Day 362

80's Style Nancy

My, oh my! I hadn't realized just how much food I've been eating until now. Okay, yes I knew, but didn't want to admit it, even to myself! The $27 Grocery Challenge means I can't just grab food whenever I want, but instead have to stick to 3 meals and 1 snack each day. Or I have to split the meals up into smaller portions so that I can eat more often. There isn't an endless supply of food for this week! My eyes are fully opened to just how much I've been OVEReating. I got so hungry last night after supper and really would have loved to have eaten something else. Fact is, I didn't need it. My head was hungry, but my stomach really wasn't. I think I just get bored with whatever I'm doing and the first thing I think of is food! There is one good thing I know about myself though; I do not think about food at all once I'm in bed. So, when it's late and I have that feeling that I want to eat something, if at all possible, I'll just go to bed. Problem solved! My stomach has GOT to shrink down and my brain has to get in line with the program. So, lots of self-talk is going to be happening over here with Nancy in the form of, "No, you aren't hungry so stop thinking you are!" and  "Really? Prove your hungry!" You know, thoughts like that. This week is helping me eat proper sized meals and limit sugar for the most part, so I'm hoping all of this will help me get my eating back in order.

One of the things I'll be tracking this week is how much my weight is effected by the $27 Grocery Challenge. At 305.2 lbs. (OUCH!) It's serious now. This is close to the heaviest I've ever weighed. Not a good thing. Not a good thing, at all! I weighed first thing on Sunday morning and I'll weigh again first thing next Sunday morning and report the findings. By virtue of all the vegetables, no meat and limited cheese, I'm hoping for some drastic pound drop-age! I won't change anything else this week, just to make sure I can point to a change in diet that effected the results.

I made some changes to the menu for today. I loved the overnight oats from yesterday, but I thought it would be good to try something else, just to show I can mix it up a little on $27. I took two of my eggs, some flour, some oatmeal, some milk and a packet of salt and made English style pancakes.

English Style Pancakes

The batter made 6 lovely thin, eggy pancakes (my favorite kind and easier than the American Style). I ate 3 of them for breakfast and saved 3 for snacks when I felt hungry throughout the day. I found a packet of Truvia in my handbag and sprinkled it over the pancakes. They really were satisfying. Just what I wanted. I didn't buy any bread, so I was missing the sensation of eating bread, my favorite food on earth! (I've been known to just eat a piece of bread for dessert!) The English probably wouldn't put the oatmeal in these pancakes, but I added a 1/2 cup just to be different and because I like experiments. Really, Nancy? We couldn't tell!!

I wanted to show that with a little imagination, I could take the pre-packaged lunch and do a little magic with it and turn it into something different! So, I got hold of a couple of ketchup packages we had from some fast food outlet (i.e. Whataburger). I caramelized the ketchup in a small pan and added the contents of one of my lunch packages and some water and turned it into soup! This zshoo-zshed (a made up word) up the meal a little and made it somewhat different. The flavors were still, black beans, vegetables and rice, but now it had a snappy tomato broth to swim around in! Fun!!

Vegetable, Rice and Bean Soup

The prepped lunch package made into soup was really good! It was so much soup I actually had 1/3 of it leftover for an afternoon snack. How awesome is that?

I added some rice to the evening meal to provide a bit more satisfaction there. Speaking of rice, I did a little research on the par-boiled rice that I purchased. It turns out this rice is much more nutritious and healthy than you may think! Par-boiled rice is 80% nutritionally similar to brown rice. Also, it is half of glycemic load as plain white rice and is a more 'resistant' starch. Plus, it is a better source of fiber, calcium, potassium and vitamin B-6 than white rice! I cooked it in the microwave (something I've never done before) and it really did turn out great!

Loose Tea Leaves

One thing that I miss this week besides bread, is the good tea. I typically purchase tea from a Middle Eastern market and spend about $6 for a box of 100 bags or $11 for a canister of loose tea leaves. The tea (Do Ghazal Tea) is a mixture of Super Ceylon and Earl Grey teas. It's fantastic and worth every penny, but with a small food budget, this tea was not possible this week. The tea I purchased will be okay for this week, but I am positive that were I in the position of really having only $27 for food, I would find a way to add $6 from somewhere to my budget just for this tea! Also, I would be willing to drink less to make sure I could afford it. Life is about making choices and every person has options, even those who have less funds, have options. The choices I make may indeed effect the number of options I have available, but the bottom line is I make the choices for me!

My neighbor commented that I couldn't be positive about the outcome of this week until Sunday, when it's over. I don't agree with him on this subject as I have portioned out all of my food and already know I have the right amount of food, plus some to spare. So, it's a matter of the definition of 'success' in the end. For me, I'll be using the following spreadsheet to gage my success:

On Sunday, an updated version of the spreadsheet will be posted and then I can decide what's next. I'm excited to see what happens the rest of the week when I'm back at work. Mentally, I'm looking forward to being able to answer all of the questions above in the right way. In my opinion, it's all in the way I think about it that will make the difference!

Thanks for stopping by to check up on the doin's over here. I'm having a great time being creative and proving I can do anything I set my mind and creativity to. Until tomorrow, when we'll catch-up and discover more about eating on $27 for a week, Godspeed, Voyagers!!