I decided to develop an eating schedule. I’m a bit tubby right now and soft. By tubby, I mean I’m overweight, not obese. +10 pounds, give or take on any given day. I also am a desk jockey, which means I don’t flex the muscles I should. Shame on me.
Now I know I can’t start everything at once or it will be too much of a change and I’ll fail. This means I have to take baby steps, or at least little kid steps
I found a great website where I can track the foods I eat and it logs my calories and activities all in one place; it even gives me a scorecard telling me how healthy I am eating o a daily basis and over time.
http://caloriecount.about.com/
I have spent quite a bit of time figuring out what I eat and don’t eat on a regular basis. When you get past all the spices, specialty foods and condiments I really come down to my core foods
Chicken, Kidney Beans, Black beans, rice, tuna, eggs, carrots, peas, bread, tortillas, and a variety of pastas. I was surprised to see just how basic my food intake was. There are a few secondary items like cheese and fruits and waffles, but I generally don’t eat them more than once in a week, if that.
I started out with a daily menu but realized I was wasting a lot of time making food every day and wasting energy because of it.
So yesterday I not only cooked up dinner, I cooked up a plan. I boiled four pieces of chicken for two different meals I was planning. The first was Chicken Alfredo, and the second was chicken pot pie. I used the broth to soak beans and rice overnight to use them for the next day. I boiled spaghetti and added peas and carrots to some chicken stock for flavor. I froze the rest of the chicken stock for another day. I made the chicken pot pie from scratch, with the exception of the cream of chicken. And I cleaned up all the cooking dishes before the pot pie was out of the oven. It took about an hour in total.
Here is my shopping list:
· 4 pieces of chicken
· ½ cup of brown rice
· ¼ cup of black beans
· ¼ cup of kidney beans
· 2 cups of flour
· 2 cans of cream of chicken soup
· ¾ cup of bertoli’s Alfredo sauce
· 1 cup of frozen peas
· 1 cup of frozen carrots
· 3 serving of spaghetti
· 1 stick of butter
The chicken was frozen and I got 6 pounds of it from SAM’s Club for 10 bucks. My guess is that was my big ticket item at about 2 dollars. The rest of the food cost about 3 dollars combined.
I broke the food up into regular servings, based on how much a person SHOULD eat, not CAN eat. And took a tally of complete meals that I made. All of them have carbs, veggies and protein, even if its not super-duper healthy, I still made it myself, so at least I know that it’s healthier than buying it pre-made.
How many meals did it make?
Fourteen.
That’s about 35 cents a meal and it’s not Spaghetti-Os.
Next week, I will use the same items and make all new meals for some variety. I wonder if I can improve on the food model. And get my cost under 20 dollars a month?
We’ll see.
