How to Lose Weight by Eating Healthy—for Just $3 a Day

A diet that is healthy, tasty, and cheap can feel like an unattainable trifecta—especially if you want to go cheap cheap. But balancing your weight and your wallet is possible, as economist Mark Bonica, Ph.D., and dietician Kerryn Story, M.P.H., set out to prove when they teamed up to develop a $3-a-day diet that Bonica followed for a month.

It started out simply enough. Bonica had always been interested in the question of eating on an extremely limited budget and decided to combine his curiosity with the opportunity to turn his health around. He recruited Story to provide nutritional counsel and support, and the two of them blogged daily about the experience (you can check out the blog here). After a 30-day trial of eating on $3 a day (calculated by adding up the price-per-ounce of everything Bonica consumed and cooked with), he lost 10 pounds—and lowered his cholesterol and fasting glucose levels, which got Bonica out of pre-diabetic range. The researchers will be presenting their results at the upcoming 2014 Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo happening October 18-21.

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First things first: Bonica and Story didn't develop a magical diet that you can copy to the letter. It's much simpler than that. Bonica's success came from straightforward clean eating combined with super mindful spending that required him to kick his most unhealthy habits, like drinking soda and eating out. Luckily, if you want to lose weight on a budget, his $3-a-day diet is full of guidelines you can steal for yourself—provided you're willing to do your own food prep.

Bonica averaged 1,700 calories a day (you can get a ballpark estimate of your own daily caloric needs here) and exercised at least 15 days out of the month. As for what he was eating and what you should imitate: "A lot of it is just simplifying your meals and being creative with what you can buy," says Story. She suggests getting your protein from beans, whole-grain rice, and eggs. She also recommends stocking up on frozen vegetables and buying in bulk whenever you can. If you're a salad lover, you should know that on a strict budget, your fresh produce will be made up of what's in season or on sale. The rest is all about the prep: Bonica cooked in bulk over the weekends (he even baked his own bread!) and kept track of every cent he spent (and ate).

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To stay on budget, Bonica used a spreadsheet to keep track of the price per ounce of all his purchases, from brown rice ($0.0347/ounce) to bananas ($0.03/ounce); this made tallying up his daily spending easier. It might take a few days to get a hang of knowing what $3 worth of food looks like, but the proof is in the pudding. "It forced me to keep track of everything," says Bonica. "I became dramatically more conscious of what I was consuming."

When it comes down to it, the preparation and attention it takes to adhere to a strict budget might be all you need to lose weight—so long as you stick to some basic healthy guidelines in the process, like watching your calorie and fat intakes. After that, it's all about creativity, a little DIY, and some serious attention to detail at the grocery store. Of course, what sounds simple is a lot harder in practice—Bonica says it was not an easy month—but consider giving it a try. It could leave your wallet heavier and you lighter. 

MORE: 4 Guidelines for a Healthy Budget and Healthy Lifestyle

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