September Shopping Trip + Meal Prep

I used my strategy of one big shopping trip this weekend to get most of what I knew (or predicted) we needed this month. Most of the shopping trip was my groceries for the meals I planned for this month. The following is my haul:

Cleaning supplies

Toiletries

Whole Grains for all my meals- freezer helps with buying ahead.

Jar, canned, shelf stable foods

Boxed goods

Meats and proteins

Dairy and other refrigerated food

The fresh foods I needed and then cooked the wrong recipe. Ooops!

Since it is Labor Day, I decided to do my food prep for the week today instead of Sunday. I baked some egg whites for homemade Egg McMuffins,

I know they don't look the best, but I accidentally forgot to spray the pan I was baking them in and the bottoms burned a bit.

made a chicken bake with salsa and multi grain tortilla chips,

It is chicken breasts, salsa, and multi grain tortilla chips.

baked some protein cookies for snacks,

and made single servings of some other snacks.

I also weighed in for the beginning of my Back to Basics Challenge. I'm currently at 207 and would love to get down under 200 by the end of the month. If not, losing anything will be great compared to the one pound loss over the past few months. I'm trying not to weigh everyday, so I'll do a weekly weigh in for this challenge.

I know I am supposed to be challenging myself to not spend money on unnecessary items, but I did find a couple of things on clearance while out this weekend. Here are the finds:

A Wal-Mart find for $5.

Running skirt with shorts underneath for $3.75.

Shorts for $2.25.

I did not buy this, but it has been in the back of my closet all summer. It finally looks good enough that I could wear it.

Preparing for Heatlhy Eating + Recent Randomness

I actually plan on writing about weight loss type stuff this time around! Don't expect those DIY project posts to stop though. I still have more projects to do and write about.

I plan on going big this week when it comes to eating right. I'm going to try to follow a more aggressive than usual plan and just try it for a week. At the end of the week I'll evaluate if I would like to continue or go to a slightly less aggressive plan.

I started out by making a shopping list and shopping. I had some of the items around the house already like brown rice, frozen vegetables that I can steam in the microwave, and some fruit. I was able to get the rest of what I needed at Aldi, so that was a great way to save some money. I've become enough of an Aldi shopper to keep a spare quarter in my car that I never use except for the carts at Aldi. Here is my grocery haul:

The following is my plan for the week. Since I tend to be a bit hypoglycemic, I will add in complex carbs such as a potato or rice when I feel that I need it (such as with snacks).

• Breakfast: 3 egg whites and 1/2 cup berries
• Snack: 3 oz. turkey breast and 1 cup greens
• Lunch: 2 oz. chicken breast, 1/2 cup rice, and 1 cup veggies
• Snack: 3 oz. turkey breast and 1 cup greens
• Dinner: 2 oz. chicken breast, 1/2 cup rice, 1 cup veggies
• Snack: 1 cup berries

This morning I took some time to cook up chicken, rice, and veggies to have ready for meals. The snacks don't really need prepping since I'm at home most of the time now. I can just grab from the fridge and measure out what I need when I need it.
 

 

As with any big effort, I've decided to weigh in to see what happens by the end of this week. My weight is 207 which is down two or three pounds from the heaviest I've been this month. Not a great loss, but at least a little bit down.
 
Here are some other random pictures and things that have been going on recently...

While I was cooking my healthful food that you see above, I took the time to clean the fridge. I threw out some old food, wiped down all the shelves and bins, and reorganized. Here is what my fridge looks like prepped for some healthy eating this week:

 

 

Don't judge me by the cookies. Those are my husband's along with the milk. The rest is mine.

 

 

 

This weekend I found some Boca Chicken patties while shopping at Aldi. I had them this weekend with some baked Lay's chips. They were good.

 

 

 

We've been having lots of thunderstorms recently and one of my dogs, Sebastion, is afraid of them. When they happen he either follows you like he's your shadow or hides under things. I got a good pic of him hiding under a bed.

 

 

I finally got my orthodics which are supposed to help my Achilles tendon situation. I keep injuring it due to how I walk on my left foot. These are supposed to help keep my foot in the correct position. They don't fit in my Sketchers go-walks well, but they can be trimmed down later after I break them in if needed. They are a pretty penny, but it is better to have them to prevent a major injury and surgery.

 

 

 

The last piece of randomness is the TV situation. My husband has a newer TV in his "room" in the front of the house. It is not hooked up to cable. We have my father-in-law's old TV in the great room hooked up to cable. The picture and color went weird on it. It looks 3-Dish and the blue color can't be aligned. It might need a new board, but that may end up being too much for what the TV is worth. While we are waiting to figure this out, I put my old college TV in there. It is 12 inches. The other TV is 55 inches. Although the TV is tiny, at least I have a back up one.

 

 



May Grocery Shopping Trip

Since going back to school and saving up for new gutters for the house, I have to be more careful and try to spend a lot less money than I used to spend. I've been trying some new strategies for a couple of months which seems to help. Here are the strategies in no particular order:

• I meal plan for three to four weeks (or the rest of the credit card cycle) at a time. Then I make one big shopping trip and get everything I can that will not spoil and can be frozen if needed.
• I've also started shopping at Aldi again. I'm an Aldi kid, so I never had anything against Aldi. I have memories of shopping with my mom and the cart overflowing with a large haul to last us a month or so.
• When I see items I know I use on a regular basis on sale at other stores, I will stock up on them. I hit a great sale at Meijer a while back and stocked up on things like baggies and frozen veggies. I've even found fresh Perdue chicken breasts on sale and bought a bunch of them to freeze.
• I've worked really hard on not impulse shopping or shopping because I'm upset or bored. This gave me more time to do things such as read textbooks, write papers, and other grad school related stuff. 
• Even though I gained some weight back, I haven't been out buying as many sale items as I can to have a variety of clothes. I deal with the fact that I have three pairs of dress pants and three pairs of jeans that fit. I just do laundry more often. I'm not planning on staying a size 16 forever, so I'm not going to give myself any slack to do so.

Here is most of my grocery shopping for May. I might run out of something or need a fresh ingredient once a in a while, but I've gotten pretty good at estimating what I go through in three to four weeks.

My fresh, refrigerated, and frozen foods from Aldi.

The rest of the food from Aldi.

I found these at the Dollar Tree.

This is the stuff I had to get a regular store (Meijer, Wal-Mart, Strack's).


Although this has nothing to do with the rest of my post, here are some cute pictures I got of the doggies today. Since it was nice, they were able to run outside and play at grandpa's house (he has a fenced in yard, we don't). Needless to say, they are tired tonight!

Joining a Gym and a Bet

I'm preparing to once again get back on the weight loss/healthy living wagon. It really isn't getting back on the wagon, but it is a way of life that I need to get used to and keep living to see the results that I want.

One step in the right direction was joining the gym at the hubby's place of employment. It is under $17 a month with no contract. My first day there I did the fitness testing. They took my weight, measurements, blood pressure, and had me do some cardio, stretching, and core exercises. Since I wasn't in a rush, I went ahead and walked on the treadmill for 20 minutes and did the elliptical for 10 minutes. I was sweaty and out of breath which is a good thing when it comes to workouts. ;) I will be going in next Thursday for my personalized fitness plan and some nutrition advice. My plan right now is to workout directly after work on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday (the days I don't have class).

The second thing I did was make a grocery list with foods I need to eat to stay on plan this week and only bought those foods when grocery shopping. Hopefully I'll get some time to post my weekly meal plan tomorrow.

The third thing that I just did a few minutes ago was join a DietBet on a new-to-me blog called Run with Jess. I put in $10 (as did all the other participants) to the pot and all of our goals is to lose 4% of our body weight in 28 days. All of the participants who meet this goal get to split the pot. Since I need to work on saving money, my goal is to get at least my $10 back.






Stripes Challenge and Skillet Dinner

Today I continued my stripes challenge week with a blue and white zebra striped shirt. Just in case that wasn't considered "real stripes," I also wore striped socks.

I woke up with an irritated, scratchy, sore throat which is still bothering me. My eyes are red, I'm tired, and low on energy. I really hope that I'm not getting sick. I made it through the work day, but ate bad snacks to try to keep my energy up (which didn't help all that much). I had multiple rice crispy treats, a Twix candy bar, and some diet pop. I ended up taking a nap with four of the five doxies next to me minutes after drinking the diet Dew.

My husband cooked a healthy dinner for us tonight. I even have enough leftovers for my lunch tomorrow and Friday. I don't know what to exactly call it, but it was made in a skillet with chicken, potatoes, broccoli, carrots, and chicken broth.

I had to run to the store while my husband started to make dinner to get some carrots and broccoli. I thought I would be walking out with two items, but ended up with all of this stuff. My excuse is that I found all of this stuff on sale and we will use it. That much is true.

Food for the day:

Breakfast:

Sorry that the picture sucks, but this is something new I tried for breakfast. It is Jimmy Dean and only 250 calories. It has a whole grain muffin, egg whites, turkey sausage, and cheese.

Snack

Snack

Lunch

I also had some applesauce with this.

Snack

Dinner

I have no idea why this picture never loads right!

Burpees

Today is day four of the October Challenge (Tighter Belts and Even Tighter Wallet). Today has been one of those days that aren't necessarily bad, but just kind of off.

After work I stopped by Strack's and Walgreens. I needed to get some milk for the hubs (and ended up buying a doughnut and a diet Dr. Pepper which really weren't necessary), and I left my Operation Beautiful note from yesterday's photo a day challenge in the ladies room there.

Today's photo a day challenge is to do as many burpees as you can in a minute. Well, I've never done a burpee before and my knees just can't handle that much weight on them and getting up quickly. I tried a couple of them and got a picture of me mid-burpee.

And for some randomness... As I was writing this post, I turned around and saw Lilly sleeping on top of Boo and managed to snap a picture.

I don't know what it is with Lilly, but she loves to sleep on top of the other dogs.

Food for the Day:

Breakfast

Snack

Snack

With some string cheese.

Lunch

With an applesauce instead of a cookie.

Snack

Dinner

Snack

Exercise: getting in 8,000 steps- I'm feeling a little better today, but am still tired after work to do much else.