Interlude: The Challenge

As part of what I hope to accomplish this year, I really want to change the way that I eat by changing WHERE I eat.

I am addicted to eating out.  I love to go out to breakfast.  To lunch.  To drive through or pick up dinner.  A nice meal out or coffee? Sure!  It is *ridiculous*.  I spend way, way too much money and eat too much.  Granted that eating breakfast meals (no toast) and the taco salad (RIP that restaurant) were great aids to my prior weight loss.  But I really need to tighten the belt in all possible ways.

So my goal for 2014 is to reduce my food budget to $75.00 per week.  For a single person, that should be reasonable.  I know that if I pay attention at all I can usually do decent grocery shopping (which excludes meat) for $30.00 to $40.00 per week.  If I am more careful about what meat I buy from the farm every month I can definitely keep it to $15.00 to $20.00 per week for eggs, bacon, ground beef, etc.  I have a stock of meat in the freezer I can eat down (which would be a good idea anyway).  That should leave enough for one or two meals out every week, which should be plenty.  I don't NEED to eat out, I just do it.  Because I am lazy, fat, tired and other bad things.

January results:

Week 1:  Success!
Week 2:  Mild fail
Week 3:  Extreme FAIL
Week 4:  Extreme FAIL

I'll total it up in a couple days, but January might be closer to $500 than $300.  Yeesh.

All About the Fail

Sunday, January 26, 2014

I keep crashing shortly after takeoff.  Things have gone ... poorly.  I have been eating recklessly and excessively.  No exercise.  Not feeling good at all.  It needs to stop.

So, anyway, I hope to relaunch.  I need to do so.  For a whole lot of reasons.  It would be very nice if I could get in three solid weeks before my next checkup.  I will be way over on calories today, but it will be nice to get into the home cooking routine again.

Breakfast:  2 eggs, fried in butter, 4 strips Meijer bacon, 2 slices sourdough toast w a little butter, coffee

Made this into a breakfast sandwich, delicious.  160+ unnecessary calories and carbs from the bread, but it just felt like the thing to do.  I have a loaf of bread in the freezer for stuff like this, it lasts a long time!

Lunch:  Big bowl of homemade vegetable beef soup, cheese bread (recipe for cracker crust pizza plus olive oil, parmesan cheese, italian cheese blend and italian seasoning)

Dinner:

Exercise:  Just house cleaning, doesn't count.  It has been awful, cold and snowy.  I am going to have to go back out and shovel again, so I guess I will get in my daily dose without too much trouble, looks like several more inches to move.  Boo.

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Catching Up?

January 13 - 25, 2014

I have no hope of recreating these days.  Let's just say that I ate a lot.  Including a couple batches of cookies, lots of pizza and other bad bad bad things.

Ugh.

I Had a Title But I Forgot It

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Up too late but feeling decent this morning.  Sure would be nice if it were not so dangerously icy outside.  Maybe I'll pick up a pair of Yaxtrax and see how they do on ice.

Breakfast:  Oatmeal pancakes, 4 strips CF chipotle bacon, coffee

Yessir, that is indeed a big ol' pile of pancakes.

Note to self:  Let the first batch cook longer so they look like the top pancakes above.  They rise more and develop more flavor compared to pulling them when they are relatively light brown!  Also, try scaling down the batch and making them in the smaller skillet for possibly larger, fluffier cakes.

Snack:  Chips and onion dip

Lunch:  Bowl of homemade vegetable soup

Dinner:  Homemade pizza, salad with italian dressing

Exercise:  Um, yeah, none.  Cleaning doesn't count.

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Okay Then

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Time to do this on a more regular basis.  Trying to remember what you ate for the last week is kind of hit or miss.  I think I got it all but can't be 100% sure.  It does help that I eat a lot of the same stuff and rarely snack.

Now then, it's about time to get serious about the New Year resolutions.  One of them is to eat at home.  I ate out more than I wanted last week, some of that was due to car issues.  I was also invited out to dinner on Friday and had a nice time.  Second part is to follow a budget - I am going to allow myself $75 a week-ish, $300 per month.  That should be ample to feed a single person, particularly since I have all kinds of spices on hand, a bunch of good meat in the freezer and a decent stock of other supplies.  I don't have processed stuff or a huge stock of canned goods, but I don't want to eat too much of that stuff any way.  I spent $23 at the grocery store today.

Breakfast:  Oatmeal pancakes, 4 slices of CF chipotle bacon, coffee

All sorts of YUM

Oh look, it's a picture!  Okay, this was only halfish of the oatcakes (I ate the whole batch, doh).  A nice tasty way to kick off Saturday.

Lunch:  12" Firehouse subs New York Steamer sub, pickle spear

Yup, that is a lot of food.

First time I have eaten there, wasn't sure what size to get so of course I defaulted to the giganto size.  Wow.  This was very good.  I think I'm glad it's not closer.  It was also $8 and change.  1160 calories!

Snack:  Chips and onion dip, 12 oz Bell's Two Hearted Ale

Dinner:  Homemade vegetable beef soup, 2 homemade garlic cheddar biscuits

Bowl of deliciousness.  

Late dinner, but I was pretty full so no big deal.   I actually had the chips earlier in the day, before lunch.  I want to try to calculate the nutritional information for the soup - it shouldn't be hard at all, I don't think - my intuition is that it isn't super caloric.

Exercise:  None.  It was raining hard when I got up.  I did walk around Wal Mart while my prescription was being filled and I went grocery shopping but those don't count.

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Yikes

Yeah, not a good week.

Add a couple of things to last Sunday:  1 Miller Lite and some chips and onion dip.

Okay then.  Into the deep freeze we went.


Monday, January 6, 2014:

Breakfast:  Sharp cheddar and salami sandwich, coffee

Lunch:  Homemade vegetable soup, homemade biscuits

Dinner:  Ground beef patty w/ onion gravy, mashed potatoes, peas


Tuesday, January 7, 2014:

Breakfast:  Sharp cheddar and salami sandwich, coffee

Lunch:  Soup and biscuits

Dinner:  Leftover ground beef patty w/ onion gravy, mashed potatoes, peas


Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Breakfast:  2 slices sharp cheddar, coffee

Lunch:  2 McDonalds McDoubles, fries

Snack:  Bag of Fritos

Dinner:  Not sure I had dinner, maybe it was a sandwich from Subway.


Thursday, January 9, 2014

Breakfast:  2 slices sharp cheddar, coffee

Lunch:  3 egg omelet w/ bacon, onion, cream cheese, avocado, 2 slices sourdough toast w butter, coffee

Dinner:  Little Caesars pepperoni pizza


Friday, January 10, 2014

Breakfast:  2 slices sharp cheddar, coffee

Lunch:  Jimmy Johns turkey and ham sandwich, salt & vinegar chips

Dinner:  Pizza with ham and meatballs, salad with ranch dressing, 12 oz Miller Lite

Bucklin' Up

Sunday, January 5, 2013

Finally feeling a bit of motivation today.  Not a ton, mind you, but some.  So hopefully things will improve.  Already getting better by posting out all of my FAIL so far this year...

Breakfast:  Cornbread scramble, redskin potatoes, pico de gallo, coffee

My favorite weekend breakfast.  Planning on cutting back to every other week though - it's a lot of calories (albeit from mostly good sources) and not cheap.

Lunch:  Homemade soup, 2 slices sourdough toast w/ creamed honey

Dinner:  Spaghetti w/ ground beef, salad, garlic toast

Exercise:  Shoveled the driveway and cleaned the house.  So I got in some movement.  Dunno if it counts - maybe the shoveling will because it took a while and definitely got the heart rate up!

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What Was That About Less Fail?

Saturday, January 4, 2013

Yeah, not doing so well here.

Breakfast:  None.  Slept in super late.

Lunch:  2 double cheese burgers, fries

Snack:  Chips and onion dip, lots.  Lemonade

Dinner:  Sandwich of salami, sharp cheddar on sourdough

Exercise:  None

Friday, January 3, 2013

Breakfast:  Salami, sharp cheddar, coffee

Lunch:  Subway BMT on white, fritos

Snack:  2 chocolate pop tarts

Dinner:  Bell's two hearted ale, Little Caesars pepperoni pizza

Exercise:  None

Thursday, January 2, 2013

Breakfast:  Sharp cheddar, coffee

Lunch:  Jimmy Johns ham/bacon sub, chips

Dinner:  14 oz ribeye, mashed potatoes, firecracker shrimp, salad w/ ranch, 2x pint Bells two hearted ale

Exercise:  None

New Year, Now Less FAIL

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Happy new year.  2013 kinda ended with a thud as the slide continued.  But I'm feeling optimistic.  Let's get back on track and make some real positive changes.

Here we go.

Breakfast:  2 jumbo CF eggs fried in a bit of butter, 3 strips CF heavy duty bacon, half order of oatcakes, coffee.

Not my best effort ever but still a solid start.

Lunch:  Sandwich - white bread, salami, sharp cheddar, jalapeno mustard

Dinner:  Ham, scalloped potatoes, peas, brown and serve rolls with butter, the last christmas cookie

Oops.  Not unexpected.

Exercise:  A leisurely walk.  Not far, maybe 3/4 of a mile - it's cold out there.  Plus I'm fat and tired.  But it felt pretty good.  Happy.

113.8