Food marketing is a scam

One of my favorite things to bring light to is to remind people to check food labels on everything! People would be surprised to see how much stuff that isn’t typically marked “healthy” is as equally nutritious as the health food. For example, you pass by the frozen meals section, and the health-appearing ones have pretty, clean font, the boxes are light colored, they have the calories and protein right on the front and a little bigger in size than other brands so you notice them easier. The meals are all balanced appearing - broccoli, red pepper, and edamame, tossed in a tangy mushroom sauce with linguine, chicken, and Parmesan cheese - all to make you feel like it’s something special and a little indulgent still.

If you move down a little more in the freezer section, you hit the Stouffers, Banquet, and Marie Calenders’ meals. The healthy frozen meals are usually 200 to 450 calories, with 9g to 23g of protein or so. This is also going to cost anywhere from $2.75 each, upwards to $5 each for the ultra fancy ones. The fancy “high protein” ones are the same marketing, but this time they turned the background color black, because they want you to feel like you can “hang with the boys”, since you can have like 4g extra of protein now apparently. But the cheap meals are like $2 a piece! An individual serving of lasagna is 370 calories and has 21g of protein.

My point of all this is, yes, while the quality of the ingredients is likely better in the health food frozen meals, you need to do whatever you need to do to make this process sustainable and possibly even enjoyable at times. Don’t get fooled into believing you have to look the part, and buy this bullshit, inflated health food. Losing weight, and the mental struggle that comes with it, is an ugly part of the weight loss journey. We are constantly telling ourselves that we didn’t lose enough weight this week, or that we messed up one meal, so now we feel like a failure already, that you have to stop eating “bad” food. But that’s such crap! You are completely capable and strong, and damnit, if you want to eat the “trashy” Stouffer’s lasagna, do it! It’s got the same calories, same protein as the health food meals. So don’t feel bad! Just read your labels and don’t fall into the trap. Popcorn, chips, yogurts, cheese, dressings, candy bars and health food bars - you would be surprised at how much of the “bad” versions of these foods are literally no different than the good ones. So let’s stop the guilt trip. If you want the regular Cheetos instead of the baked Cheetos, go get you some! It’s only like 20-40 calories more per serving anyway.

Good luck!

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