Putting my $$ where my mouth is...Month 1, Week 1

My month one, week 1 shopping list

So true to my word I planned out my food for the week and made a list…I used it as my guideline for what to buy… and proud to say I only ended up with one thing that wasn’t on the list and that was because my husband snuck it into the cart for our son… and NO it wasn’t healthy haha

Anyways.. I started by planned my meals for breakfast lunch and snacks since it takes the most effort, then I fanned out and planned the meal for the rest of the family for the week and then added the things I knew I would need for my kids and husband.

Menu:
Breakfast: egg white scramble with black beans, tomatoes, bell peppers, broccoli, mozz cheese
Lunch: Beef and cabbage
Snacks: hard boiled eggs with apple and cottage cheese mixed with walnuts and canned pumpkin

Dinners:
Monday (valentines day) steak and shrimp fondue style
Tuesday- grilled chicken breasts, veggie, sweet potato
Wednesday- grilled hamburgers 93% lean beef, whole grain bread salad
Thursday- pork tenderloin
Friday- leftovers
Saturday- leftovers and or egg frittata

We leave lots of room to eat leftovers… we try to avoid wasting food at all costs, my husband usually eats leftover grilled meats on top of a salad for lunch if he is looking for a change from his regular tuna fish. If we have food in the fridge that is already cooked we heat that up to save us from having to cook… many families might not have much leftover because you have a bigger family…. Trust me I know this day is coming for us! ;) The one fall back meal I make when my husband is out of town is spaghetti. I buy organic and or whole grain spaghetti and make it with ground turkey sausage or lean beef. My kids LOVE it and it is something you can make a lot of and have it last awhile.

My husband’s meals are easy as well, he always has a shake for breakfast so we make sure we have bananas, Greek yogurt and natural peanut butter which are things he throws in there in addition to his protein power which he orders from GNC or we pick up at Costco, 29.99 for a GIANT bag that usually lasts him 4+ months. For lunch he always has a leafy green salad with either tuna fish or leftover meats. For his salads and mine I buy the big plastic tubs of organic mixed greens. Mixed greens are great, they are real belly fat busters and very good for you, at Safeway these run 4.99/5.99 depending on if it is on sale and even with me digging in there for lunch it lasts us well thru the week.

Then it comes to my kids… like I mentioned previously they get a little more leeway then I did and more then I should probably let them considering how strict I am with my diet, but they are kids and I know they do get the proper amount of nutrients. The extras that always go on my list for them are “yogurt shots” aka go gurts or their stonyfield farm organic version, depending on the price. Organic is best when it comes to a lot of things, however due to the demands of the public to have cheap food no matter what is sacrificed it is the processed junk that ends up costing less. I do know however it is isn’t necessarily the poison itself but the quantity of the poison we put in our bodies so knowing that I rotate out with the organic makes me feel ok ;) I also pick up cucumbers and extra bananas, I swear my son is half monkey he will tear up some bananas like nobody’s business! I also pick up frozen juice concentrate in the frozen asile for him. He is a juice hound and it can be costly however you can buy a small can of 100% juice concentrate for about two bucks, it makes about 2 quarts of juice and saves you money on buying the premixed plastic bottles. His other favorite snack is bread and peanut butter. So I make sure I have whole grain bread for that. Another splurge I usually get for them is (gasp) sugared cereal... their favorate is coco puffs.. BUT since they are still small one box usually lasts us a couple weeks...This week we still have over half a box so we are good on that ;)

Of course there are a few things I always add on there, like milk. Whole for the kids and skim for me, I use skim milk in my post workout protein shakes. I only use about a cup a day so I always buy the quart sized. I also always stock up on frozen veggies, spinach, broccoli, peas etc just like when I grew up it is a staple at the dinner table. Plus side to this, butter is a healthy fat SO we don’t have to eat plain old veggies, we get the benefit the yummy taste of butter (in moderation) on our veggies.
All in all I spent 90.72 dollars on groceries, about 29 items, and it feed us well for a week’s time. Complete list if you’re interested:
Small bag Safeway brand walnut pieces 1.57, Skippy natural peanut butter 3.48, bag of black beans (not canned you get more for your money even if you DO have to soak them in water first) 1.49, jet puffed marshmallows(the treat hubby grabbed for Angelo) 1.19, organic farmers market brand canned pumpkin 2.99, Safeway eggs 18 for 2.57, skim milk 1.79, half and half 1.99, cottage cheese 2.49, frozen spinach 1.49, frozen broccoli 2.50, frozen peas 2.50, tree top apple juice concentrate 2.00, yo plait go gurts 2.69, gallon whole milk 2.29, tub fage greek yogurt 3.00, whole grain bread 1.99, 2 thin cut ny strip steaks 4.85, 2lbs 93% lean beef 9.38, ½ lb shrimp 3.00, 4 large chicken breasts 6.49, 1lb pork tenderloin 6.99, 3lbs bananas 1.66, 4 green bell peppers 5.02, head of cabbage 2.58, tomatoes on vine 2.44, yams 2.81, organic salad 4.99

The one thing I will miss about going up to Costco is the good price on organic vegetables. A lot of what they sell for fresh produce is organic and more affordable than non organic at the regular grocery store. If I didn’t have to drive over an hour to get to a Costco you bet I would be there buying my organic veggies each week. It doesn't help I live in a small town with a smaller demand for organic items, we do however have a small farmers market.. maybe I should check it out and see what types of items I can purchase there. The bottom line though is, you don’t have to go completely organic to be healthy, and you can afford it! My 90 dollars made 10 complete breakfasts, 10 complete lunches, 10 snacks (mine) multiple snacks for my son, and about 15 dinners. Part of what helped me is my daughter is out of town visiting family… for a 4 year old she can put away some food! Also remember a serving of meat is about 4-5oz depending on the person ;)

Putting my $$ where my mouth is..

I belong to a couple social networking sites geared toward fitness and nutrition and it seems there are two common excuses I hear from people when it is suggested they eat cleaner and healthier the first one is “well I don’t have the time or money to cook one meal for my family and another meal for me”. The second one is “I can’t afford to eat healthy”.

After pondering these statements for awhile I realized that without a doubt the first one is just crazy.. why should you be cooking a separate meal for your family? You’re the mom! You’re the boss… you are the one that cooks so you should be the one to dictate what your family eats not the other way around.. it does sound crazy but I was raised in a home where we all ate the same thing, and it wasn’t t.v. dinners from the frozen aisle or from a bag from the drive thru window at McDonalds… in fact I know what we ate was fairly well balanced and cheap… there were 6 of us in the household and feeding 4 growing kids is defiantly a feat as any mother can attest… our dinners were always made from scratch by my mother, planned out each week before her grocery trip. I remember to this day she had a small 3x5 notebook where she sat down and planned each meal we would eat as a family for the week and made a corresponding shopping list. When she went to the store her list was more than her guide, it was her bible. I think the only time something ended up in the cart that wasn’t on the list was when it was something she would use and was on ridiculous sale. She didn’t have the money or time to cook something different for each kid, and she cared enough about being healthy that she refused to just fill her cart with tv dinners (which would have cut her food prep time down by at least 30 minutes).

I do recall I didn’t not like every dinner she cooked, and I hated the whole you must eat your veggie rule… come ON what 10 year old likes to eat brussel sprouts? It didn’t matter that I didn’t like brussel sprouts.. on brussel sprout night I had to place a small serving on my plate AND I had to eat it. Many friends of mine have commented that it is mean or harsh to require kids to eat things they don’t like, and they will never grow up to like the food and they will just resent you for making you do it. I am a pretty stubborn person ask anyone…and though I remember many nights sitting at the dinner table long after everyone else had been excuses trying to choke down my broccoli spears (another veggie I despised) but now that I am grown I do not harvest any ill will toward my mother for making me eat my veggies and I actually enjoy eating broccoli… ok well maybe that is a stretch from the truth.. broccoli to this day is still not my favorite BUT I know I can eat it and I won’t die, and since I’m on the path to ensuring that not only do I look good by exercising but that I extend the time I spend on this earth by ensuring I fill my body with good healthy things I choke down my broccoli at least twice a week. The amusing part to it all.. both my kids LOVE broccoli… and when I put it on the table even my 16 month old sees it and starts reaching for it and even gets a little pissy if I take too long to serve it to him. My kids defiantly do NOT like everything I serve to them but they eat it most of the time, mostly because I have enforced that type of eating habit since they were small, I have always cooked dinners that mirrored the type of cooking my mother made and my kids have a choice… eat the food I serve or go hungry… I don’t make them sit at the table all night playing battle of the wills because my kids are like me, and it would be pretty darn hard to win so I found a compromise.. when they are done eating they can get up, BUT if they want desert or a bedtime snack they best come back to the table where their cold dinner will await. If they decide they would rather be hungry then eat dinner that is their choice… my aunt thinks I’m a bit harsh for doing this BUT let me tell you something, kids are smarter then we give them credit for sometimes… if they are truly hungry they will come back to that table and eat their food, they just won’t always give you the satisfaction of eating it in front of you… this way we all win, I don’t’ have to fight with my kids about finishing their food, I don’t have to cook them unhealthy food, they never go to bed hungry, and since I give them the option to sneak back to the table and eat their food without being under my watchful eye they think they are the ones in control of what they eat… but if they looked up they would see their mean old momma as the puppet master ;)





So while I agree with the statement “I don’t have the time or money to cook myself something different then my family” it is essentially nonsense…you shouldn’t be the only one in your house eating healthy, nor should you have to dish out more money so you can be healthy while the rest of your family is filling up with junk…. Not that you can’t have anything “bad” in the house.. I think part of the reason we as kids were so willing to eat the good food my mother made for us each day for dinner is because after dinner and before bed if we did eat a good dinner we were allowed one frozen treat. A Popsicle or ice cream bar, heck sometimes we even had those small ice cream cups that came with the short wooden stick… maybe it was bribery, maybe it was simply about balance, however I do know that my mother fed us on a shoe string budget, and if it weren’t for meal planning and feeding us all the same thing we would have gone hungry halfway through the month..


Second statement “eating healthy is too expensive” of course after reading the above… it is possible to eat healthy and stay on a budget I know my mother did it while we were growing up. Our refrigerator or cabinets were never bare, however when it came to after school snacks we were limited. We didn’t have pizza rolls or potato chips. We had whole wheat bread and lunch meat to make sandwiches. We had a fruit bowl that had apples and oranges. We had options that lasted longer and were less expensive. I was so envious of my friends cupboards many times growing up. They had dunk a roos (who remembers those!) handi snacks, microwave popcorn, fruit snacks, and potato chips. I was so jealous at the time of all the “yummy” foods their mothers fed them but I was young and didn’t understand the concept of $$ and the fact their families all had 2 kids, 2 less mouths to feed can really add up to extra $$.



Now that I’m an adult and have my own children I am caught between both worlds. We make enough money where I don’t have to worry about how much money I spend on groceries, and while most of what I buy is healthy I do splurge on a few more things, I buy my daughter nesquick power so she can have chocolate milk. I buy the big box of mini chips at Costco when I go… and I buy the cupcakes in the bakery aisle. My daughter has her fare share of junk to choose from when snacking but I feel like I balance it out by making sure she doesn’t have any unhealthy snacks too close to dinner so she does fill up on the good food I make, and by telling her she can’t have “puptake” until after she eats all of her dinner and 9 times out of 10 her cleaning her plate isn’t’ a battle…. And as a proud mama I might add that in addition to chips and “puptakes” her favorite snack requests include cucumbers, apples, carrots, cheese sticks, and yogurt ;)


Realizing that times are very different now than they were when I was growing up, it seems prices on all consumer items continue to grow with each year (except for girl scout cookies that remain at 4 dollars a box for as many years as I can remember) and understanding that while I do have a food budget it is probably a bit higher than others, AND faced with the fact that come fall we might find ourselves in a very different financial situation; this month I decided to put my money where my mouth is… instead of trekking up to Costco and spending a big chunk of my grocery money there and then supplementing my shopping the rest of the month at the local grocery store I am going to do all my shopping at the local grocery store. I will go with my handy dandy list that spells out my food menu for the week (which I do anyways since I’m trying to lose weight) and I will ensure to get only the things needed. I am starting at an advantage since my freezer is still fairly well stocked with meat, but I will try to price meat items that are applicable to my weekly food menu… after this month I will determine just how affordable eating healthy is, and I will see how much $$ I can cut off my current grocery bill….. and of course I will follow up with what I bought and why next week. So to the statement “I can’t afford to eat healthy” to be continued ;)

Last Place is the new First Place....

This is how I run:

For real I run like a turtle with a snail on my heels…. but I’m still breaking a sweat and I’m still feeling good. I know I will never be like one of those elite Kenyan runners… with their long lean legs and sub 5 minute miles… I will train hard to obtain a sub 10 minute mile and any break from running will push me to 12 minute miles… so what??? I’m still running and most importantly I’m still having fun…

Despite my (lack of)speed I have never had the honor of being the last one across the finish.. I have however been close to last to finish only to find the keg is warm (or empty) the size t shirt I requested is no longer available, and the food is cold. It can be irritating… so what if I’m not super fast? I still paid my registration fee just like everyone else…. Though it has never happened to me I have heard horror stories from my fellow turtle trotters… volunteers were taking down the finish line as they crossed the finish… that has to be the worst way to finish regardless of place…. First or last you still did it and deserve to have someone to call out your name, cheer you on and at the VERY least have a finish line to cross….

I recently got to experience on of the best races ever in my year of race running… AND I was last…

In late December I signed up for the Ft Huachuca Ice Breaker 10k…. I looked forward to having a race in my town of residence… normally the races are in Tucson, and they involved 430am wake ups and an hour plus of driving to get to your destination… a local race that started at 8 meant I could sleep until 615!

Anyways I show up to the race, meet my running buddy and we proceed to pump each other up… we both had been on a running hiatus since our December half marathon… but Jen has a pretty hardcore personality.. even if it killed her she would run her ass off and do a good job… it was me I was worried about.. if I feel pain or tightness in my legs (which I had for the past 2 weeks) I take it down a couple notches.. I don’t push through the pain and do what I know I can do I just slow it down and take my time… I think it’s because of being in the army and the mindset that pain is good.. and no matter how much pain you are in you keep giving it 200 percent.. now that I’m not in the army I guess I overly defy those “running rules” I know I do it and I know its mental.. but hey I’m doing this for fun! If I injure myself and take time off it will hinder my weight loss and that is just wrong!!

The starting horn goes off.. and away we go.. slowly and steady… I think it was the first time I didn’t shoot out at a unmanageable pace…I have a well mentioned history of starting way to fast… of course in the very first 100 meters there was a short but steep hill…after we get to the top and level off jen reads off the pace on her garmin: 10:45 minute mile if we can keep this up we are good! I of course say OK! Because normally a 10:45 is a VERY comfortable pace for me… of course as we go on my legs get that familiar led feeling… I try to keep up and push on… we talked about the route.. it went through AIT land… and took us on the pt route that we ran many years ago as young privates sent here right from basic training, to get our specialized training… of course this route was actually on a gradual uphill… so needless to say it was tons of fun…

As we go out past the training halls we make a turn on to a back road, we keep chugging along until HOLY CRAPOLA there was a giant hill in front of us… Heritage hill to be exact… you looked up and all you could see was road.. like someone went underneath the earth and stuck a giant pole underneath..so I did the only thing you can do when faced with a monsters hill… dig in put your head down and keep chugging…. So I had my head down and I’m chugging and I get passed by a couple more people but the middle of a giant hill is no time to try to one up someone… you just do what you have to do to get to the top… well that’s my philosophy anyway ;) I get halfway up the hill and some comedian had written OUCH in giant letters with marking chalk… which would have been irritating if I wasn’t so delirious from the lack of oxygen in my brain from the increasing elevation…. Instead I started laughing hysterically… once I get to the top there is a water station SWEET and my best running buddy ever… she is much better at climbing hills then me.. mainly because she has more heart and dedication…. I told her she didn’t need to wait for my slow ass but she is a good friend and would never leave me (unless there was a lady with a crazy blond and black peacock haircut that she couldn’t bear to look at anymore) and that’s what’s great about her… besides it helps you push harder when you have someone faster ;)
After I use the downhill after the brutal hill to recover we come around a bend… she reads off our time: 13:25 minute mile… me: damn that is slow!!! So jen being the hardcore person she is says see that girl in the pink shirt?? We can totally catch her… ok? I said ok not because I really felt like I could push harder but mainly because after we had climbed the hill I had looked back and realized I was the last runner in the race and didn’t want to lag too far behind… so I gulped some water from my hand held bottle and picked up the pace a bit… as the gap closed in she read of our new pace which was 11 something… she told me that we could totally get our pace under 10 minutes for the rest of the race… I mumbled something like um ok and lengthened out my stride as we hit the 4 mile cone she said we were at a 9 something pace and we could just hold that until the end… I agreed.. I mean it didn’t feel too bad and we were closing in the gap on the girl with the pink sweat shirt,, and the girl in purple and yellow that I had been close with on the hill… we kept our mindless banter up until we reached the next water station at about mile 5.5…. I had to slow myself down to get some water… hey have you ever tried drinking water from a cup while running??? There is an art to it… one that I have not mastered so unless I have intentions on drowning myself while drinking and running I have to slow it down… that was a big mistake… once I had worked myself up to the faster pace I think momentum was keeping me going… once I slowed down it was hard to pick it back up… it helped when she read off that our time had dropped down to over 13 minutes again… as I tried pushing myself to run harder the NCO in jen came out… come on cass you can do this..I know you can! Let’s do this!! So I say ok.. because the way she said it,,, it sounded so true, so convincing, like oh yeah I totally got this sh!t down!! We keep going faster until we get to the end of the pt road and there were two people with numbers standing there cheering the people in front of us on… since we knew we were the last ones (courtesy of one of the water vans driving on our a$$ the last few miles) Jen turned her head to the female and said hey so are you guys here to motivate us to the end? The lady replied oh well yeah we are! And her and her male battle buddy picked up cadence alongside us… as we rounded the corner by the chow hall a unmarked MP car pulled alongside of us and said “you guys get the VIP treatment today!” turns out it was the two runners LT.. Since it wasn’t a closed course of course they had MP’s around to make sure there were no issues.. but once again.. since I was last.. that meant I get one right behind me… but instead he pulled in front of us to make sure the path was clear… Jen asked the female what her time was.. the lady said they didn’t time yet… that they crossed the finish line with the slowest runners…. What??? You mean a race that actually goes around and motivates the “slow” runners and helps them to the finish??
Given the fact it’s the Army it shouldn’t have surprised me.. even in formation runs if someone falls out a road guard or someone else from the squad usually falls back with them just to make sure they are ok and to keep motivating them to catch up… (I think really to make sure they actually finish the run and not retreat back to the barracks for a pre work call nap) Either way with the Army mentality you have a battle buddy for everything and you never left behind to parish…

As we hit the 6 mile mark we have managed to get our pace up to a under a 8 mile pace… we had turned on to the last stretch of open road and the mp turned his lights and sirens on full boar... the two army soldiers and Jen started cheering and getting real pumped up… I was pumped up too but was too tired to show my excitement.. I do think I had a silly smile on my face because I was amused at how pumped up these MP’s were… they were acting like we were about to win this race and set a world record when really they were all just bringing up the rear….maybe its an MP thing because if I ever fell our or lagged behind a run when I was active duty I defiantly don’t remember getting any sort of encouragement whatsoever..in fact it was quite the opposite… they actually would degrade you and try to make you feel like crap for being slow… thinking that would make you faster… haha not quite…

So anyways there we were flashing lights… sirens.. then as we make the turn to go off the road and down the big hill we had climbed up 6.2 miles ago a platoon of soldiers spot their 1SG (the male solider running w us) and starts racing up the hill toward us… they were yelling their encouragement “come on” “nice job” “almost to the finish” etc… of course the fact it was a extreme downhill I was able to let momentum and gravity carry me down at nearly triple the speed I was going before… this caused the mob of soldiers running amongst me to yell “yeah get some!” “yeah get it, almost there” etc you get the picture…

So no sh!t there I were… racing toward the finish line as fast as I could..huge mob of soldiers around me yelling and motivating me to the finish.. like I was a celebrity… like I was setting the world record in a 10k…or more like we were finishing with a new 10k race PR time with 1:21… our first 10k race time was 1:28… of course Jen could have run it a lot faster she was just helping her pokey buddy along ;)