I'm so embarrassed

TL;DR:

Bout sums up.

Put a small coffee maker in your office. I put a two cup coffee maker in mine. That will solve the spending $10 on coffee a day. Cant'put one in your office----then bring a thermous of coffee to work and heat it up at work.

I used to buy coffee, breakfast, and lunch 5 days a week. Then one day I added up how much i spend on "outside food" a month. I'd rather have the $200 in my bank account than blown on crappy, unhealthy food. That motivated me to bring my breakfast and lunch every, single day. After the first month when I had $200 floating in my checking account that cemented the deal. Maybe one day a month i'll go out to lunch but $7 once a month is better than $200.

If you want to lose weight, look great and be healthy, it's going to take some work. You have to build a routine and stick to it. No one can tell you exactly what that routine is, you have to figure it out for yourself. Making your own coffee and preparing your own meals is a huge start. Cutting out the soda and fast food is another. Fitting in a walk on the beach at least 3x a week for 30 minutes would help a lot.

But no one can make you, except for you...

Don't feel embarrassed. I'm sure a bunch of people on here (myself included) know what it's like to let the budget and your calories get out of hand with all the little impulse decisions.

My advice:

Plan your meals for the week in advance. Try to plan meals that involve some of the same ingredients so that you can buy in bulk, and plan based on what's on sale. The inevitable pitfall here, is that your man is going to want something else.

It doesn't matter if he wants chicken tenders. Let him have chicken tenders if he wants them that bad, but don't sabotage yourself over what he's eating. You'll save your half of the bill by letting him go out to eat and sticking to your plan. Better yet, stop by your grocery store's deli for them - cheaper and they taste better. Better still, make them at home. Cheapest and best-tasting. And that way, you control what's in them, how much breading, etc.

Ditto coffee. When my bf and I get coffee from Starbucks, it's never more than $3-4 because we don't shell out for the big sugary coffee-desserts. We get black coffee and then dress it up as we please at the condiment bar. But mostly, we just make coffee at home. This is not something that came easy. We used to drop $10-15 there easily, sometimes twice in the same day.

And it never hurt to plan a restaurant meal into your food plan for the week. Just make sure that if you're eating out, it's what you planned to do and you're staying on budget both in your pocketbook and your food diary.

Cook Cook Cook!! I cant stress that enough.. Have you looked at the ingredients that goes into fast food? YUCK!

If your not a good cook, then get recipes! I love pinterest, lots of creative ideas.. Not only for food but for exercise ideas too! If money is tight, then dump the gym! And dump the excuses while your at it, we all have them but they are not needed!!!! The beach seems much more enjoyable then a smelly gym anyway!! (oh man I wish I lived near a beach!!) -jealous- So many cheap ways to keep active! Walk in the park, hand wash your car, work-out video!

I am on a budget as well.. AND I cook every meal! Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner.. I bring my breakfast, lunch and snacks to work everyday! I have not eaten fast food in a very long time. I feel great! Your body reacts to what you put into it!! Listen to your body.. Planning out every meal may be annoying at first, but you will get used to it and learn to love it... You will feel a lot better and your wallet will too! Don't let yourself get HUNGRY, then you make bad choices.. Eat healthy meals and healthy snacks throughout the day and you will see a huge difference! I hope this helps.. Feel free to add me if you need the extra motivation, you got this! and good luck

I sent you a pm and a friend request.

You just have to do it. I mean - people ask here all the time how to find "motivation" and how to make the right choices.

The thing is, I can't want you to lose weight and I can't make your choices for you. It comes down to YOU and you have to decide why you want to do it. Then you have to just get off your *kitten* and do it.

I don't allow myself to "have" to make bad food choices. I pre-plan my meals and I bring all my food with me when I leave for work in the morning. I cook all our dinners. And I plan trips to the gym or plan exercise routines at home and I just don't skip them. I do all this because there is a certain way I want to look and a way I want to feel, and I know that these choices I'm making are helping me to achieve that.

It doesn't mean you can't ever eat at Denny's again. But you aren't going to get what you want by consistently making the wrong choices, especially when you KNOW they are wrong. No one here can fix that for you.

I could not have said it better! Take responsibility for yourself and plan ahead.....

Read this story, posted today on the forums:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/817744-18-months-ago-today-i-was-paralyzed-pics


You will find it very inspirational and it will make you think about how serious you really are to do this. It certainly made me realise that as well as I think I am doing up to now, I should be putting in nothing less than 100% at this to reach my goal.

It is not easy, get yourself some straight talking pals who will be honest with you, but will also support and encourage you. Take control of your own life....you can do this

Sounds like you need to see a therapist and not MFP. Good luck.

See a therapist because she likes to eat out? That seems a little extreme.

Don't be embarrassed. It's hard to resist temptation and it can be hard to find healthy food options if you don't plan ahead. I also find that the more junk I eat, the more I crave it. Fortunately, the reverse is true -- once I've been eating better for a while, I star to crave the good stuff. Next time try to think about how awful you felt after eating badly. You can do this!

Sounds to me (given your sarcasm) that you know what it is that you need to do, and know that you already have all the resources you need, but are having a hard time actually *doing it* which is a problem that I think a lot of us (including myself) have. For me, it took finally stepping on the scale and calculating my BMI for me to go "well crap, guess the time is now." I hope you start now instead of waiting for one of those moments.

Eating healthy at home is a lot less expensive that eating badly at restaurants, even inexpensive restaurants.

I log my spending the same way I log my calories. It gives me a lot more control over what I'm spending, and I make categories (just like MFP does) so I know what I'm spending money on. This has really helped me.

I do understand that feeling of "I can't afford it", and it can make you feel that "what the heck i'll go to a restaurant". It's the same way overeating early in the day makes you think it doesn't matter to eat a whole pizza at night. I find when I am know exactlly what I'm eating (and exactly what I'm spending), I'm less likely to binge or overspend later.

And walking is always free. Sounds like you have some beautiful walking right at your front door. Go enjoy it!

You can't afford things? Yeah, but you're spending a **** ton of money on EVERYTHING... That's pretty contradictory.

I can't even help you. I wouldn't know where to start. A therapist. A financial planner.

You need a wake up call.

You are RUDE!!! If you couldn't give a positive response/advice then you should not have commented.

I try and make a goal of going an entire week without eating out. To achieve this goal I buy tons and tons of snack food that can easily go in my pocket. Such as <100 calorie: granola bars, gogurt, apples, diced fruit cups in water (not syrup!), baby carrots, celery, etc. I also buy low cal tv dinners such as smart ones and take those to work with me for my lunch. For dinner I keep a lean protein in the freezer and pan grill it along with some steamed vegetables.

Not only does this end up being way way way way cheaper but it ensures I always have a snack to appease my hunger strikes, and that my meals are low cal.

Hi, I used to eat "crap" all the time. More of an emotional eater and every night I would eat the entire package of Reese's peanut butter cups that I bought at the dollar store. I used to say eating healthy was expensive, but add up the junk and it's much more expensive. I am on a tight budget, but here are some of my usual staples that I normally find on sale, 0% greek yogurt, low cal bread, fruits, frozen veggies, crushed tomatoes, canned tuna, deli meats, low fat cheese, oatmeal. Breakfast normally is oatmeal with sliced banana, lunch I usually have a can of tuna on low cal bread open faced loaded with lettuce,tomatoes, cucumbers or just a veggie sandwich which believe it or not is delicious. Besides work functions, I do not eat out at lunch, I use the time to work out. For dinner sometimes I will take a bag of frozen veggies instead of fresh since there are only two of us at home veggies tend to go bad quick, but I will use the bag of frozen veggies to make soup for a week worth of lunches, add a can of crushed tomatoes, some low sodium no fat broth and you have low cal veggie soup. If i eat fast food, it would be a grilled chicken sandwich and yes, once in awhile when i go out i do have a cheat night, but the better choices have become more automatic than ever before. I am down a total of 131 pounds, went from a size 24/26 to a size 4/6 in jeans. Believe me, if i can do this, the queen of late night eaters, the queen of chocolate and fries and burgers, you can do it too. For the price of one meal from Wendy's or McD's you can get more than an entire box of Boca burgers that are much healthier, don't have the fat content and less in cals. Also, I love to make my own pizza on light flatbread, one slice of flatbread, a little tomato sauce, load up those veggies or chicken, some low fat skim mozzerella cheese and i can eat the whole thing. There are ways to make it work, i'm the proof, i'm not done yet, but it can be done. By the way, my grocery bill for my 21 year old son and myself for two weeks of groceries is less than $75 every two weeks. I have been off my bp meds and cholesterol meds for quite awhile now, my weight loss journey started in October 2010 and although not perfect, and lots of mistakes along the way, i feel so much better healthier. Good luck.
Good luck.