Restarting Again

Filled with good intentions and some determination to get started on the new program, the events in the last two weeks proved I was no match for external forces and influences. Two weeks ago, my birthday was celebrated twice, one of which involved a dinner outing and another involved a potluck dinner at my place, complete with cake. Last week, our company had a conference for customers. This means: buffet lunches and nice dinners throughout the week. Very bad news for my nutrition program.

Here are some of the difficulties I encountered in the past two weeks:

a) When dining out, a lot of dishes from various restaurants are not listed in the Fitness app I'm using to keep track of calories. Therefore, it's difficult to gauge how many calories I've eaten since I can't find the foods to key them in.  Key-in according to the ingredients? That would only give me a rough idea. Better than nothing?

b) There is a tendency to eat a bit more at a buffet. Not to the point of stuffing oneself until you can barely move, but I find I tend to go for seconds (or even thirds!), especially at a buffet that I didn't have to pay for. What this means is: I have to bear in mind my overall food goal and just train myself not to overeat.

c) Using the above as excuses is also a terrible thing.

I am not in a hurry to lose weight. I believe each one has his/her optimum weight. As long as you are comfortable, then it should not matter whether you are skinny or chubby. We need a certain amount of energy to do things, even if it's just sitting around watching tv. However, to eat just because we are bored is best avoided. Where I'm at now, I'm about 2-3 kgs away from my optimum weight range. As long as I'm conscious of this, losing weight (hopefully) wouldn't be such a chore.

That being said, I am suppose to workout at the gym 3 times a week. Again, due to the last two weeks' of socialising and activities, I've not managed to stick to this. I'm not proud of it, but I am ready to try again. Keep trying. That's what I tell myself, no matter how many times I fall off the wagon.

Money is another issue. I give myself a budget of $250/week for living expenses. This does not include rent and utilities, but it's pretty much for everything else. Clothes, facials, food, socialising, entertainment etc all fall under this budget. Within each category, I have a monthly budget too, so as not to overspend in certain areas. What this means is: if I bought a new dress, I would either have to put the entire amount into that week's budget, which means less on all other stuff, or spread it out throughout the month to lessen the burden. I tried to have items spread out in more than 2 months. It did not work very well.

Here's an example:
Total budget for the week: $250
Dress: $50
Facial: $35

The dress is sort of a one-time deal, and the facial occurs every month, so the balance for the week is $165. Assuming I have no plans to watch any movies or buy anything else, that's how much I have for food. With this amount, I can split it even further: 50% for groceries, the rest for dining out, which includes eating with friends. Therefore, the question becomes: how to eat in a nutritious manner with $82.50 (that I can control?) Eating out is a bit of a hit-and-miss with nutrition because it's harder to calculate. However, by being more selective about where I eat, maybe that can also be considered part of the equation? I will sort this out later.

One of the things I bought this week is a blender for fruit smoothies. Is there a quicker and easier way than to get my  3 servings of fruit in a day? However, although the money for the blender is spread out throughout the month, I also had to get some personal items, which have me ended up with $88.40 for food this week.

There are a few movies going on now for the French Film Festival. But with tickets at $16.50 a pop, I doubt I will be able to watch more than 1 movie a week. Probably not this week.

To be fair, a lot of people can probably feed a family of four with $88.40. They probably don't mind traveling to a far-off place to get cheap vegetables. I haven't given myself that option yet. So, based on what's in my fridge, my challenge is to be able to feed myself in as nutritious a manner as possible with the limited budget I have. The worst-case scenario is to overspend, and carry the excess over to next week's budget. I really try not to do that because it just means that every week I have less to spend. Simply not a good habit.

Going off topic a little, last night, at a party, some friends were commenting about the debt-crisis that's going on around the world. One of the comments was about the limit of interest in loans. Basically, people should not be made to pay too much more than what they borrowed. If not, by making minimum payment, they would never be rid of the debt. Conversely, I wonder: is it possible to limit the amount of debt someone can accumulate? For example, if you have a mortgage loan on a house, you can't take out a second mortgage or carry a loan for a boat. Or maybe even be prevented to have a credit card and use debit cards only? Would that help the debt-crisis?


Anyway, here's what I have in my fridge at the moment:
1 pack of vegetarian sausages - expiry date Feb 24 2013 - finish by this week
5 sticks of corn - steam them today for snacking throughout the week. Look for recipes that requires corn as an ingredient.
1 small jar of tomato paste
1 stick of carrot
3 small pots of mango-flavored yoghurt
half a medium pot of minced garlic

From the pantry:
7 small pieces of kumara (same family as the potatoes) - bought them to make curry. Look for recipes that requires kumara as an ingredient
1 pack of Maggi's Just One Pan Honey Soy Chicken Stirfry - can probably make this with the vegetarian sausages
1 pack of Malaysian Fish Curry sauce - use the vegetarian sausages for this too, plus the carrot
1/3 pack of red lentils
1/3 pack of bulghur wheat
1 box of couscous
1 pack of pasta
1 jar of branston pickles - tastes well with toasted bread
1 small bag of frozen hash browns
2 packs of instant noodles
1 can of red kidney beans
1 can of Mexican fried beans
1 can of tomatoes
1 bag of pasta sauce
1 can of red salmon

Things don't seem too bad after all. Just get some veges and I might just make it this week!
In my next update, I'll share my food diary and nutrition chart. I'll also talk about the kinds of essential foods every kitchen should have (including one as bare as mine). This is a list given to my by the nutritionist I consulted. Another thing I will start doing is comparing grocery bills from different supermarkets.