Tuesday, January 24, 2012

The Cost Of Food

Over the past few weeks we've hit a serious financial snag in terms of our grocery budget each month. For a little while it looked like we were only going to be able to manage $100 a month for a family of four. Right now, for the short term at least, we're looking at being able to manage $250 a month. (Typically it's about $425 a month.)

It's a serious cut, and it's painful. Furthermore, even though I coupon fairly aggressively, I'm not sure how to manage feeding all of us on that budget without resorting to more processed foods, and lots of pasta-rice-bean type meals. Which is a bit disheartening because I'm diabetic and have been trying to cut back on my carbs, not load up on them. And fresh produce? Fuhgeddaboudit! Not on that budget!

Still, $250 is MUCH better than the $100 I was initially looking at, so I'm not nearly as stressed about it as I was. I am still troubled at the cost of healthy foods though. I'm hoping that with practice I'll pick up more tips and tricks for healthy eating on a severely limited budget. 

In the meantime, I'm spending a lot of time thinking about the cost of food and what we, as average families, tend to spend on food and on what TYPES of food and all of that fun stuff. So, here's an informal little poll just out of curiosity:

1) How much does your family spend on groceries each month?
2) How many people are in your family?
3) How much does your family spend eating out (fast food and restaurants) each month?
4) What type of groceries do you predominantly purchase? (processed / quick foods, fresh produce and meats, a combination, etc)
5) What would your IDEAL grocery budget be for your family each month?
6) What is your family's annual income range? a) up to $25,000; b) $25,000 - $75,000; c) above $75,000

What are your thoughts on the cost of food in relation to your family? Would you be interested in reading more articles that explore the cost of different foods we eat, and looking at ways to lower those costs and/or improve the health quotient of those foods?

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Comparing Weight Loss to Financial Peace University

My husband and I recently began attending Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. (We've gone to two sessions thus far - I will be talking about this aspect of our lives more on my main blog.) One of my goals when we signed up was to take this knowledge and his methods and apply them in some fashion to not just our financial lives, but also to my quest to be healthier (and possibly even my quest for organization). As we go through each lesson, I have been spending some time thinking about how I would apply them to my weight loss / health plans.

Lesson one focuses on Super Saving. The upshot of the lesson is that you should strive, quickly, to save up $1,000 in an emergency fund (his Baby Step One) because saving money is important, because it's something that most people can do fairly quickly, because it provides peace of mind (in case of 'unexpected' events, you don't have to turn to your credit cards, which you are to stop using because they're bad for you!), and because it is a quick accomplishment that will make you feel good about this path and help jumpstart the process for you.

So, with that in mind... what would be the 'Super Saving / Baby Step One' equivalent for weight loss / living a healthier lifestyle?

Things I have considered...

1) taking a walk every day (jumpstarting exercise)
2) kitchen clean out - getting rid of all the crap foods in your house
3) identifying some quick, healthy meals to replace junk food and eating out in your life
4) BASIC kitchen refill, using step 3 as a guide

Any other ideas? Thoughts on the items I was considering?

Meal Plan This Week

I am smack-dab in the middle of this week already. It just sneaks up so quickly! We scraped together some money and hit the grocery store this week, so we have food in the house. As I believe I mentioned before, I'm trying to simplify eating each day with a lot of consistency... which means I'm trying to stick to the same basic breakfasts, lunches, and snacks each week. I'll work more on calories and quality of each meal as time goes on... for now, I'm mainly working on making the consistency part a habit.

BREAKFASTS
cereal (this week we have Honey Nut Cheerios, Kix, and Total Raisin Bran in the house)
oatmeal
LUNCHES
PB&J or leftovers
soup
SNACKS
fruit (this week we have apples and pears)
veggies (this week we have carrots and celery)
whatever healthy items are on sale that week (this week we have Nature Valley Granola Thins, Emerald Breakfast-On-The-Go packs, and fruit cups)

Wednesday 01/18/12

turkey soup (Alton Brown's Bird To The Last Drop recipe)

Thursday 01/19/12
garlic-balsamic pork tenderloin (this Kitchen Confidante recipe, which I found on Pinterest. It looks SOOOO GOOOOOD. Also, thanks go out to my mom for donating an extra pork tenderloin to us, or else we would not be having this wonderful meal!)
Friday 01/20/12
chicken adobo
Saturday 01/21/12
Cub Scouts Swim Party - it's a potluck / buffet thing, so we'll be eating there. (We're bringing bottled water.)
Sunday 01/22/12
roast chicken (they were buy one get one free at Jewel this week, so I have an extra one for next week in my freezer. I also get to make chicken stock out of their tasty carcasses, which will save me money too, as I cook with stock a lot!)
Monday 01/23/12

chicken sandwiches (hooray for leftovers, lol)

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

What Is The Single Best Thing We Can Do For Our Health?

One of my friends posted this video on Facebook earlier today, and I found it entertaining, informative, AND motivating. Great combination! I encourage everyone to take a few minutes and watch it, and then comment and answer the doc's question at the end of the video...



CAN you limit your sitting and sleeping to 23 1/2 hours a day? Commit to yourself!

Monday, January 9, 2012

Quick Fix Fish

I posted tonight's dinner recipe on SparkRecipes; you can find it here if you are interested. It's still baking so I haven't tried it yet. The original recipe came out of the book What To Eat When You're Expecting; I modified it based on the ingredients we had on hand.

After dinner, using a 5-star scale where
1 = hated it
2 = didn't like it
3 = it was OK
4 = liked it
5 = loved it

We rated it as follows:
Husband - 3
Me - 3
7 year old son - 4
5 year old daughter - 2

Bear in mind that none of us are crazy about mustard. I wanted to try out the French's Dijon Mustard with Chardonnay that I got for free at a cooking show once, to see if it was milder and/or if we would like it better. Obviously we didn't mind it but mustard is still not our favorite thing.

Quick Tilapia

Submitted by: ILWITCHGRRL



Number of Servings: 4


Tips

Cooking time will vary depending on whether you use fresh or frozen fillets as well as how thick the fillets are.


Ingredients


    4-8 Tilapia fillets, equaling 12 total ounces 2 TBSP Mayonnaise 1/4 cup Dijon or Grainy Mustard 1.5 tsp dried marjoram 1 cup white wine (2 TBSP set aside) salt and pepper to taste



Directions

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Mix the mayo, mustard, 2 T of wine, and half the marjoram together in a small bowl.
Arrange the fish fillets in a single layer in a nonstick baking dish. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Spread the mustard mixture over the fillets and sprinkle on the remaining marjoram. Pour the remainder of the wine around the fish.
Bake until the fish is lightly browned and flakes with a fork, 15-25 minutes.

Serving Size: Makes 4 3-ounce servings.

Number of Servings: 4


Nutritional Info
  • Servings Per Recipe: 4
  • Amount Per Serving
  • Calories: 218.2
  • Total Fat: 7.7 g
  • Cholesterol: 51.8 mg
  • Sodium: 613.4 mg
  • Total Carbs: 0.7 g
  • Dietary Fiber: 0.1 g
  • Protein: 20.5 g

Meal Plan This Week

Our bank account is pretty much empty right now, which means I have to make do this week with the food we have at home. This won't be the healthiest week because we're kind of down to a lot of boxed and processed foods. On the plus side, we HAVE food. Another plus, this will weed out a lot of the last remnants of unhealthy foods in the house.

I just hope we have money to go shopping next week. :/ Next week will be even more dismal otherwise.
Financial problems stink.








So this is what I've come up with for the next week:

Monday 01/09/12
snack - leftover hamburger
dinner - quick-fix fish
Tuesday 01/10/12
breakfast - cereal
lunch:
Drake - school
OJ - PB&J, yogurt
me and O: PB&J, yogurt
snack - shrimp salad
dinner - pepperoni pizza and cookies

Wednesday 01/11/12
breakfast - cereal
lunch:
Drake - school
OJ - PBJ, yogurt
me and O: PBJ, yogurt
snack - cheese bites
dinner - chunky chili

Thursday 01/12/12
breakfast - cereal
lunch:
Drake - school
OJ - leftover chili
me and O: leftover chili
snack - crab rangoon
dinner - quick-fix chicken
Friday 01/13/12
breakfast - cereal
lunch
Drake - school
OJ - leftover chicken
me and O: leftover chicken? or noodles
snack - yogurt
dinner - salmon

Saturday 01/14/12
breakfast - one-yolk omelet
lunch - soup
snack - mini burgers
dinner - spaghetti
Sunday 01/15/12
breakfast - cereal
lunch - soup
snack - chocolate cake
dinner - steak
Monday (KIDS HOME) 01/16/12
breakfast - cereal
lunch - fish fillets
OJ: leftover spaghetti

snack - leftover chocolate cake
dinner - fried egg sandwiches

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Exercise

Dr. Christine Anderson has the BEST hair.
I'm pretty sure I bought this video because of it.
While it's largely true that what you put INTO your body is mainly responsible for your health, physical fitness is key for a healthy body too. It's been a while since I got any sort of structured exercise plan going. I live in Chicago and it's the middle of winter. While our winter this year has, thus far, been blessedly mild, it's still my least favorite season and I'm not going to be wandering out into the cold to get much walking in unless it's 50 degrees or warmer. So I headed to my DVD shelf to see what sorts of indoor offerings I've got.


The results were a tad dismal.


I've got...

  • Total Body Yoga For Beginners
  • Dr. Christine Anderson's DYNAMIC Prenatal Yoga
  • Kathy Smith's Pregnancy Workout
  • QF Postnatal Workout
  • Leisa Hart's FitMama Postnatal Workout


For reference here, my youngest child is five years old.

Clearly it's been a while.

My goal is to work my sedentary butt up... SLOWLY... to doing cardio, strength training, and yoga (or some kind of stretching / meditative type exercise). I think all three are important for a well-rounded fitness program.

I know I've got a strength training book around here somewhere... that Body For Life book. 12 weeks to muscle mania! Except not really. Slow and steady will win this race.

What's your favorite exercise video and/or program? What's hot and fun these days? I'm sure there are lots of free fitness programs on the web too. Probably youtube videos or even dedicated websites with videos for health. Any recommendations?

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Fooducate


One of the tools I have been using to help improve the quality of the foods I eat is a great little iPhone app called "Fooducate". You can scan UPC codes on millions of different grocery products, and Fooducate will give you a grade for food (A-F), a list of reasons why the consider the food 'good' or 'bad', and a listing of five similar alternatives to that food with better grades. It's been really fun - AND eye opening - going around my kitchen, scanning foods and reading about them. I'm trying, for now, to limit myself to A and B graded foods. If you have an iPhone, I highly recommend the app.

If a food isn't in their database, you can send them the food's information (they have you take three pictures and email it to them) and they will add it. I've sent in three foods and have already received notification that they've added two of them! It's pretty neat.

Calories

My general goal, for now, is to get myself to a point where I'm eating four 400-calorie meals each day. (I'll up it to five when I eventually get pregnant.) At 1600 calories a day, I should lose weight consistently. I'll also work on steadily increasing the quality of my food, of course.

The calorie idea is inspired by The 400-Calorie Fix. A simple, rather ingenious idea really. Wish I'd thought of it myself! LOL!

Consistency

One of the things that is hardest for me is consistency with meals. I have a really hard time eating the same thing over and over. However, a lot of research I've read points to consistency with meals... especially with breakfast and lunch... being a great way to lose weight and just regulate the amount of calories you're eating. So my plans are going to focus on making a consistent choice for those two meals, at least on a weekly basis.

I'm starting mine out with breakfast. A bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios every morning, with a glass of 2% milk. I don't love cheerios, but I don't hate them either. They're reasonably healthy. The plain ones are too blech for my tastes though. I'll try to work my way up to even healthier options as time goes by, but for now, this is better than what I was doing before... which was usually skipping breakfast. Terrible practice for anyone, but especially for me, since I'm an insulin-dependent Type II diabetic. Oops!

My Big Fat Breakup

I'm here to break up with my fat. To get healthy. For myself, and hopefully for the new baby I'd like to start growing sometime this year. I've struggled with weight and health issues for a long time. I have a serious case of "I know exactly WHAT to do, it's just applying the changes to my life consistently is really hard" syndrome. I'm going to try using this blog not only to document the changes I'm making, but to work my way up to creating weekly meal plans for others to follow too. I know lots of people are in the same boat as me. "I wish someone would just TELL me what to eat each week!" I've followed countless meal plans but have always found some sort of flaw in them. Usually the flaw I find most prevalent involves money and waste. The meals aren't planned around seasonal, less expensive foods. The meals don't take into account leftover portions of things, especially fresh veggies... so I might end up with a bunch of green onions and celery left over, for instance, because one meal needed a tiny bit, but you can't buy just a TINY bit of those things. I hate wasting food. I'm also on a severely limited budget, and I shop sales and use coupons. As I become more skilled at this meal planning thing, I'll try to make meal plans that consider folks like me... folks on a budget who want to eat better, want meals their whole family will enjoy, and don't want a lot of leftover wasted food. I'll even try to incorporate time-saving tricks as I go.

This blog is to help me as much as it is to help others, because those are all area *I* need to work on too (especially the time saving tricks!), so feel free to share advice as we go!