Oil and Water

Or...fat and beverages.

Yes, our bodies need fat.  It provides essential nutrients and helps move vitamins through our bodies. There's good fat and bad fat however.  The good fat protects your heart and brain and fights off the effects of the bad fat.

Anyway, at this moment I have high cholesterol.  Most certainly this is due to the fast food and junk food I consume.  So this is yet another benefit of my $1 a day diet.

During my challenge, my fat sources are going to be few, but they include olive oil, avocados, peanut butter and chicken.

The olive oil and avocados are good fats and provide the all important omega 3 fatty acids.  The fat in the peanut butter and the chicken will boost my minimum calorie intake.  I need 1500 calories minimum a day and 1800 to maintain my ideal weight.

Olive oil isn't cheap though, so at 5 cents a teaspoon, I'm limiting myself to 10 teaspoons for the month.  I think that's enough because I mostly need it to coat some vegetables that I want to roast, use it to stirfry vegetables or saute an egg.  I'm really going to have to scrimp on it to get by.  I might need to save some chicken fat (yikes) to use for cooking.

I'm really lucky to have access to avocados.  They are a true superfood.  On a normal diet, I'd worry about the fat content, but I'm going to need those calories for this challenge.   The peanut butter has saturated fat, but it has so many other good health qualities about it and it tastes good too.

So let's talk about beverages.  I love coffee.  I drink it all day.  I also drink green tea every night.  Unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to afford it on a buck a day.  So my beverage selections are down to hot water and cold water.  Not fancy water, but tap water filtered through the refrigerator.  I drink this everyday anyway.  Lately, I've been drinking a lot of diet soda.  So, I might miss that a lot.  I stopped drinking caffeine a few years ago so I won't have to worry about caffeine withdrawals.  I'm hoping I can glean a lemon from someone.  They seem to be plentiful around here.  Then I can have hot lemon water and cold lemon water.  Can't wait.  So basically, my budget for beverages is zero. 

They say you are supposed to drink 8 glasses of water a day.  I don't think I do that now, but it looks like I might be doing it in June.