photo credit: Allie_Caulfield

I’m excited! I am looking forward to starting this back up. I did lose weight doing the Body for Life program, but fell off that so quickly and easily. I’m sure it would be easy to get back to. But I had such success with South Beach that I know I can again. I am making a new menu for myself tomorrow – I’m not throwing away any food, that is such a waste! I’ll make the same menu for Chris and the kids and the new south beach stuff for me. Once we go through the food we have and I do grocery shopping again, we’ll all go on the same menu.

Here is to two weeks of no bread, no cakes, no desserts, no packaged food, no cereal, no pasta, no rice. And honestly, I’m completely okay with that. If you knew me for years and years you would realize I don’t do diets, I don’t do food plans – mostly because being chubby was okay with me in the sense that I still had friends, still dated, still did whatever, being chubby didn’t stop me from anything like I know others have experienced. Plus last spring when I did this plan, I had a ton of energy. I felt like I was sleeping a little less (not a lot, like 7 hours down from 8 or so) and just over all felt great.

Are you following a food plan or watching what you are eating? It’s the new year so I know a lot of people have started that whole lose weight/get healthy thing that will quit around March or so, but if you have started something I encourage you to keep it up! Do whatever you can cause once you see progress it will keep you motivated.

So this week we are having:

• Monday: Turkey Chili (SO good!)
• Tuesday: Chicken Noodle Soup (only if it stays cold, otherwise something else with chicken)
• Wednesday: huge salad – lettuce, chicken, bell peppers, cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers
• Thursday: Spaghetti, meatballs and maybe cheese bread or garlic bread
• Friday: Beef Enchiladas
• Saturday: Turkey burgers
• Sunday: Free day!

I am going back to the Body for Life program – at least as far as eating is concerned. I am also debating doing South Beach so I might alternate days. I just want to lose weight and need a boost! I’m going to do a two week meal plan next weekend. I’ve always wanted to plan for the month and cook for the month – but never have. I fear I don’t have the patience to do so! I’m sure it wouldn’t be too hard, but we are only using the freezer that is with the fridge so I doubt we’d have the room. Maybe I will try at least once, to see how it works out.

What is on your menu for the week?

It is a buffet style pizza place – they have salad, pizza and then dessert. They have more then pepperoni or cheese pizza too – I had a slice of spinach and though I ate the whole slice, it was just okay. I’m not really a spinach kind of person but this little girl in front of me declared it was the best so I had to try. But they also have mac and cheese pizza (totally weird I think), barbeque and some kind of chicken one.
And of course pizza has a large portion of bread but the desserts – yeah also made up of bread. One was an apple crisp on top of a pizza dough, another was cinnamon bun, another was basically breadsticks with loads of frosting – and I mean loads.

We all know you aren’t supposed to eat *that* much bread, especially in one sitting. LA Weight Loss considers that a starch and for slices of bread I can have two a day, but not at the same time (sticking to the plan I mean).  I know that other pizza places have multiple things using bread – cinnamon sticks for one – but for some reason seeing everything all in a row like that made me realize people don’t think about the amount of bread they are eating.

I’m thinking I may eat other starches this week to make up for eating pizza and pizza bread stuff for dessert tonight. Even if the apple crisp one was soooo good.

So today we went grocery shopping and the fridge is full and the pantry and freezer are looking like mini-stores again. I don’t really mind because it does get eaten but with us possibly moving soon (I know, I haven’t said anything! I will soon, I promise) I wonder what to do with it. When we moved the last time we just ate what we had and right before we left we gave our can food to a friend. This time we could be looking at A LOT of food left over. I am just thinking of the money side of it – we spent so much buying all of it, having it left would be a waste of money. Who cares if we would eat it, I have no idea if they will move it for us though I am sure if they did it would keep.

I have to stop thinking about the money. Moving is stressful enough without thinking about non-moving related things! This move will be so different then the last.

Of course we could just have a big going away party and eat it all.

Chris packs a lunch to take to work, but he is much less picky then any kid. We have Tupperware containers that have  separate compartments so that works but he also doesn’t take a variety of things each day like kids usually like. I usually send him with leftovers.

Do you have to pack a lunch? What are your ideas?

This time we ate it in a tortilla, no extras though. I wonder how this would be with tortilla chips? How am I supposed to start eating differently when there are great recipes like this out there! Maybe I should just join the Y again and work with a personal trainer, I knew we got I think ten free sessions and we could always buy more.

I’ve been looking over the November menus from Menu Planning Central. We are going to Costco tomorrow to do the grocery shopping and it feels like I have to check so many places to see what we need to get – the menus for what I want to make, my own meal planning list, the pantry and the freezer. But I really don’t want to buy any junk food tomorrow and I don’t want to buy doubles of what we already have. Buying doubles at Costco is bad because it is already so much food!

This blog post was the first thing that came up – Crockpot Chicken – so I followed that recipe. My chicken was partially (or maybe even mostly) thawed but it was perfectly fine. It all ended up staying in the crockpot on warm for a bit (my crockpot goes to warm once the time is done) because we were at a birthday party. After shredding the chicken – which was so super easy, it just about fell apart – and adding the rest of the ingredients, I think it was one of the best meals I’ve ever made. Seriously. And I think I’m a pretty darn good cook.

Try that recipe and let me know what you think. I didn’t take a picture but also didn’t serve it with lettuce or cheese. I think it still tasted awesome. I’m going to check my recipes to see what other crockpot ones I have, it was great to just throw a few things together and have dinner ready in what felt like minutes!

Plus we have really been going through milk lately! I’m not sure what is going on with the kids but they are drinking a gallon a day or two days. I know you can freeze milk but I haven’t tried yet. It’s just as easy for Chris to swing by the store on the way home from work.

How do you snack? I am a muncher. I grabbed tortilla chips and salsa tonight, other nights it has been popcorn (sometimes with m&ms) but I do go healthy too, carrots and dip or celery and peanut butter. My Grandma used to just eat one chip or one handful of popcorn, just one of whatever. I’m sure she is still that way. But I never understood how you can have just one! I can have just one of a piece of good chocolate, but that’s about it.

Of course being a muncher isn’t the best habit to have, it reminds me of eating mindlessly, just eating for no reason, I mean I’m not always hungry, but it’s there. It is emotional eating sometimes, which isn’t good either. I’ve been doing great during the day, eating four small meals rather then snacking on something in the afternoon I have a small something healthy, then dinner. The kids and I have been eating four meals a day for a couple of weeks now, its working out great since they would be snackers otherwise!

It is starting to cool off here so we can walk later then 9AM, maybe we’ll actually start doing so soon.

I’ve been trying to watch what I eat, I’ve lost a few pounds and need to get back to planning what we are going to eat. We’ve been grocery shopping at Costco, which means we have the equivalent of a small store in our pantry. This weekend we didn’t do that great, we had pizza (a huge one from Costco so we had leftovers for a couple of meals), wings and hot dogs. Not the greatest diet, not by a long shot! I don’t mind cooking but sometimes it feels like we are eating very heavy foods. Maybe we’ll have a salad tonight.

But here is this week’s menu – I’m going grocery shopping tomorrow and hopefully I’ll be able to do a few of the freezer recipes to save for a couple of weeks. I’d love to have enough food stocked up for when my Mom gets here in a month, and I might need the month just to get it down!

Monday – Steak, potatoes, corn
Tuesday – Crockpot Roast w/ veggies
Wednesday – Skillet goulash
Thursday – Crockpot Lasagna (new recipe, crossing my fingers it is good!)
Friday – Chicken Rice Soup (another new recipe, freezer recipe but going to eat it that day)

Click over to MPM to find more recipes shared this week!