Healthy Eating: The Miser Way  

My name is Rabiat Abdulkareem and I’m a food addict (imaginary fellow food addicts clap and say ‘welcome Rabi’). The decision to make food a delightful lover or an abusive lover to your body lies with you. This is my journey to a better relationship with food. I am not a picky eater, so it’s not hard to believe that I am currently overweight, but I was not always this way. Growing up, I was constantly teased by friends and family members because I was so skinny despite my voracious eating habits. I didn’t like being skinny and I wished I were as chubby as my siblings and friends. On that note, I have realized that most Nigerians either do not understand that a person’s weight is a sensitive issue and they shouldn’t be flippant about it or they just don’t care and would say whatever pleases them. A person’s weight could be as a result of so many factors such as genetics, eating disorders and/or ailments. Assuming a reason is not just myopic but unfair. In the boarding house, we had this saying “insult to physical attributes is a mortal sin; all girls are beautiful in their own way.” No matter the provocation, we always respected that. But I digress; that is a topic for another day. When I turned 18, I finally started gaining a few pounds and I was glad to no longer be referred to as skinny. Gradually, I went from skinny to overweight to borderline obese in 2 years. Surprisingly, I took criticism of my weight gain well, but it gets tiring when you go to the doctor for any ailment and the prescription almost always includes losing weight. I knew the doctors had a point as obesity is a high risk factor for so many diseases. So, I decided to lose weight and become healthier and that was the beginning of my journey to healthy food alternatives. One fine Saturday morning, I went to the market armed with an extensive list of all the healthy foods that I got from blogs, fellow overweight friends who were successfully losing weight, my mom and my doctor. I spent so much money, I had to walk to the nearest ATM to get my transport fare back home (it was a forty-five-minute walk). Let’s just say the whole ordeal almost put me off a healthy diet because I thought it was too expensive for me ( I am cheap, no apologies). So I went back to the drawing table to make it as cheap as possible and made an account of how much I spent on foods that weren’t healthy and replaced them with cheaper, healthier alternatives. Here is the list I came up with:

1. Carbonated drinks: a bottle of coke costs 100 Naira. This will be enough to buy a bag of sachet water which lasts 3 days. (Coca Cola didn’t bother putting my name on any of their bottles, so I should ignore them too.)
2. Ice cream (for the price of 1, I could get yogurt that is twice as much)
3. Beef (fish is cheaper)
4. Trips to KFC and co (that will buy me all the fruits I eat in a month!)
5. Noodles (maybe substitute with Kelloggs? But my Kelloggs doesn’t last as long as Indomie…hmmmm)
6. Apples (I love apples! But the price of one small apple will buy 3 oranges or 5 tangerines or 1 big slice of watermelon; apples will have to become an occasional fruit now)
7. Irish potatoes (I will buy sweet potatoes instead)
8. Bread (NO ONE can take my bread from me! but I will reduce the frequency and incorporate more oats.)
9. Cake (occasional eggs will do)
10. Sugar (honey)

After making my list, it dawned on me that eating healthy can be as cheap as you want; Basmati rice may be more expensive than regular rice but the price of beans is still the same. I believe eating healthy meals should not be boring nor expensive but fulfilling or else, it won’t last. Everyone has a different body system, so find what works best for you, get creative, research foods you like eating that are healthy and start from there. It all starts from making that decision to live a healthier life. Hopefully, these new changes to my diet will yield positive results.  If you are also on a cheap, healthy diet, please share and let’s go on this healthy journey together.     About the Writer: Rabiat Abdulkareem is a graduate of Chemistry from University of Ilorin. She is passionate about food, travel and books. Connect with her on twitter @rabiatota

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This article was first published on 4th March 2015 and updated on March 29th, 2015 at 4:14 pm

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