Day One: A Few Basics

Eliminate Drink Purchases. Bring your own water.
Some of the more obvious money sinks include drinks. In restaurants, in the market, we seem to pay way too much for what is mostly water. I recommend you get a durable water bottle, and if you need a filter, either get a filtered water pitcher/water bottle (like Brita). In the long run, you save hundreds per year, considering you should be drinking between 6 and 8 glasses a day. Use the extra you save for buying milk once a week. By eliminating the calories from sugary juices and sodas (even diet sodas have been reported to be bad for you) from being an everyday occurance, you'll do your body a world of good. Sample numbers: one gallon of bottled water around these parts runs about $1.79, soda cans are about $.75, and juices can be $2-5. Over the course of a year, drinking bottled water might run you about $600 (assuming you only buy the gallon water). A soda a day would be about $275. A bottle of juice a week would be anywhere from $100-250 a year. Stick to the tap. Invest $15 in a filter, if you'd like. Invest another $10 in a bottle with a filter in it to take anywhere with you. Trust me. After drinking only cold water for a while, it's really all I like. Juice is like a candy drink, for special occassions.

Losing Weight=Calorie Deficit
After the years of the fad diets, we've learned that in terms of short-term weight gain/loss, it doesn't really matter if you consume 3000 calories of fat, carbs, or protein. You've still consumed 3000 calories. If you've only burned 2000 calories, you've overconsumed 1000 calories. This 1000 calories is approximately .28 pounds (simply 1000/3500). So, this is the base of all diets. The key is to balance your diet well. Protein and fat will help satiety, but shouldn't make up too much of the diet. Carbohydrates are an extremely important supply of energy, and usually high in foods with fiber, which also staves off hunger and cravings. We'll explore good ratios later on.

Multivitamin
If you are restricting calories, and the kind of food you eat through budgeting, you'll be depriving yourself of vitamins and nutrients. To support your body's needs during weight loss, get a multivitamin and take one everyday. The cost of a single multivitamin can run from a few cents to $.20. It's a good investment. I prefer to spend a little extra on a better tasting, chewable one. I look forward to taking it everyday. I used to get bulk, generic multivitamins, but rarely took them, as I hated swallowing huge, disgusting pills. Flintstone's Children's Multivitamin took care of that for me.