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I discovered an unexpected side benefit to reducing the amount of money that I spent eating out: I lost weight and felt better. Apparently processed foods really are  that bad for you. I used to buy a Poptart in the mornings, run to a fast food place for a chicken sandwich for lunch, and go out to dinner 3-5 times a week (usually for chicken or pasta). I slowly cut back, starting with replacing my morning Poptarts with 2 slices of whole wheat bread topped with organic strawberry jam. Total savings over 30 days from just that one thing? About $25. And did you know that organic strawberry jam tastes WAY better?

Next, I cut out one restaurant/fast food meal per day. (I know, I ate out a LOT.) Total savings there equaled about $200. (I’m not a big eater either — for lunch I usually ordered a sandwich and a glass of water; dinner was typically an entree & a glass of water with an appetizer every now and then.) Now, I’m down to eating out a few times a week — and at least one of those meals is a to-go meal. I cut down snacks the same way, except that I started by banning anything that came from a vending machine. Keep in mind, I still eat as much as I used to – I just make the food myself instead and eat mainly fruit & real ice cream for snacks.

The more I ate “natural” foods (way closer to whole than processed at any rate) the better I felt. I now try to choose foods with as few ingredients as possible, and for the most part I like it to be possible for a person to harvest the ingredients. (Who could harvest partially hydrogenated anything?) It also became a tiny bit easier to eat out less, because after I cut back, I started to notice that I frequently felt sick after getting fast food. Not throwing up sick or anything, but just…yucky. People also began asking me if I’d lost weight, and I was surprised to see that I had. So that’s my story of how I lost weight by saving money :)

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