish Tesco was cheaper coz it’s closer to me and I don’t have a car.
Tin of tuna chunks in Asda is 48p (cheapest option)
Lidl it’s 83p
Tesco was 56p last time I looked.
Milk is cheaper in Asda, fresh fish, frozen fruit, yoghurt, nuts, eggs (i’m not fussed about omega 3s, organic and whatnot coz I can’t afford it, but I get 30 eggs for £2.98 in Asda), etc. Asda even sells protein powder that’s incredibly similar to Met-Rx whey for about £16 or £17 for 2lb tub.
I’m not an Asda fanboy or nothin’, coz I’ll go where the bargains are, but they’re all in Asda round my way so that’s where I go.
[quote]Badunk wrote:
Tesco round here isn’t cheap at all. Asda is by far the cheapest for all my food. I wish Tesco was cheaper coz it’s closer to me and I don’t have a car.
[…]
I’m not an Asda fanboy or nothin’, coz I’ll go where the bargains are, but they’re all in Asda round my way so that’s where I go.[/quote]
Huh, that’s surprising - I wouldn’t have thought that prices are that different regionally. I check my prices on mysupermarket.co.uk and Tesco wins over ASDA all the time - but I guess I get the prices from my local distribution centre. Those retailers know what they’re doing, bloody hell.
1kg medium quality skinless chicken breast fillet: GBP 11.00 = USD 16.36
I spend about GBP 40 = USD 59.50 each week on food - but compared to you I’m obviously really little. I tend to eat what I like, but no fast food pretty much at all.
How does that compare with the prices you pay on average? We tend to be in a massive panic now about food price inflation. Is that comparable to what you experience in the States?
Makkun[/quote]
Ours are quite a bit lower.
Milk is about $3.79/gallon, the beef is about equal, and the chicken products are about half.
There are some wide regional fluctuations in the states too. Some of the local beef and dairy farmers sell at 50 to 75% of the market price, and some of the local produce farms have specials on what ever is being harvested that week that are phenominaly low.
[quote]redgladiator wrote:
Anyone from UK, where do you buy your Surge?[/quote]
I get mine online here…its good, original flavour is my fav. Used to be great when it was like $2 to £1 now its not so cheap pluss you have the import tax, though i still think its worth it. Its like a treat after your workout but its good for you…crazy shit.
[quote]A_l3x wrote:
redgladiator wrote:
Anyone from UK, where do you buy your Surge?
I get mine online here…its good, original flavour is my fav. Used to be great when it was like $2 to £1 now its not so cheap pluss you have the import tax, though i still think its worth it. Its like a treat after your workout but its good for you…crazy shit.[/quote]
How much does that work out per tub? I thought the shipping would cost too much.