Saving Money on Meals

Probably one of the most common question asked by people is " How much do you eat in a day?" Surprisingly, not what - although of course people do ask that, too- but how much. 

To me, this shows just how much people are worried about whether they're eating enough or not.

I am a full-time student at Monash University Malaysia and I live in Lagoon View Resort Condominium which is located in between campus and Sunway Pyramid (place that I usually get my groceries from). Sometimes people, mostly fellow students will casually ask me the question. When I reply, "5-6 meals per day and between 2,400- 2,800 calories." the person is astounded. Then they'll give me reasons like "I don't have enough time" or  "it's too expensive to eat like that."

My thoughts: false, and false. As a student myself, I know excuses like those can be simply thrown to avoid being held responsible for your own bad decisions. I can tell you that I've both run the numbers and put them to the test in the real world. No matter who you are or where you live, you can do this!

The Four Kitchen Essentials

Before you get rolling in the kitchen, you're going to need to outfit yourself with a few essential appliances: a microwave, an oven, a rice cooker and a large grill pan. You probably already have access to the first of those things, but trust me, the other three are just as important to spice things up.

They allow you to prepare - in large quantities, I might add- all that is necessary to eat according to your desired macros  in a university setting. Other electrical appliances like blender is nice to have, but they aren't necessary and most apartment won't provide it.

Below are the basic meals I prepare in each of the essential kitchen appliances. I highly encourage you to do some research to find recipes that fit  your taste buds.

1. Microwave
I use my microwave to reheat all of my meals. Besides that, I also use it to cook red potatoes and sweet potatoes, both of which can be considered as my staple food. To cook any kind of potato in the microwave, make sure you do the following:

 1. Rinse and scrub the potato with your hands in water at room temperature. Potatoes are grown in          the ground, so they usually have a little dirt on the skin, and they typically come in mesh bags,            they'll also pick up other contaminants along the way. Obviously cooking them at high                        temperature will kill the bacteria , but who wants to eat dirt?

 2. Using a knife or a fork, poke a few holes in each potato to ensure even distribution of heat                   throughout the whole potato.

 3. Place the potatoes into a microwaveable container and fill the container with water until it reach         approximately half of the potatoes. Cover the container with a lid but make sure that lid is not             fully sealing the container.

 4. The cook time will vary depending on the size of the potatoes and the settings of the microwave,
     but a rough estimation would be around 4 min each side.

Check the readiness with a knife; if you can put it through the potato with relative ease, you're good to go. If your knife stops or becomes hard to push, pop the potato back into the microwave for another couple of minutes.

Purple Sweet Potato with Wasabi sauce and baked chicken 

2. Oven

We all know how busy a university workload can get, which is why the oven is a must-have for me. You just simply wrap the tray with an aluminium foil and place your seasoned protein source and pop it in the oven and forgot about it.

Beyond being convenient time-wise, cooking with an oven makes your meats leaner; the fat will melt away into the juice/sauce you're cooking in. It also keep things interesting, because the combinations of meats and sauces are infinite.

My favourite meat by far to cook in an oven for a long period of time is the pork tenderloin, because it gets so tender and easy to eat as it just melt in your mouth. But there are thousands of recipes out there, so I encourage you to try your favourite meats and discover the ones you like.

Roasted Pork Tenderloin wrapped with Beef slices

This is the basic process:

1. Preheat your oven to around 200 deg and wrap the tray with aluminium foil so that the meat wont stick on the tray and you could avoid any washing. ( Fuck washing !!)

2. If the meat is too thick, make a few cut throughout along the meat so that cooking process will be even. Cover the meat with a thin layer of oil (optional) and spice it up with any seasoning of preference.

Chicken Breasts

3. Pop it in the oven and let it cook! The meat will take around 15-20 mins to be cooked at 200-250degs.

4. After your meat finished cooking, retrieve the meat with a fork and dump the remaining content down the drain.

Roasted Beef

Besides that, if you are craving for some fries, one of the best way to indulge in the healthy version of it by oven-baking with minimal oil and salt.

This is the basic process:

1. Wash and lightly scrub the potatoes with running water. Remove the skin of the potatoes because it may contain dirt or any contaminants.

2. Cut the potatoes into preferable sizes with almost similar thickness to ensure all the potatoes are cooked evenly at the same time. Use a fork to pierce the slightly thicker potatoes (optional).

3. Drizzle some oil (olive, canola, coconut- your choice) on the potatoes. Add a pinch of salt and black pepper and toss the potatoes around so that the seasoning are spread equally.

4. Pop it into the oven for around 20 mins at 200-250 deg. When the edges are golden-brown, it's ready to go!

Baked sweet potato + Steak 

3. Rice Cooker  

It is basically an electric pot that you just plug in. Follow the directions that come on the rice of your choice. A couple of tips:

1. Put a bouillon cube in with your rice and water. It will give your rice a better flavour without adding calories.

2. Dress your rice up with different vegetables and sauces.My favourites are red bean and pesto.





4. Electric grill / grill pan

It depends whether you have a stove in your apartment, but if you do, you could get the grill pan and if you don't, the electric grill would be your best bet. Get the biggest one you can get, so you can cook a lot of food at one time.

Some of my favourites to make on the grill are lean beef burger patties, steak, and chicken breasts. Because of the design, excess fat runs off, making it acceptable to use fattier cuts of meat.

Grilled Pork Tenderloin

Grilled Steak

That's my kind of salad ;) 

Stretch The Meat You Eat

This would probably cost around RM 60-70 if you were to eat out in Sunway Pyramid.

Buy what's on sale and plan your meals around that, rather than planning a meal and then buying the ingredients at full price. If you've space in your house or apartment, a small freezer can help you squeeze more than one meal out of a bulk buy.

Meat is the perfect item to buy big and freeze for a period of time. For instance, I would grab all of the meat at 50% off in Jusco and store them in the fridge/ freezer. Two pieces of 7-8 oz chicken breasts cost RM 8-10, originally, half the price would be RM 4-5 for two meals ! If you have access to any wet market or wholesale stores, that would be the best.

Canned Tuna in water or extra virgin olive oil should also be on your menu somewhere. It is low in fat, high in protein , and can be purchased at a normal price of RM 5.40 per canned with approximately 33grams of protein. That is relatively cheap compared to the price of food in Sunway which ranged from RM 7-10 per meal and it doesn't provide sufficient amount of nutrients for your building muscle-goal.

Make Cents of Carbs

The good thing about carbs is that they are relatively cheap.

You cant go wrong with rice. I eat a lot of it, probably almost every meal; a cup or more a meal. I don't really eat brown rice anymore because if you understand glycemic load- you would too. A bag of 10kg white rice costs around RM 30-40 and it could last for a month or two.

Potatoes cost RM 0.19 per 100 grams - perfect. 28 medium size potatoes cost me around RM 8- 9 and it will last about 2 meals a day for one week. 2 medium size potatoes consists of approximately 40 grams of carbs and about 160 calories.

Say Yes To Sauce

I've seen bodybuilders in magazines who eat their plain chicken breast, plain rice, plain everything. Honestly, you could do the same if you want to but I can't because I know it will be a matter of time before I breakdown and start to snack on other junk food. I need a little bit of flavour in my life, That means sauce, dressing or anything to spice things up a little.

I know what you're thinking, but sauce isn't a big deal. You've got to have a little salt in your food, or pepper, or whatever spices you want, You don't need to choke down that super-plain , dry chicken breast.

Remember, you have to enjoy the process and it's not all about suffering 24 hours a day. Spice it up.
 
Eating Big On A Budget

Meal 1

Meal 2

Meal 3

Whey Protein - 1 or 2 scoops

Meal 4

Meal 5

Note: You do not have to eat that many meals in a day, provided that you can ensure that you consume all the macro's that you need for your fitness goals. Personally, I can't eat like that all the time during the semester; sometimes I cook, sometimes I eat out. There must always be a balance.

Tonight We Squat in Hell

Finally exams are over and I am BACK!!

I decided to cut down on my calories by around 400cals during my study break and it felt terrible especially when I study, I will go on for 4-5 hours straight. 

Planning my workout schedule was one of my major concern during the semester because classes can start at 8-9 am to late evening around 6 with little breaks in between. I will save this for another article on how I managed to maintain my strength and my grades ;) ;)

Today was the first day after my exams that I trained my legs and I always incorporate major compound movements like Squat in my workout regime. 

The Squat requires great strength throughout all the prime movers and great technique. Great squatters have tremendous strength from head to toe; the quads, hamstrings, glutes, hips, core and entire back must be well developed for a successful lift.

Key technical points in the squat are:

1. The closer you can put your hands to each other on the bar, the easier it will be to have a tight setup. Make sure your elbows are inside your hands to maintain tightness. Using a thumbless grip often improves the comfort of a close hand position. 

2. Squeeze your elbows towards the middle of your body to enhance upper back tightness in the setup . Once you squeeze them towards your body as hard as possible, force them forwards under the bar. There will be very little movement of the elbow forward if you are doing a good job of squeezing them in. 

3. Get some air into your midsection by focusing on breathing into your low back, this will eventually create 360 degrees of pressure. Besides that, get air before you bring the bar out of the rack with your hips. 

4. The walkout should normally be achieved in 3 steps max and it also can be achieved in 2. Step back with your off foot, set your dominant foot and then make any re-positions of your off foot necessary to find your stand. 

5. Once your feet are set, take more air into your midsection by breathing into your low back before descending, while also flexing your glutes hard to neutral your spine and squeezing the bar hard in your hands.

6. Focus on maintaining 3 even points on contact at your feet throughout the lift. Weight should be evenly distributed through big toe, little toe and heel. There will be some forward movement on the knees in the lift and that is fine. 

7. Focus and commit to the descent of the lift. Going down as fast as possible is critical to take advantage of the stretch reflex and avoid expending unnecessary energy on the way down. This doesn't mean you should drop the weight in an uncontrolled manner. You need to descend as quickly as your TECHNIQUE can hold up to. 

8. Keeping the knees in line with the toes or slightly outside is valuable to create torque in the hips. "Knees out" though is often not the proper cue to achieve this as it causes the lifter to shift the weight to the outside of their feet and lose the 3 points of contact. 

9. The last thing to move during the descend is the lift, so it should be the first thing to move on the way up. Keep your chest up out of the hole by driving your head and shoulder back into the bar. Also drive your elbows forward under the bar as you initiate the drive out of the hole.

10. Focus on accelerating the bar throughout the concentric movement all the way to the top of the lift. The bar doesn't need to actually jump off your back but the intent should be there.