What have I done?

That was the first thought I had as soon as I signed up for the Transformation Challenge at Freeletics. I had just said yes to the one thing I swore I’d never do—a bootcamp challenge where I’d have to measure all my meals, avoid all alcohol, and do intense workouts for the next five months.
All of it in the middle of a German winter.

My friends teased me—"But why? You love food, and you love wine."

Yes. I’m obsessed with good food and good wine. But I had done the workout portion of the program last year and was genuinely impressed with the results. After a few months, I was able to do my first clean pull-up. I wanted more.


I wanted to see how far I could go.

"I have become the thing I swore to destroy," I replied.

I'm three weeks in, and it hasn’t been so bad. Yes, on the first day of the program, I was coming back from visiting my brother in Paris and had to ignore the smell of croissants as I weighed my food on the train. And yes, I have to wake up at 5:45 a.m. on training days and wait in the snow for my S-Bahn. But the results are already starting to show—I’ve been losing around 1 kg per week, and my goal of two back-to-back pull-ups feels within reach.

But beyond the physical benefits, this program has given me something else.
A surprise gift, in fact. Data.

Since I have to follow a strict diet—measuring all my portions, sticking to a curated list of ingredients, and sending everything I eat to the program’s nutritionist (📣 shoutout to Sina!) —I have a daily record of what I eat and how much.

This turned out to be the perfect framework to not only to get creative with my recipes but also to track food costs. So, when I found myself with a bit of free time this weekend, I cracked open a zero-calorie soda and got to work on Google Sheets. I started by adding my daily metrics then logged everything I had eaten over the past three weeks using the photos I’d been taking. Next, I created an ingredient list to calculate how much each meal would cost.

Soon, I was researching how to call different search methods between tabs in Excel to build my little database. For calorie amounts, I referenced a few nutrition sites I’ve used in the past. For prices, I pulled data from my local supermarket’s ordering system. A few hours in, I had compiled all my data into an easy-to-update system.

My little system is like this:

Tracking – The main tab collects daily metrics, including weight, body fat %, water %, a list of meals with their individual calorie contributions, total calories consumed, and total meal costs per day.
Meals – This tab includes categories like recipe name, ingredients, total calories, meal cost, total times cooked, total cost of meals, and total cost of bootcamp meals.
Ingredients – This tab lists categories, ingredients, amounts, calories, and costs.

I track my daily metrics on the main sheet. Since I have to stick to a specific list of ingredients, this part doesn’t change much. The Meals tab is where the magic happens—new recipes get added here, and I can track what I’ve been eating the most, as well as which meals stand out as low-cost or low-calorie.

Crushed tomatoes pasta topped with fresh basil and low-fat mozzarella (*and chili flakes*)

Here are my insights so far.

Vegetarian meals are the cheapest. A good pasta with crushed tomato sauce and mozzarella will only cost you €1.51, while my "luxury" meals involve shrimp. You can see my Mexican excess when I make a low-calorie version of Tostadas de Camarón (shrimp in green sauce served over corn waffles). That one costs me ~€4.52, still cheaper than any Mexican restaurant in Munich. Snacks and breakfasts are the most affordable, with most of them just above €1 per portion.

One of my goals this year is to save money—probably yours too—so meal costs are a big deal. I’m already saving by avoiding restaurants and coffee shops (I’m a fiend for a good oat flat white). While I have a rough idea of how much I spent on food before this diet, I’m afraid to check my bank statements and see just how much I’ve contributed to Munich’s food scene.

So, I did some quick research. According to Eurostat, households in Germany spend 11.8% of their income on food. The total cost of my meals is below this national average, which makes me quite happy. Fresh, high-quality ingredients below the national spending level? Nice!

The biggest advantage of my system is how easy it is to implement and update. I’m running into one issue, though. Handling half or double portions. For example, my evening snack is Skyr with two portions of fat. I usually pick double chocolate for something almost like stracciatella ice cream (Trust me on this. Add a little no-calorie sweetener and a pinch of salt). So far my solution has been to create an ingredient called ‘Double dark chocolate’. But I don’t think this is best practice.

I thought about building the database in Python, which would give me more flexibility with portions and calculations, but updating it on the go would be harder. Google Sheets is just more convenient since I can access it anywhere. For now, I’ll keep updating the spreadsheet while brainstorming ways to improve it in the background. I’m also planning to experiment with some fun data visualizations—more to come!

That’s Enough About Me!

What do you think? What should I focus on next?

You’d love to try some of these recipes, wouldn’t you? Maybe even get a sneak peek at the low-cost meals database?

Let me know—shoot me an email or write a comment below! 😊
📩 sifuentesanita@gmail.com

Transformation Challenge

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