Saturday, June 16, 2012

Made it through the week!!

It's working!  It hasn't been quite a week yet, but my boyfriend and I have been doing well.  Neither one of us has had a soda all week, which for us is a feat in itself.  Considering I have free access to a variety of soda at work it was easier than I expected to stop.  I get a couple hankerings for some delicious fizzy root beer or tasty coca cola but I grab a water instead.  We also haven't eaten out this week... minus a run to Tim Horton's for some soup last night I think we are faring pretty well.  I've cut out my daily Dunkin' Donuts iced coffee with cream and caramel swirl and my morning breakfast sandwich or donuts or whatever other horrible decision I make every time I get to the order window.  On average I was spending about $25 a week on DD.  We were spending about $175 on eating out as well.  And we were each probably spending about $20-30 a week on food at work.  (We are both service industry workers.)  Honestly, we never ate in.  So that's about $250 on food per week if not more.  My initial $137 grocery trip definitely hurt but realizing that we saved by doing so definitely eased that burden.  Also I had quite a few kitchen necessities that I needed after being absent from it for so long, so I'm sure future trips to the grocery store will be less costly.   In addition I spent $7 at Tim Horton's, $10 at work on grilled chicken, and Scott spent $5 at work. So that put us around $160 in this weeks spending for food.  Leaving us at +$90 or so!  And I can still make at least 3-4 more meals with what I have left so that'll easily push us into Wednesday or Thursday.   But enough of this cost effectiveness, that's not why I'm here.

I guess I should tell you what we ate that kept us sane all week.   We had chicken stirfry with rice, shrimp soft shell tacos, turkey burgers with homemade honey mustard,  and then we had roast beef sandwiches.  So the roast beef sandwiches aren't exactly at the top of our health list but we had to start somewhere.  A little red meat will hold us off for a while.  For breakfast we had lots of smoothies, fruit, eggs with green pepper and onions, homemade turkey sausage one morning and about 1/3 of the bagels we were having before.  We split a bagel instead and to be honest we've only had 2 total all week.  We bought lots of fruits and veggies that we can eat as snacks as well and I went back to one of my old favorites, reduced fat wheat thins.  We only drink water, Crystal Light ToGo lemonade and iced tea, and I bought a bunch of kiddie sized 100% juices.  Without all the fried foods, sodium, and soda, I can already fit into one pair of shorts!  Couldn't button them on Monday and on Thursday those bad boys made a public appearance.  I was that bloated from being that unhealthy in my food choices.  We took brisk walks on a few mornings and I told myself if I break a good sweat at work that I'm not waking up the next morning to walk, so Wednesday and Thursday I got seriously busy and ran my little butt off.  And that folks, just about wraps it up.  I plan to start posting my deliciously healthy recipes and some of my tricks to getting through all of this soon! 
 
All in all I would call this week a success!  .....Ok, not a complete success, we shared two small scoops of Gifford's ice cream last night... but I think we deserved it!

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

How I Cut This Deal

Hello everyone!!!  I'm Sharon and soon you will be learning why I'm blogging... no really, that's what the point of the first post is... right? 

Anyway, here's where I start, being 24 isn't easy, and so I realized this in a big way yesterday.  My boyfriend, Scott and I have been together for about a year and a half now and let's face it, we are unhealthy.  We watch tv, go to work, eat out, and sleep.  We're what you would call lazy.  Being bartenders didn't exactly set us up to be the most health-conscious people.  We turned into fried food eating, booze hounds.  So after quitting our bartending jobs and relocating to Bangor, Maine where we lived before, we picked up some new service industry jobs (well, I went back to an old one) and we embarked on our next page of life.  After falling back into our old routine we were comfortable but less than happy.  It hit like a hail storm yesterday when I tried putting on shorts that I bought last summer.  Not a single pair fit.  I tried 12 pairs of shorts and not one would go on.  Obviously I broke down bawling my little eyes out.  My boyfriend being the supportive figure he can be said we need to start being more active.  I told him I hate him and locked myself in the bedroom.  After my tantrum wore off I realized he was right, but our eating habits needed change as well.  So I set the alarm for the next morning and came out in the living room and apologized.  Then I told him we need to eat better if we are going to exercise.  So he agreed.  And here I am blogging about it.  I figure if I write about it and make it public it'll make me want to do it since I haven't written in a while and also I have something to prove myself to besides myself and my boyfriend.  So soon you will be reading about my adventures in healthier food and exercise.  So here's to my self-revamping plan.  (And hopefully fitting into my old shorts by August.)