I’ve been reading recently about the high cost of eating healthier food, the disparity between poor/rich re: food, and about the current administration’s Healthy Food Financing Initiative … and I started thinking (again) about my life and eating habits before and my life and eating habits now … and about money, in general, and how I spend it on food.

Limited or no access to healthy food is one thing I won’t even pretend I’ve had to face or fully understand. That said – I sometimes wonder if the “it’s too expensive” line re: healthier food really means “it’s too hard” for a lot of (middle-class) people – and I recognize this was MY problem. I base this only on my experience where no money = eating from a dollar menu or eating food from boxes, but what I’ve found is that I’m spending a few dollars per meal NOW – just as I apparently did back when I thought eating healthier meals would be too expensive or time consuming.

I am sort of a control freak when it comes to money. I record everything we purchase and have spreadsheets going back years. I know exactly how much we spent on groceries each month 4 years ago (fat and much poorer) and I know exactly what we spend on groceries now. Overall? Not much has changed. I haven’t taken the time to analyze it so I’m not exactly sure how we’ve pulled it off, but we’ve somehow COMPLETELY overhauled our eating/buying habits and have just barely raised our (admittedly high for some standards) budget.

I know that I’m VERY fortunate to be able to afford what I afford and I’m not in any way saying “if I can do it, you can do it” because I HATE THAT quite a bit and usually want to shake people when I hear it. What I AM saying is we figured out a way to eat differently/better within a somewhat modest budget and I don’t mind sharing how we’ve done it. I don’t think we spend excessively, but I also know we could probably cut our costs if we were a little more careful and chose the same items – just non-grass-fed and non-organic (though that varies quite a bit since I see no need to buy organic options of most vegetables and fruit) or if we used coupons or actively looked for sales.

Here’s the deal:

Grocery shopping is a little bit of an ordeal for us. Some stuff comes from a local farm (purchased at their market – a fairly long haul from us), some stuff comes from a nearby co-op, most vegetables come from a warehouse place, and everything else (like jalapeños and almond flour, etc.) comes from a regular grocery store.

It seems like it could be a time-consuming hassle, but it’s not. It’s actually MUCH easier when you eat two main things – meat and vegetables – and generally avoid most of the “middle aisle” stuff. This weekend, for example, we planned ahead, bought meat from the farm for multiple meals and froze it. It takes about as long to run into the co-op for milk and eggs and any other miscellaneous items as it used to take to sit through a drive-thru at taco bell. The vegetables? Pretty quick and simple to run in, get what we need and get out. The regular grocery store? VERY simple since we typically need just a few items and hit just a few aisles.

Financially:

We just spent $245 on groceries that will last 2 weeks. Broken down, that means $122.50 for each week. Divide that for 2 people – $61.25 per week per person. That means $2.92 per meal for each person (since the groceries were purchased in anticipation of all meals at home/no eating out).

One caveat – we have kids (or at least a kid) here every other weekend and sometimes more. I didn’t factor that in since it varies and because I’m lazy. This would drop the cost per meal.

The flip side – we’ll likely pick up a few things here and there over the next couple of weeks (especially when kids are here), which would likely increase the cost per meal and potentially cancel out the drop for the kids.

Also? I didn’t factor in the groceries we already have on hand.

ANYWAY, I could obsess about this all day – Ultimately, I think $2.50 – $3 per meal for each of us is a very fair estimation.

Here’s what $245/two weeks of groceries looks like for us:

From the warehouse place (so everything is large/high volume) ($101):
4 portabella mushroom heads/caps/whatever
couple pounds of coffee
bag of 4 celery
mushrooms
3 pounds of walnuts
bag of broccoli/cauliflower/carrot mix
24 oz feta cheese
asparagus
huge thing of spring mix
green beans
bag of 6 red/yellow/orange peppers
blueberries
cherry tomatoes
strawberries
bag of 5 or so avocados
bag of vidalia onions

From the farm people (all grass-fed, pasture raised, blah, blah, blah) ($72):
1 whole chicken
4 chicken thighs
2 chicken leg quarters
a rack of pork ribs
couple pounds of ground beef
couple pounds of beef stew meat
4 pork chops
couple italian sausages
couple bratwurts
about 1/2 a pound or so of butter (have no idea because it’s just a huge hunk of butter wrapped in plastic)
a tomato
a bunch of fresh okra

From the regular grocery store ($59):
big jar of sauerkraut
bunch of small/one serving cans of peas, spinach and green beans (for lunches)
sardines (for Jon’s lunches)
my yogurt
couple sweet potatoes
couple white potatoes
more fresh green beans
couple cans of chickpeas
a cantaloupe
kale
yellow squash
red onion
garlic
bananas
cucumber
can of black beans
cheese
a bag of blue chips
salsa
guacamole mix (had nachos for dinner, obv)

From the co-op ($13):
couple cartons of eggs
1/2 gallon of milk
small fage yogurt (milk and this yogurt used to make large batch of homemade yogurt for Jon)

This is very typical.
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We went to a party/bbq yesterday hosted by my boss. I wanted to take healthy options, so our contributions were steamed green beans and a chickpea salad.

I requested the chickpea salad but but got a little nervous as Jon was making it because it was full of garlic and onions. I could probably live on garlic and onions alone, but I know lots of people have issues with both … so I stressed and made him use half an onion instead of the whole thing. Seems like it was ok – we brought home very little. And brought home no green beans (which he steamed and tossed with a little olive oil, salt and pepper).

The chickpea salad = chickpeas, red onion, garlic, celery, chopped up cherry tomatoes, rosemary, olive oil, vinegar, red pepper flakes, salt, pepper. I imagine you could add/subtract anything and it would be good.

I’m thinking I’m going to make this again today and blend it up to make a hummus-ish dip. I have no idea if it will work out, but we have a ton of celery, need something besides peanut butter to eat with it, Jon’s out playing disc golf with his sons, and I’m feeling adventurous. I have never used any of our food processing contraptions before, so I hope this doesn’t turn into a huge pain in the ass. We’ll see.

I was reminded via comment here (thanks Glenna!) that I am maintaining my weight loss. Seems simple, but I swear I needed that reminder. I recognize the importance of it on some level, but I don’t think I fully appreciate it.

You’d think I’d be hyper-aware of something so simple and would be more positive, but it seriously took an outside reminder for me to stop and think about my recent thoughts and emotions surrounding the last 30 pounds – and the apparent lack of thought and emotion surrounding the work it took to lose 80 something pounds.

I don’t necessarily forget, but I definitely (recently) discount how far I’ve come and am starting to think I need to spend more time focusing on the strengths I’ve gained that have allowed maintenance to be easy vs. the deficits that are stalling/slowing the remaining weight loss.

It’s just so much easier to bitch – and I’m really good at it.
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Jon’s been out of town all week, so it’s been easy to count points and stay away from junk. I’m not so inclined to eat out without him – and I don’t do fast food (other than the occasional salad here and there) – and I am lazy. So … I’ve eaten bean burritos, eggs and yogurt + fruit for every single meal this week. Seriously.

I found Amy’s bean and rice burritos on sale for $1.99 and stocked up – and ate them for both breakfast and lunch multiple times. I ate eggs for dinner every night. I threw in yogurt + fruit here and there as needed.

Jon acts like I’m crazy when I tell him that I lived on frozen burritos and fast food when I was single – and when I mention that I have no problem reverting back to that (minus the fast food) when he travels – but it’s true.

The advantage? My points were the same each day – and I’ve apparently lost 4.5 pounds since Sunday.
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I’m weighing every day (for now). SO many people advise against doing this, but I disagree – FOR ME. I need the every day accountability that will help stop me from keeping my head in the sand. Keeping my head in the sand = 272 pounds. Avoidance of the scale = reluctance to face my actions. The number matters TO ME in that it tells a story and reflects my week – there’s no denying that. It doesn’t ruin my day – or enhance it. It reinforces my actions and keeps me honest with myself.

I put the scale in a highly visible place and taped a calendar to the wall to record the weight each day vs. keeping the scale out of sight. Any avoidance of the scale will now FORCE to me think about why I’m avoiding it and what I’ve done to precipitate whatever feelings are happening. I can’t ignore it.

This works for me. I stopped because …. I don’t really know. I had a weight chart hanging up the entire time I was seriously losing weight and just got tired of bothering and started listening to other opinions about scales and weight, etc. I’m going to force myself to do this at least until I reach my initial goal, though – which isn’t far off. As of today, I’m 12.5 pounds away from that initial 100 pound weight loss goal. (OMG)

This week:
Sunday – 189.0
Monday – 187.5
Tuesday – 186.0
Wednesday – 187.0
Thursday – 185.5
Friday – 184.5

Today was fun.

We woke up and had breakfast – fried eggs.

Did a bunch of boring household stuff. Ate lunch – tomato/basil sausage w/peppers and onions.

Headed to the mountains by noon.

We had planned to ride our bikes at Cades Cove yesterday – early in the AM before they allow cars. I read about it online a few days ago, though, because I couldn’t remember how steep some of the hills are – big mistake.

I once spontaneously wound up hiking approximately 11 miles up and down Mt. LeConte on some random Saturday because Jon wanted to go on a “fun hike” and I naively thought he loved me enough to not want to KILL ME. Lesson learned: know what I’m getting myself into AHEAD of time – not 5 miles in.

Whatever website I read claimed that Cades Cove is hard for “weekend” bike riders, so I got a little nervous and we got a little lazy. The bike ride didn’t happen yesterday. I wanted to drive Cades Cove to refresh my memory and attempt to determine if I might be up for it on the bike – so we went today.

We had planned to hike while we were out there, but the traffic was ridiculous once we were in the park and on the loop. It took FOREVER to get through and adding 2 or so hours of hiking on to the trip would’ve pushed dinner really late and I’m counting stuff and not eating much and consequently starving most of the time – so I NEEDED DINNER. And I needed it on time.

We ended up stopping and taking a walk, though, and had fun taking pictures instead.

I got a snack from a store on the way home and had a little mini-breakdown when I read that the nuts were 170 calories for an ounce, but the crackers/pretzels were 150 calories for something like a cup. Also? Every single person had an ice cream cone but ME.

We came home and Jon made dinner and we watched 3 episodes of Glee and now I’m ready for bed.

The end.

I almost died this morning.

I went to bed last night feeling pretty pissed at myself for the recent lack of exercise/food control/blogging and woke up feeling like my life (as it relates to exercise and food) is starting to veer off course … so I suggested – when I woke up at 7 – that we go to the gym first thing to get it out of the way (aka make sure we do it).

We went to the downtown Y (which I really like) vs. our regular one so that we could go to a morning boot camp class. I haven’t been to a boot camp class in 6 or maybe 7 months … and I’ve never been to one at the Y. Additionally, I have been LAZY and haven’t pushed myself at all since the beginning of the year when I took a break from the trainer.

Turns out 4 months of decreased exercise will result in a definite DECLINE IN ABILITY. Didn’t see that one coming, did you?

Oh. my. god. Not only did she have us spend the hour sprinting and jumping and bear climbing up the stairs of a parking garage, we did enough mountain climbers to make me feel pretty sure I will NEVER be interested in climbing a mountain.

I was embarrassed (stupidly, probably, but I couldn’t keep up with the sprinters). And furious (at myself). And I almost cried at one point when I chose to stop on the stairs (because I felt like I might puke).

I spent a lot of time training and working and building endurance … and then just stopped. I go to the gym and all that – but honestly – I haven’t EVER (personally/independently) pushed myself like I was pushed today. I might have been going broke paying a trainer but it was worth every GD penny I paid.

I want to be the person I was just a few months ago. I feel like I’m losing everything I gained.
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I weigh 188.0. Still. I rationally know that I’m not the failure I claimed to be after that class, but DEAR GOD do I need to break past this weight.
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We’ve had a fabulous day other than the almost dying/exercise humiliation.

We ate breakfast, in pajamas, on the deck – eggs scrambled with basil, rosemary and green onions, and 1/2 an avocado.

We walked to the farmers market when we left the gym but didn’t really shop … just walked around. We ended up driving to a different (actual store) market to pick up groceries – where we ended up eating lunch.

We split a philly cheesesteak that was all healthified with grass fed beef and organic ingredients. It was good, but there’s no mistaking this for the (maybe a little more appealing) junkier version.

We split it since we’re trying to control the calories. We also spent the lunch having a come-to-jesus talk about my perception that we’re (really I’M) getting lazy re: exercise and food choices/portions.

The result – we’re going to be less lazy.

Jon roasted a chicken and steamed some broccoli for dinner – fairly early since our lunch was small and I was starving.

I’ve been trying to persuade him to make kale chips since I read about them seemingly EVERYWHERE, but he hasn’t been willing to try them until tonight. They were ok.

I had yogurt + fruit + melted dark chocolate for dessert.

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I had a few pictures on my camera when I dumped the ones I took today.

#1 – I tried oatmeal again last week … hoping some oatmeal-liking miracle had happened, I guess.

I didn’t get very far even though I made it with (whole) milk and tried really hard to appreciate it.

Switched to a more typical (for me) meal/quick breakfast.

#2 – Jon made a really good dinner a few nights ago. He boiled some brats in beer and water – then sort of made a stir-fry in the pot with cauliflower, peppers, onions, and mushrooms.

When I say we’re lazy with the food choices, I mostly mean we’re eating out too much. This picture reminded me that Jon cooks really fabulous meals like this most of the time. We’re definitely not back on hamburger helper or anything like that. We’re just eating out 3-4 nights a week because we’re tired and busy and don’t feel like cooking + cleaning. The portions are larger – and it’s very expensive – and I just feel more and more like it’s not worth it (even though we legitimately enjoy it very much).

This might mean that I MIGHT start taking over some cooking duties. We’ll see.
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We’re down to 19% free space on the dvr. Making progress.

Freakin’ fabulous weekend.

I graduated.

We celebrated.

(I think my mom’s trying to tell me something.)

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A weekend of junk has screwed my stomach up, of course – detoxing now.

Breakfast this morning was typical – hard-boiled egg, yogurt/fruit:

I packed a lightish lunch – 1/2 a turkey/cheese sandwich on rye, cantaloupe and green beans.

Dinner today was steamed squash with a pork chop breaded (with almond flour + curry powder) and fried with coconut oil. I had no idea what I was eating when I started eating, so I was surprised at how much I liked the almond flour + curry powder + coconut oil combination. Very good.

This meal was prompted by a conversation we had with my mom this weekend. I claimed to have never had a fried pork chop – the whole concept sounded ridiculous – but my mom claimed we ate them all the time when I was growing up. I have no memory of any fried pork chops, but I’m glad we had the conversation.
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I swear I have no idea how I ate nothing but crap for extended periods of time.

I’m back at work on a normal schedule for the next couple of months, so I’m EXTREMELY EXCITED to be able to have a regular gym routine. Up tomorrow – 5AM jogging. Not quite so excited about the time, but I definitely need it.

Still not done painting. Not sure if I can stand behind my “this is exactly what I needed” statement anymore.

I’m sunburned, my back is killing me because I incorrectly picked up and hauled around a 5 gallon bucket of paint, I have bruises and scrapes from standing in bushes, wrangling roses and pruning some prickly holly bush, I have bug bites, I keep finding paint in my hair despite washing it every day. I’m hoping I don’t have lead poisoning since this is an old house. I’m over it.

We got estimates to have this done, but it didn’t seem like a wise idea to pay someone else to do it since we’ll soon be supporting two households. I knew I had a couple of completely free weeks to fill … so why not? (Said easily in my never-painted-a-house-before state.)

I’m glad we did this – financially and because I’d go out of my everloving mind sitting around with nothing to do each day – but I have a great deal of newfound respect for people who do this for a living because this is some BS. Seriously.
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My week has been absolutely consumed with painting and doing yard stuff. I swear my neighbors are going to think I actually enjoy it.

We planted some rose bushes in the backyard (maybe last year?) that have gone absolutely crazy this week.

No garden this year since we’re leaving, but I planted a few herbs for Jon. We dug the rosemary up from the garden – so that’s there – and I recognize basil. The other two might be sage and thyme? I can’t remember – Jon picked them out. I put them right off the back porch so they might get watered regularly.

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I stood in the kitchen a couple of nights ago eating a handful of sunflower seeds … then wanting ginger snaps … then contemplating cheese … then feeling like I might need more sunflower seeds … until I realized that I was stress eating. I wasn’t hungry – there was no physical indication whatsoever that I needed to eat – I was just eating.

Sounds insane and ridiculous, but the realization of what I was doing hit me completely out of the blue. It’s been a while since I’ve been here without recognizing it.

I’m stressed about a lot of things right now. I’ve left my school and the familiarity that came with it. I’m starting a (somewhat) new short-term job in a couple of weeks with all new clients/cases. I’m starting a new school and a new job in a new state at the end of the summer – which requires packing and moving and (temporarily) leaving and all the sadness that comes with that.

In addition to that stuff – I HATE disorganization and messes and not finishing things once I’ve started. The fact that it’s taking FOREVER to finish this (small) house is killing me. The only thing keeping me from completely losing it is I can leave it all outside and have peace indoors. I have a house full of people coming next week + weekend – which I’m totally excited about – but the house should probably be done by then so I can maybe NOT STRESS about it.

Anyway, life is changing. It’s stressful. I will not let this undo the work I’ve done, though. It’s challenging, but it’s not an excuse to gain weight.
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Needless to say, I haven’t been counting points and I haven’t been to the gym this week d/t the painting situation, but my clothes still fit … so I think I’m alright. I am physically exhausted each night, so I think that’s probably balancing the additional calories I know I’m eating. I haven’t weighed, but I’m ok if I break even this week and next. It’s not like that’s uncommon.
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I’ve taken a break from painting/house stuff this afternoon because I needed to catch up on the rest of my life. Today’s lunch – my favorite comfort food (outside of ice cream, of course):

My lunch companion:

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I’m planning to get up and jog before painting tomorrow. There’s really no excuse not to. 30 minutes really isn’t going to make or break the situation so I’m not sure why I’ve convinced myself to NOT do it all week. This whole stress eating/feeling too consumed to work out stuff is NOT GOOD.

I really shouldn’t read my posts days and weeks after posting them. The grammar problems drive me nuts. Almost nuts enough to go back and fix it all, but that would be a tad obsessive – right? Post and ignore seems to be the way to go.
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Jon had a physical today. I’ve been very curious about his cholesterol since he does the meat/butter/fat eating – but apparently it’s fine. It’s higher – overall – but not high, in general. It’s higher because the good numbers are higher because of exercise or something. I’m not even going to pretend to understand what it all means – he occasionally tries to explain the “good” and “bad” numbers and all that, but all I hear is lalalalalalala because I just can’t retain the info for some reason.

The doctor told him he’s perfectly healthy and to keep doing what he’s doing.

Jon says his cholesterol is doing exactly what he’s read it will do given his eating choice.
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I weighed on Friday. 186.5. All five times.

I’m happy I’m still moving down … and sort of amazed I’m only 14.5 pounds away from a 100 pound loss.
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I haven’t counted points since Friday. I sat around all weekend watching movies and eating a bunch of crap when we had to stop painting the house because of the rain. Turns out I really love Ben and Jerry’s Cinnamon Bun ice cream despite my claims that ice cream MUST contain chocolate.
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Jon cooked yesterday – for the week. He made a pot of chili and a gigantic lasagna. We’re mostly planning to alternate this stuff each night since the plan is to paint and paint and paint and finish the damn painting. This is our attempt to prevent ordering pizza each night.

The lasagna is FABULOUS. The sauce is tomato stuff, peppers, onion, kalamata olives, red wine, spicy italian sausage … and I don’t know what else. Plus the cheeses – mozzarella, ricotta and parmesan. Plus whole wheat noodles. I started to break it all down points-wise, but I was feeling lazy. Honestly – I don’t care too much. It’s bound to be quite out of my range since the only lower calorie/fat thing I could talk into him into buying was part-skim ricotta.

Turns out we don’t have a good way to store and refrigerate a gigantic lasagna. We had to cut it up and cram it into a large tupperware container.

The chili is standard chili – meat, beans, tomato stuff, peppers, spices. Didn’t count anything in this either.

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I thought the house painting would be miserable, but it’s actually not so bad. Other than the slight sunburn, I’m liking being outside doing something somewhat physical that doesn’t require any thinking. It’s a nice break.