I am currently unemployed as is my wife and we have both been on the 800cal diet for 10 days so far. The meals are generally fantastic and tasty but boy do they cost a fortune! There is so much waste! We are having to repeat meals in order to use up expensive ingredients which is making the diet boring. I have lost 14lb in 10 days and my wife 6lb but we are finding it hard to pay for the ingredients. Does anyone also find this? Are there any low cost options? Can we please see more recipes of 1 0r 2 servings rather than the 4-6 which is common? We may have to come off this diet purely because of cost which is a pity because of the great weight loss. Help! On another note, PLEASE can recipes include accurate quantities instead of things like, ‘ a piece of Haddock’. Guessing is no good!

Hi MadMedic, I don’t know where you live to be able to give shopping advice but if you have an Aldi anywhere near you their yoghurt, cream cheese, cottage cheese and free range eggs are really cheap. They also do 250g packets of milled flax seed for under £2 (the same is £6 in Sainsbury’s). If there is an Asian supermarket near you the besan (gram/chickpea) flour should be relatively cheap.
Aldi also do cheaper frozen packs of chicken breast fillets. Their bacon is a good price too.
Try to make a lot of your meals based on the cheaper ingredients such as frittatas, omelettes, cottage cheese, cheese and salad. Soups can be very cheap – I look to see what veg is on Aldi’s super 6 and base my soups on it. You can add a dollop of yoghurt or cream to your soups to add fat and protein. Other supermarkets also do a similar thing to Aldi with fortnightly cheap veg range.
If you have a freezer I would make the multi portion foods and store some, it makes life easier.
The besan flour can be used to make flat breads ( recipe on website) and bhajis. I posted a courgette bhaji recipe on this website but you can substitute the courgette with onion ( I often do) because the protein is in the chickpea flour. In fact I often make them with any odds or ends of veg I have.
Tins of sardines are relatively cheap and can be mixed with cream cheese for a dip – likewise , if you are in the UK celery is cheap at the moment.
I’ll give this some thought and see what ideas I can come up with. You certainly won’t be the only person with this problem!!!
Keep with the diet though as you are doing wonderfully on it!!! 🙂

Hi Mad medic

Well done on your weight loss, you are doing really well. Personally, I am not using the recipes much as I find there are too many things in them I either don’t like or flavourings I’m not prepared to buy in case I only use them once. I have also stopped counting calories and am now counting carbs so the amounts of food don’t matter too much. Meat and fish don’t have carbs so the amount to eat is the amount I need to feel full. All I have done really is take the meals I have always enjoyed and made them low carb. So now, for example, I have (veggie) sausages and cauli mash instead of potato mash. I have scrambled eggs with butter for lunch – again no carbs in either. I fast for sixteen hours every day without feeling the slightest bit hungry and only eat between 12 and 8. I have around 50 carbs a day. I have also found that I have stopped buying bread, potatoes, pasta, coke etc so I can now buy coconut flour, gram flour, etc. These things cost the same – my gram flour from asda was £1.20 for a huge bag. I’d say don’t drop the principle of the low carb diet – you know it works better than any other, are you really going to give up on this opportunity? Just find ways to make it work within your lifestyle and preferences. Best wishes.

Hi Mad Medic
well,the meat, poultry, fish, and veg shouldn’t be any more expensive than if you were eating the old way. Greek yoghurt and packs of frozen berries are cheap at Aldi, I think the most expensive extra I have bought was the coconut flour. Coconut oil is cheap at Aldi too
Gram flour isn’t expensive, there shouldn’t be a huge difference in your weekly budget saying as you aren’t buying bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, alcohol etc.
Your weight loss is brilliant, don’t spoil it because of the price of the food.

I haven’t bought any special things in for this diet. I’ve adapted to what I normally use, e.g. fish, chips& peas for family but my tiny portion is minus the chips and batter!! I haven’t followed the recipes as they’re not the sort of food I’d normally eat. I’ve bought a lot more berries though, balanced out by not buying as much chocolate based stuff!! Aldi/Lidl are both a lot cheaper than the others too.

Frozen berries in Sainsburys basics range are much cheaper than other labels and vastly cheaper than buying fresh.
Red peppers also feature a lot. The roasted ones in a jar at Lidl are much cheaper than fresh and don’the go bad – jar lasts ages in fridge.
Perhaps if you let us know what sort of food you enjoy we can put our thinking caps on and come up with cheaper alternatives?
It would be a pity to stop now when it is clearly working for you!

I can see where you are coming from mad medic, as it is much cheaper to have a ham sandwich or beans on toast instead of salmon salad or fish with vegetables. The same is true of potatoes instead of loads of veg and I know I have spent more on food since I have been on this diet but I am very lucky that i have an aldi very close to where I live. But having said all that I hope you dont feel you have to abandon the diet because I am sure in time, like me, you will find it is the best thing you can do for your health. Do keep logging onto the forums because there is lots of really good support and help. Good luck to you and your wife.

I think learning to cook with fresh ingredients is a bit of a learning curve if you’re not used it. It takes a bit of experience to learn how to use leftover fruit and veg in different ways (soups and salads are always good, just throw in what you have!) so that it both doesn’t go to waste and you don’t get bored.
Takes a while, but you’ll get the hang of it.

Also, although the book has a lot of different breakfast options, it would expensive to make them all. I’ve just chosen a couple (either an omelette, or full fat yoghurt with fruit) and make sure I have the stuff in the fridge, and just alternate between them as I feel like it. People are generally used to having the same thing to breakfast every morning, so that is no stretch.