Monday, April 26, 2010

Trying to eat what is good for me

Someone I know is going to try going on a diet. He's ordered two weeks of frozen dinners, and if he eats nothing but these dinners and some snacks that are included, he'll lose weight. I wonder how long this is going to last.

About a week ago I had the place to myself and tried to do the dollar a day thing for a bit. I usually am able to do this and have both yogurt and a small cola every day. This time a few prices went up, and I had to skip the yogurt. Not that I've been eating the yogurt for a while now anyway.

But I must start eating right, and I would like to stop spending so much money, and I would like to lose weight. The one time I did lose weight (safely), I ate a lot of spaghetti with a lot of veggies. And I ate yogurt. And I ate popcorn and drank V-8.

I've been reading a blog by someone who is trying to eat on a dollar a day for a year. She's a vegetarian. Her plan is to buy a lot of basic stuff and then after she has the rice and flour and such she would spend a certain amount every week or two on fruits and vegetables. Since she's a vegetarian (and almost vegan), she doesn't have much else to buy that needs to be bought fresh and kept refrigerated. Sometimes she might add some tofu and soymilk. Everything else is kept in the pantry and possibly bought in bulk.

I am not a vegetarian. Last week I tried writing down what I thought that I should be eating (plus a few sort of splurges that I tend to eat when I am not feeling great). I didn't write down the cost of veggies, cause those prices tend to change with the seasons, so I'd never really know what that would cost until the week of purchase. Still, there is almost always something I like on sale, so I didn't think that should add too much.

I was disappointed that after I added everything up I didn't have much that could be kept in the pantry except for spaghetti, and that what I wrote down added up to more than sixty a month. That is with the new low price store that just opened. I'm surprised how much I take for granted that they didn't have. They have a great price on milk, but they don't have 1%, so if I buy the milk there I will have to mix skim and 2%. And they have a great price on eggs, but I didn't see anything like Eggbeaters. They had sodas, but no diet cola. No sugar free pudding mix. Other things were good deals, but not really great deals. My plan for one-stop shopping isn't going to work here.

Okay, so with the what I think I'm supposed to eat plan (which is not vegetarian but has one vegetarian meal everyday), I'm spending sixty dollars a month plus veggies (the thing that I'm supposed to eat the most of), and I forgot to add popcorn and V-8 (another thing that they don't seem to have at the new store), and this is before I go to the added expense of buying any special diet stuff or substituting stuff like Eggbeaters for eggs.

I think that I'm going to try this on Monday, for about a week (except that I'm going to see about getting free breakfast at Subway on Tuesday). We've already had junk food this week, and I don't think that we need more. But we'll see how it goes.

1 comment:

Ananda girl said...

I have lost a substantial amount of weight over a long period of time.

I am not here to preach. But I will pass on a few things that I learned in the process.

I did not diet. I made wiser choices and changed how I cooked.

Losing weight only works for me if I exercise regularly. Same goes for keeping it off, which I have been doing successfully.

Ironically, exercising increased my energy level and my mental happiness. On top of that, the better I felt it made me look, the better I felt about myself in general.

I did not worry and do not worry about the money I spend on food much. I consider it part of the deal. Because if I skimp on what I like that I do enjoy that works for losing, I am way more apt to cheat or stop. But I know that not everyone can afford to do that.

If something works for you, stick with it, whatever it is! I think that we are all individuals and what works for me, may not work for you. That's why I say I am not preaching or telling you how.