through the morning without trouble and as the afternoon rolled around I felt the need to eat. Brushing this aside I continued with my normal activities. Class became hard to stay awake in (I fell asleep in two classes) and by the time I got home I was considerably more tired than normal. Hunger turned into weakness and I ended up crashing on the couch for an hour. Dinner time came and in aFrom previous experiences, I've learned that I have trouble sleeping when my stomach is making noise. And seeing how sleep is integral to survival, I figure the most important meal for me is dinner. Its normally my biggest meal too. But seeing as my appetite is rather large and I wanted to have a good dinner, I had to spend my money wisely throughout the day. I gotccordance to my plan I had to keep myself on that 4 dollar budget including beverages. Dinner was McDonald's. Yum. Trans fats. The 2 Mcdoubles and a chicken sandwich was sufficient, but it was hard to fight off the itis(definition). I struggled through homework and fell asleep earlier than normal.
Looking back, day one was not very successful. I imagined it would be easy to get through without food because I have done it so often, but skipping even a small lunch is costly. In addition to that, I took into account beverages as food cost, so the Monster I drink in the morning, which itself has enough caffeine to last through the day and some calories to go with it, would cost me 2 dollars that I was not willing to spend. Mrs. Ko, the PE teacher would have killed me for my diet. Not only did I skip the "most important meal", breakfast, but I had McDonald's as my one and only meal. And though I probably picked up all the necessary calories in that meal, I'm guessing that saturated fats and trans fats are not the most efficient form to use them in. Economically though, I have succeeded in keeping myself on a budget, and I go to sleep on a full stomach.
Day 2:Small changes.
Mrs. Ko would still kill me for not eating a healthy and nutritious breakfast, but I was in a hurry and on a budget so I forgave myself. Unlike Day 1, I thought about it and reasoned that a lunch no matter how small would provide me with the calories that I needed to get through the school day. So I again went for the highest caloric intake for the cheapest price, McDonald's again! I had a McDouble because this kept my cost for this meal at $1.04. I struggled less during the school day to stay awake. Admitting, I did doze off in Econ today, but I wouldn't have put it past me even if I had eaten properly. But again, when I got home, I fell asleep on the couch. I saved up enough money to have a decent meal for dinner. It ended up as Costco Pizza. I limited myself to two slices since I wasn't exactly sure about the cost but estimated to be around $1.50 each. This wasn't a bad deal. Again I slept fine.
This was not the best day economically. I may have gone slightly over budget, but technically I was under budget the day before. I reasoned this okay because I was still slightly hungry at the end of the day. The fact that I felt better about the school day was good. It shows that food plays a big role in the amount energy a student has. Even a small difference like a cheap cheeseburger in the middle of the day helped me sustain enough energy to get through. I've realized that cheap food is not healthy food. Imagine if I had to eat organic on a budget. I could probably eat a banana or two all day. Living on a budget and eating healthy will be a challenge, so really the deficit is not in the amount of food on a budget, but the quality of it. Pizza and burgers can only get me so far.
Day 3:Healthy attempt?
The day starts with a breakfast, though it's not much it's a banana.
Bananas are incredibly good at supplying energy. Athletes and nutritionists agree, they are one of the best foods to eat because of the relatively high amount of carbohydrates they pack per unit. They also have essential vitamins like B6 and A, and potassium. Banana nutrition facts. Unfortunately for me, a banana can run up to 70-80 cents per banana. This is 20% of my budget in the meal that I have been skipping. And also, though very nutritious, bananas aren't very filling. So still with a hungry stomach(even hungrier than normal because of its stimulus), I had to go through the routine of going to school. As it was a Friday, I didn't feel like it was crucial for me to eat a lunch because I normally do something after school and then eat with friends. Lunch is probably the most overrated meal anyway and since I didnt have afternoon classes, I didn't need to stay awake for anything. After school was as usual except for the meal. Working with little more than $3, I couldn't really order anything off the Zippy's menu. I sat there salivating while my friends enjoyed their meals. And after they were done, I ate what was left over. This was a single piece of katsu, half a slice of spam, and a bite of rice. Even though I was grateful for this, it was insufficient and not worth skipping my measly lunch for. I started regretting eating that banana. I went home and ate a left over slice of pizza and ghetto salad I prepared for myself. I went to sleep right after because I was tired from the week and still hungry(sort of), which would only get worse the longer I stayed up.
Day 3 started with a healthy option, a banana. But it quickly turned into a hard day because of skipping lunch, which I have come to realize is very important to me. A small lunch is worth whatever price I end up paying because my body needs to maintain a certain level of blood sugar and mine just drops off after 1 o'clock. There has to be something that I convert into sugar or my body will literally shut off in the afternoon. As for scavenging food off of my friends, I see this as the equivalent to digging in trashcans for food, just slightly more sanitary. This costs me no money and I don't count it towards my costs for food because I'm sure for someone, this is a legitimate way of getting a free meal. Healthy foods are overrated when you are hungry. There is no way a salad or banana will fill your stomach unless you are willing to spend a lot of money eating a lot of lettuce or bananas. Calories aside, there is some gap between the nutrition of the food and its cost. It seems, the healthier you get(not necessarily quality), the more expensive it becomes. A banana which costs 80 cents will give me the vitamins and potassium I need for the day, but will only produce 70 calories worth of energy. As opposed to a McDonald's double cheeseburger, which packs 490 calories, 234 of which are from fat. double cheeseburger nutrition. This high sodium, high saturated fat food is 140% the cost of a banana but has 7 times as many calories, which is what you really need to survive.
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