Monday, July 30, 2012

CH-CH-CH-CHANGES!

Okay, I'll admit I've said I'm changing a lot on this blog and really haven't followed through.  I'm still pretty lazy and have a Diet Coke addiction that I can't kick for the life of me.  It's my crutch!*

Regardless, I have made some changes for the better.  For one, I have cut my food budget in half!  I make smarter decisions at the store, only buy what I know I'm going to want and not what I think I'll want, and the results are definitely welcome to my wallet.  I've also begun working around my morning terribleness.  Lunch made it to work with me!  And I didn't eat it all at 10AM only to starve for the rest of the day.

Instead of the sandwich and one snack that I had been bringing (or forgetting as was usually the case) I brought snacks that I knew I'd want to eat, that would give me the protein and carbs to power through my day, and enough of them so that I didn't feel like I was starving.  I replenished my snack drawer at work with oatmeal and granola bars so if I do get hungry, I'm not out of luck.  Interestingly,  having that much food around actually made me eat less!  It wasn't a question of survival, but of what I actually wanted.

I also stopped yelling at myself.  You would be surprised at how low my fat intake has been lately.  I've been totally depriving myself of yummy things because they have ::gasp:: fat!  That mentality only makes me want more and only makes me binge more on them when I do give in (which was more frequent than is probably acceptable).  If they're around me, I don't need them.  I took away the taboo and now I'm just happy with my choices.

Also an important lesson learned this week was multitasking.  For instance, I'm writing this post as dinner is cooking in the oven.  My job (and mentality) force me to focus so hard on one thing at a time that I honestly forget I can do two.  No wonder there was no time in the day for me.  If you have four tasks to complete in one hour that each take thirty minutes to finish, you won't succeed unless you find a way to do at least two tasks at a time.   Right now I'm writing and cooking.  When I finish eating and reading, I'll go for a run and plan out my next story or lesson.  If you bury your head in one thing, you miss everything going on around you, silly ostrich.

Enough of the preaching.  In upcoming news, next week I'll explore bagels!  I realized I live in New York and haven't talked about bagels at all.  And they're probably the best thing that ever happened to carbs after the chocolate chip cookie.

Spoiler alert: there will be a pizza bagel day.



*I have significantly cut down my intake of the soda.  Just not cut it out entirely yet.

2 comments:

  1. Nice post, I think about these things too ... currently trying to work on cutting my food budget. You should do a post with details about how you achieved it!

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    1. Will do! My biggest tip is not shopping for each individual meal, but buying ingredients that you can use in several recipes throughout the week since the unit price of items generally lowers as you buy more of it. I WAS spending $20/night just for dinner because I would decide "Tonight I'm having pasta primavera" and the next night I would want hamburgers. The smart thing would have been to integrate some of the veggies from the primavera into the burger, but....I guess this is just something you have to learn the hard way.

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