Let’s count, but not calories and joules, nor proteins with fats and carbohydrates, but what we have always lacked - money!

Cheap diets

You can meet completely unexpected variations among relatively cheap diets.

Water-based diet. The best version of such diet - one to three fasting days a week. It is better to lose weight on the weekend, limiting the amount of food and increasing the amount of water you drink up to 2-2,5 liters per day. You can also eat fruits and vegetables: carrot, beet, celery, plums, cherries, apples.

Alcohol diet. A dietary menu (boiled egg, 50 g cheese, small pieces of fish, beef and lettuce) is added 100 g light or 700 g strong alcohol - during a week.

Kefir diet. You should drink 1,5 liters kefir per day. You can add also 5 boiled potatoes, 100 grams boiled meat (chicken or beef, fish (100 g), fruits and vegetables (in unlimited quantities). Weekend - fasting days: Saturday - only yogurt, Sunday - only water.

Celery diet. For breakfast, lunch and dinner, you should eat celery soup without salt. Not very tasty, but useful and economical.

Not cheap diets

If the cost of dietary menu is not essential for you, you can try such diet.

Grapefruit diet. You should consume 700-800 g this useful fruit a day. Additionally use such products per day: 200 g lean ham or meat (can be alternated with fish), vegetable and fruit salads, tea and coffee without sugar.

Exotic fruit diet. You can eat any fruits (except bananas and grapes), add seafood optionally. Among fruits, choose pineapples and papaya.

The notion that healthy nutrition is rather expensive, is profoundly mistaken. Healthy food mean simple, natural foods, and therefore cheap diets.

Approximately 15 years ago, American nutritionists created a nutrition pyramid: Products in it are arranged from the base to the top in descending order of their usefulness.

The main group of products is the cheapest: grains, vegetables and fruits, from them organism must gain those 50-70% necessary carbohydrates. Moreover, these carbohydrates have low glycemic index.

Every day the diet should include one or two cereal (70 g serving) and vegetable (150 g portion) meals, a few pieces of whole grain bread, three to five servings of fruits (portion - one medium size fruit or a cup of berries).

Cereal still remains the best breakfast: oatmeal, buckwheat, corn.

Vegetables (in the form of salads, vegetable stews, vegetable cutlets and pancakes) for lunch and dinner.

The common assertion that vegetables and fruits significantly increase food expences, is baseless.

First, in recent years nutritionists strongly recommend to reduce the proportion of fruits in a diet (they contain too much sugar), while increasing the proportion of vegetables.

Secondly, local apples, plums, cucumbers, zucchini, cabbage, carrots, beets, greens contain far more vitamins and trace elements than exotic fruits and vegetables.

FIRST GROUP

Cheap diets. What you can save

1. Renounce prepared breakfasts, muesli, cereals. They contain a lot of sugar and sometimes artificial additives. If you add fresh berries, fruits and honey in your water or milk oatmeal, you willl get a delicious, useful and inexpensive dish.

2. Fitness-bread, which costs at least three times more expensive than ordinary bread or rye bread is virtually the same ordinary bread, but with the addition of dried fruits, seeds and nuts.

3. In winter, a daily table should have pickled cabbage - a champion of  vitamin content.

4. Choose local fruits and vegetables - they are healthier and cheaper.

5. In late autumn and winter, buy frozen vegetables. Modern technology of freezing is such that they retain most of vitamins and minerals.

DAIRY PRODUCTS

The simpler dairy product is, the better.

The most valuable natural low-fat foods without flavor additives and fillers: milk, kefir, buttermilk, fermented baked milk, cottage cheese, sour cream, cheese. They support a stable composition of intestinal microflora, which in turn supports immune system and has beneficial effect on fat and carbohydrate metabolism.

As for cheese, it is a concentrated high-calorie food, and it should not be abused. It is enough to eat 30-50 g, 3-4 times a week.

Cheap diets. What you can save

1. Buy pasteurized milk with fat content 1,5-2,5% in soft or cardboard packages with expiration date of no more than seven days. Such milk can be boiled and stored in the refrigerator.

2. Prefer usual kefir, curdled and fermented baked milk with a short shelf life. Give up drinking yoghurts.

3. Macaroni and cheese is a separate dish, rather than a garnish. It is combined with vegetables, but meat is already not necessary.

What can be saved with health benefits

1. Replace meat or fish dish on a dish of beans, peas or lentils 1-2 times a week.

2. Buy raw shrimps and cook them yourself.

3. Replace red meat with chicken, it is more useful and less expensive.

4. Minimize or completely give up meat and other processed meat products. In addition to meat, they contain vegetable protein, starch, fats and artificial additives, these products are leaders on cholesterol content.

5. Buy cod, hake, perch, herring - they are not inferior to more expensive fish on protein content.

What can be saved with health benefits

Reduce fried dishes to a minimum. When heated, vegetable oil forms carcinogenic substances.

Boil or bake meat, fish and poultry in the oven (on grill, steam).

Use good first cold pressed olive oil.

One tablespoon of this oil will be more useful than any other vegetable oil.

# Buy natural butter. Carefully read the label: it should not contain vegetable supplements. The only ingredient - cream, no less than 82%.

# Fry only in olive oil or less - in lard. When heated, these products do not form carcinogenic substances.

# Use oil only once.

# Buy a good frying pan with a coating that allows you not using grease or use it in a minimal amount (less than 1 teaspoon).