Well my friends it has happened. I think we all knew it would sooner or later. I have hit a wall with the new eating plan. I can admit it now, it sucks. The first week I felt awesome and I lost 5 pounds...even more awesome. Second week I felt great and lost another 5 pounds..even greater. Then in the third week I cheated a bit and did not loose any weight. I also started to feel not so great, and this the end of week 4 I have not lost weight and I feel like crap. Sigh.
On the bright side, we are still eating healthy colorful dinners. The problem is, I am spending hours in the kitchen. Tonight supper took me an hour and a half to prepare. The kicker is it was fish. Who the heck spends an hour and half on fish? While it was tasty, it was not filling and now I am eating a bedtime snack (which is allowed under the plan). I have also just spent and hour making my grocery list for our weekly shop tomorrow. Grocery shopping used to take us--or Jeff and the kids I should say cause they were the ones doing it--about an hour. Now it takes two hours and that is with us dividing up the list. The list is long and because we shop at an inexpensive grocery store, it is hard to find substitutes for the ingredients not available at that store. If we do the shopping at a store where we can buy things like Quinoa, Tahani and Mori Nu tofu, we end up spending well over $300. I am also bummed because I found out last night on a TV show that the sandwich meat I was buying is not as healthy as I thought. I don't want to name any product, but there is a brand of meat which lists the ingredients as lemon juice, sea salt and cultured celery extract. In case you don't know, cultured celery extract is just another name for nitrate. In fact this meat is no more healthy then the obviously bad for you kind. Another Sigh.
So what is a slightly postpartum depressed--tired--hungry--sick of being in the kitchen--mom to do? No I don't have time to go to three different stores to get the stuff I need ( This includes going to a store with a deli or an actual deli) So no more lunch meat, Jonas will be so disappointed. Peanut butter and jam is out too, as Jonas' school is seed and nut free. Jonas will just have to survive on leftovers. I have decided each week I will just buy a roast beef or a chicken, cook them in my crock pot and use that for Jonas' lunch meat. I am also going to try cooking several things at the same time--like roasting beets for a later in the week salad when I bake the sweet potatoes for that nights meal. I am hoping this will save time at least later
in the week. I am also going to splurge on a veggie tray..They are obviously more expensive then buying whole veggies and cutting them yourself, but the time savings is valuable. Plus, you have the advantage of always having fresh prepared food ready for a snack. I am a huge fan of grab and go food. It also helps to remember that it is just as easy to make a lot of something as it is to make a little. In other words, its just as easy to cook nine chicken breasts as it is to make four, so the leftovers can be used in a salad, a wrap or my kids favourite on a pizza. I am really open to other suggestions any of you may have to save time and money so please feel free to post your tips here or on my facebook page. If you prefer you can message me your tips and I will post them.
At the end of the day, I must remember that this is a lifestyle change, not a diet. There is no going back. I will find a way to balance what little time I have with preparing most of what we eat from scratch. It is definitely a learning curve, but we will keep on trucking--sardines and all.
Just happened to see this on Facebook, and took a gander. You write very well!! Of course, I'm not surprised ;) In regards to food... we haven't gone as far as you, but we are trying to save time, and money, and cook bigger meals to store the rest for later. We've done a few things in a crockpot (got a new and bigger one at Christmas!)... the biggest thing we do, or that Rick does, is soups and stews.
ReplyDeleteExample... we'll roast a chicken for dinner, or the Thanksgiving or Christmas Turkey, or even the Easter Ham if that's what you do, save all the bones and boil them into the stock. He'll add onions, carrots and celery to the bones and some water, boil it for hours, pick the bones of the meat and then we'll add left-over scraps. THEN, we get out containers, split it up and freeze it. When we're ready, we'll thaw it out, put in fresh veggies and whatever else we'd like (pasta, rice, potatoes etc) and either leave it clear or thicken it like a stew. A medium sized container will do two HUGE soup bowls twice for us. Then as the new soup is cooking/thawing, pop ingredients in the bread maker for a nice crusty loaf of whole grain bread, and you have a meal ready to go... and you don't have to do much. Maybe 1/2 an hour to prepare it (from the frozen one that is!) and the other veggies, and let it go until it's done.
That's the only one I can think of.... hope this helps you out a little!!
Vicky