Monday’s Market, Menu and Meal Report

I had a very successful shopping trip this past weekend.

I spent exactly $74.  Very pleased with that, as I had to get some non-food items.

I decided that I would buy nothing to prepare our weekly dinners, but instead, challenged myself to cook only from the pantry, refrigerator and freezer this week.  So that’s what I did.  I did have to buy bananas for our morning smoothies and hubby’s lunch stuff.  I also purchased things like milk, soy milk, ingredients to make a dish for a church supper, sandwich bags and a few personal items.

This week’s dinners…

• Saturday – leftover chili (ended up only having this Friday previously)
• Sunday – Church potluck Stew
• Monday -Pinto beans, turnip greens, cornbread (We are Southerners, can’t go too long without this for dinner)
• Tuesday – Leftovers from Monday
• Wednesday – Roasted cauliflower, broccoli, and onions, mixed green salad
• Thursday – Curried chicken salad on mixed salad greens, cheese
• Friday – Chicken salad leftovers

This is an easy week.  The pinto beans were made yesterday, so they are ready for today with no cooking after work.  I will cook chicken Wednesday evening and put in the refrigerator to use Thursday and Friday.  And there’s nothing easier than tossing a bunch of vegetables in the oven to roast.   Luckily we love leftovers, and I especially love not having to cook a meal every night when I get home.

I consider this week to be a success with the budget.

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Loser Update

Well it’s the end of week #2 of the Big Fat Loser 2011 contest at work.

It’s been a great week, and I’m thrilled that I’m still very motivated! I’ve been able to eat well and fit exercise in throughout the week. So, so far it appears that the better I do, the better I do.

I made it through the weekend of the company after-holiday party, the football games and the birthday dinner. I didn’t deprive myself totally, but I did plan for it. That seems to be a key. If I know I’m making BBQ ribs tomorrow, eating light today, with a salad for dinner, is a good move. Then a light breakfast and snack in the afternoon, and make that BBQ dinner an early dinner – and I don’t have to eat ALL the ribs.

I ended up having lunch out again this week, and again, I made great choices.

• At my favorite local bistro, I passed up my favorite delicious, calorie laden lunch and I opted instead for a healthy green salad with bits of turkey, a sprinkling of shredded cheese and 1/2 of a hard boiled egg. Kind of a light chef salad. However, I did splurge by having bleu cheese dressing, on the side.
• I turned down birthday cake for a co-worker SEVERAL times, as people were partying outside my office door, and many stopped in offering cake.

So at the end of week 2, I’m still feeling good.

I am down 4.5 lbs since the weigh-in two weeks ago.

That’s only 1/2 lbs loss since last week, which is a little disappointing when I think about how well I did and how diligent I was, and I know this is a danger. I can’t get discouraged now, because in my head I know that my body is just adjusting, and if I continue along my path as I have been, I’ll likely see bigger results this next week. This is a danger zone for many, and one that I have failed at in the past.  Thinking ‘what the heck, I only lost 1/2 lb, might as well have that burger’, then it’s down hill from there. 

If any of you have any advice on how you have made it through these times, I’d love to hear.

Wish me luck as I enter the danger zone of week 3.

(NOTE) I really appreciate the encouragement I’ve received from post comments, emails and those of you I see in person.  Encouragement from others is a big part of success.  THANK YOU!

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Post Holiday

I love the holidays, but it feels good to get back into the norm of everyday, post-holiday life. Ordinary. Calm. Simple.

For us that means our meals get back to being sensible (not that I don’t love those non-sensible meals). My body is appreciative, that’s for sure.

We spend time thinking about goals for the year. Personal goals, such as budget, health, home projects. Professional goals, such as what we REALLY want to be doing in five years.

We’re also settling back into routine things like staying home in the evenings, reading, doing those post-holiday chores. Things like cleaning out and reorganizing the pantry, that gets into a crazy mess when I’m running around cooking like a maniac for 2 or 3 months.

We spend evenings relaxing, perusing garden catalogs and planning (I do LOVE to plan) the garden. How big will it be, what will we plant, how much of everything? Dreaming of those warm Spring days when we can sit on our back porch drinking coffee in the mornings and feeling the warmth of the sun envelope us, but enjoying sitting by the fire and rejuvinating our bodies and souls for the moment.

Looking at the pictures of the past few weeks below, those warm Spring days appear a ways away, but I know they will be here before we know it.

What are you doing to return to normal after the holidays?

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Monday’s Market, Menu and Meal Report

This week’s grocery bill – $121.76.

No, this is in no way within my budget. A couple of things caused this rise in the amount spent this week. First of all, we had a big birthday dinner for my son on Sunday. I purchased things we don’t normally purchase, such as a TON of baby back ribs and 2 pounds of shrimp. Those two things alone pushed it up, as well as a few other purchases for dinner. But, I feel ok about it, we don’t make a big deal of birthdays as far as gifts, so this dinner get-together is the way we celebrate.

Oh, I said a couple of things contributed…the other is that I shopped with a hungry husband.  Enough said.

This week’s dinner menu (beginning on shopping day, Saturday):

Saturday – Tuna salad (we didn’t have this as intended, two nights last week, we had a holiday party to attend that I had forgotten about when planning)
Sunday – BBQ ribs, cajun boiled shrimp, baked beans, pasta salad
Monday – Broccoli/sun-dried tomato frittata and mixed green salad
Tuesday –Roasted brussels sprouts, sweet potato slices, crowder peas, mixed green salad
Wednesday – Brown rice salad, crowder peas
Thursday – Chili and green salad
Friday – Chili and green salad

So, I wish I could have kept it down a bit, but the birthday dinner is something I don’t mind splurging on a bit. And a nice surprise too, we realized we had a $25 gift card that we needed to use, so it didn’t all come out of the grocery budget.

Week two summary…so-so.

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Loser Update

Well it’s the end of week #1 of the Big Fat Loser 2011 contest at work.  Somewhere this week I read the first week of a weight loss effort being described as the ‘honeymoon period’.

It’s true.  You are on this great high.  You have grand ideas, big plans.  You write out your menus and do your healthy grocery shopping. You may start to exercise.  It’s not that difficult generally, that first week.

But then comes the weekend.  The company holiday party, catered by one of the best restaurants in town (tonight for us), or the weekend of sports on tv and snacks (tomorrow), or a birthday celebration (Sunday).  That’s when many fall off that honeymoon wagon.  You slip once or twice, then think ‘what the heck, I’ve blown it now’ and you are right back to two weeks ago.

I had several successes this week.  I usually eat lunch out no more than once a week, if that, but due to two birthday lunches and a lunch with old friends that had been postponed, I ended up eating out 3 days this week.  I made excellent choices each time, I’m very pleased with that. 

• One day was grilled salmon on a bed of greens with balsamic vinegrette…while people with me were eating appetizers of home made potato chips, then cheesecake. None for me. 
•  Then there was the Vietnamese restaurant with the wonderful rice bowls…I resisted and had stir fried vegetables with hot peppers, and NO cream cheese rangoon (big success). 
•  Then today…Mexican, MY FAVORITE!  Guacamole salad. I did have a few chips, but I feel like I worked them off on the elliptical when I got home.  Followed by a dinner of a scoop of tuna salad with a touch of lite mayo, on mixed salad greens with a boiled egg and roasted red peppers.

So at the end of my honeymoon week I’m feeling good.

And, I lost 4 lbs since the weigh-in last Friday.

Now…wish me luck as I venture into the temptations of the weekend, and on to Week #2.

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Eating…What Else?

Since I joined the Big Fat Loser 2011 weight loss challenge at work, I’ve been totally preoccupied (yes, even more than usual!) with food.  I’ve been thinking of healthy snacks, ways to eat less and lose weight and still feel that we’re getting the nutrition we need, keep the energy levels up, etc.

I’ve been asking friends about their eating habits, especially for dinners during the week.  I’ve gotten some great ideas from chatting with various people about what works for them.

One idea that I got from a friend at work is turning out to be a really good one for us so far.  He and his wife are runners, have a home gym in their house and are very, very fit.  They are extremely diligent about eating well.  When I asked about their weekly dinner habits, he said his wife does cook every night, simple…maybe chicken with vegetables, or fish, but there’s one thing that they do EVERY night.  They have salad before their meals.  He said his wife is very good about variety, keeping them healthy and interesting, and he said it is a very successful technique (besides being delicious) to keep them from over-eating the remainder of their meal.  Even if you eat baked chicken and vegetables, too much isn’t good, so this really works for them.

When I was growing up, I would go to my father’s house on weekends and his wife always made a salad with dinner. Always. It was Iceburg lettuce, radishes, tomatoes, and cucumbers from the garden with Thousand Island dressing.  Always. That’s what I thought salads were until I grew up. Actually that is pretty much what they were wherever I ate them.

Now I think of salads differently. I think of them basically as piles of raw vegetables. I don’t care for Iceburg lettuce any longer, but there are so many wonderful greens available, and not just lettuces…for instance, I love throwing bunches of spinach in with my salad greens. And tomatoes, radishes and cucumbers are still great additions to the greens, but so are broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, onions, snow peas, carrots, sprouts, asparagus.  And beans and eggs and cranberries and raisins.  And nuts.  And strawberries and blueberries and goat cheese.  And Feta, Cheddar, Havarti and Parmesan.  I’m pretty sure I could go on for 10 more minutes, but I’ll stop now, you get the idea. OK, and artichoke hearts and roasted red peppers. 

And salad covers SO much more territory than green salads, but that’s what I’m going to focus on for now.

I love salads.  In the summer I make a lot of salads, but many times it’s a very hearty salad, maybe over pasta, or with chicken or turkey added, and it’s a one dish dinner.  Great for hot weather.  But one thing I don’t do often is make a salad to go along with our normal weekly dinners.  Sure, I think of it with spaghetti or lasagna, but not as a normal addition to our usual meal.

Well it turns out it works really well for us too.  I’ve been doing this quite a bit for a couple of weeks now, trying various ingredients, having it prior to dinner, not with it.  I’ve noticed a big reduction in how much we are eating afterwards.  The biggest thing is hubby very rarely goes back for seconds…EXCEPT FOR THE SALAD!  

I’m going to start making this part of most of our nightly meals, as long as I can keep it interesting and healthy.  I really think it will be a big benefit.

I would love any additional salad ideas that you would like to share.  Got to keep it interesting!

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Happy Birthday…

…to my firstborn.  Twenty seven years ago the sweetest little guy ever was born.

 

This SO DOES NOT make me old.

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Monday’s Market, Menu and Meal Report – PART II

This week’s grocery bill – $59.53. This included toothpaste, deoderant, paper plates and napkins, as well as food items.

This week’s dinner menu (beginning on shopping day, Saturday):

Saturday – 15 bean soup and cornbread
Sunday – 15 bean soup and cornbread
Monday – Baked chicken tenderloins, green tossed salad and Northern beans
Tuesday – Stir fried vegs (broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms and onions) over brown rice, with grilled chicken tenderloin strips
Wednesday – Tuna salad
Thursday – Tuna salad
Friday – Grilled turkey burgers (without bun – watching the carbs), green salad and baked, seasoned sweet potato slices

I didn’t have to purchase everything for our meals this week. I had the 15 beans mixed up in a big container, had chicken and turkey in the freezer, and have a stash of tuna. I do try to pick up things that are on sale, two-for-one, etc. when they are available. This week I picked up a couple of packages of dried cranberries that were buy-one-get-one-free. Those are nice in green salads, brown rice salads and oatmeal.

We also generally have more vegetarian meals, especially in the Spring and Summer. This week is a little meat heavy, but it’s nice to change up.

We have banana/strawberry/blueberry, protein shakes for breakfast. Lunches for work…hubby always takes a turkey and cheese sandwich on flatbread and chips (can’t seem to break him of the chip habit). I take leftovers 4 days a week, go out one day.

I do think the grocery store that I end up shopping at most weeks is a bit expensive. It’s seven miles from home, and the next closest grocery is about 20 miles away. One thing I do want to experiment with is shopping in town on our way home on Friday evenings and see how much of a difference I see.

Week one of the challenge…I feel successful.

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Monday’s Market, Menu and Meal Report – PART I

One of my goals for this year is to reduce what we spend on food.  There are several things I think we can do to accomplish this.

PLANT! – We are very fortunate to have 5 1/2 acres of good soil.   A good garden spot is easy to find. We planted a garden each of the last two years, and learned more each time about what NOT to do in the future, as well as what TO do.  This year we will probably plant a smaller, but smarter garden.  We’ve learned what we use the most, and we’ve learned what we can buy inexpensively, locally.  I remember getting a basket of 12 beautiful summer squash and 6 ears of Peaches and Cream corn on the cob at the farmers market in the little town near us last year.  The farmer was going to charge me $1 for all of that, but I insisted he take $2.  I still felt guilty, but he wouldn’t take more.

EAT NATURALLY (as much as possible) – We have done a great job of eating more naturally during the past two years. I very rarely buy anything processed, if so, it’s for the convenience of cooking for several people perhaps.  I did some of this during the holidays this year (prepared soups, etc.), but we don’t do it as a general rule.  We eat mostly vegetables, with a little chicken, turkey and fish thrown in occasionally.  I am going to concentrate more on preserving this year, so we can just go to the pantry or freezer later in the year.  This will surely help us in the coming Fall and Winter.

BUY IN BULK – We have a full basement with plenty of storage, so I plan to concentrate on shopping for smart bulk buys.  There’s a great post on bulk buying at The Back Forty, Robbyn’s blog, entitled Food Budgeting Part Four: Quantity and Bulk (she has a great series on Food Budgeting, highly recommended reading for anyone looking to shop and eat smarter, more efficiently and healthier).  We do have a couple of good markets in town that offer bulk grains, beans, nuts, etc., and as a bonus, they have a great produce market, so I’ll be buying from them periodically.

PLAN – Planning meals is extremely important for me, so that is done prior to my weekly shopping trip. I spend so much more if I don’t plan. One thing I do is plan meals that will stretch for a day or two, so I only have to plan a few meals a week. In the winter, we eat soup a lot, and we’ll do that for two days at the least. We are both leftover fans – some things just taste better the second day, and it’s also a great time-saver to just get home from work an reheat dinner.

MAKE A BUDGET AND STICK TO IT – We always ‘kind of budget’ for food shopping, but it’s about to change.  We shop once a month at Costco, and weekly at our local markets.  I am aiming for $100 at Costco, and $75 weekly at the market.  This includes households things such as detergent, paper products and personal items such as toothpaste, deoderant, etc.  When the local crops and our garden start coming in, I will hopefully be able to do better.  I feel challenged, and am excited to see what I can do.  We do have quite a bit of frozen produce from summer, some canned, and chicken and turkey we buy on sale in the freezer.  So, for one month, I will stick to this goal, and we’ll see how I do.  There may be adjustments made after that.  Wish me luck!

I DO THE SHOPPING, and I SHOP ALONE! – I had an extremely bad headache two weeks ago on shopping day, and hubby went to the grocery for me.  I gave him a detailed list.  He should have come in under $60, we didn’t need much of anything.  He spent $89.  There were treats for me because I had a headache (ok, he’s sweet), treats for him for…well, just because.  A few things we didn’t need yet, had plenty of.

I plan to blog each Monday on how much I did with my grocery budget the previous Saturday shopping trip, and my meal plan for the week. I think after one month of this I’ll know how realistic I am in my goal.  This is my way of documenting and keeping up with how I’m doing, but I also hope that something I’m doing can help someone else with similar goals.

That said, I welcome any suggestions or ideas of things any of you have found helpful in cutting the food bill, while eating healthier.

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Big Fat Losers

Today is the day!! Our office version of  ‘The Biggest Loser’ begins today.  We did this last Fall…from August until December.  Talk about a hard time to get fit!  College football, holidays, etc.  Tough. I did manage to lose 7 pounds during that time, but could have done so much better.  I will say, I did give in to a lot of temptations.  It was the holiday season people! 

But now it’s time for Big Fat Losers 2011.  We don’t know how many people will participate until all the forms are in later today.  There were about 25 or so in the last round.

We’re excited.  We will weigh in today, then once a month for the next 5 months.  The winner is based on the percentage of weight lost during that timeframe.  There will be plenty of harrassing, bragging, sabotaging, you name it.  But we really do all wish the best for one another. It will be a lot of fun, but we are all taking it very seriously.  There is one trustworthy person in our organization that will weigh everyone in each month, record and post the percentage of loss by participant, so we will know where we stand each month.

 

This is part of my ‘get healthier and more fit’ plan.  It will involve several things, not the least being using this baby.  This was our splurge purchase to celebrate selling our old house.  Due to sickness, etc., it hasn’t seen a tremendous amount of activity yet, but it’s about to be on.  Or ‘fixing to be’ as we say down South :-).

I’ll be updating progress each Friday, starting next week.  My target is a 40 pound loss by June 15, and hopefully the end of blood pressure and cholesterol medications. 

I would love to hear if you have had a successful weight loss/get fit journey, and how you accomplished it.  Any and all tips, hints and encouragement would be so appreciated.

Wish me luck!

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