Monday, June 28, 2010

Day 134- Challenge Results, part 1

So... it's my own challenge, and I didn't actually make what I was planning to. Ok, I cooked nothing at all all weekend.

Allie and Kim did though. Kim's steak adventure I shared already. Allie is a super challenge-meeter, 'cause she made stuff for both already. Over at her blog she can tell you all about homemade chocolate peanut butter granola bars and fried red rice.

If anyone else made something for the first challenge that I missed (totally likely), let me know and I'll add you in.

Back to normal life-

I have everything for making the less than a dollar a pound thing. I have a whole menu (and a part-time shift key- I should have known a $4 keyboard/ mouse deal was bad). Hopefully i can manage to break it down into bits that seem manageable before Wednesday.

For the first challenge this month I never really came up with anything good, anyway. I was thinking about making sloppy joes, wrapping the lentil/ sauce mix in pizza dough and turning them into calzone/ hand pie-type food. It never happened. Oops.

what did happen this weekend? Well, I ate a lot of chips (including a bag yesterday), some sweet potato fries, and a bunch of soda. That's pretty much it for eating. I've dropped into a deep dark hole of Hulu. While I write this I'm actually listening/ watching some Canadian show called regenesis.

So the plan. I'm not sure what it really looks like. I know I want it to look like "j. eats regularly and stops losing weight". Even with regular bags of chips and random other junk I'm still losing weight. Eating more (obviously) should help with that. There's a limit, though, to how many calories you can buy with a dollar. Someone with a slower metabolism, who didn't fidget or have a bottle a day soda habit might manage it. Heck, with the staples and then veggies tossed on top I worked it out to about a max of 1800 calories a day.

Basically if regular eating doesn't work, I'm going to have to change something. I don't know what, and I don't know how. Giving myself one day a week to try to make up for any deficit over that week wouldn't be good, I can see it leading to any number of problems. Dunno about scaling up the budget, either... Can only do what I can afford. Also, there's only so much even I can eat. My diet, close enough to vegan it really doesn't matter, is high on bulk, low on calories. Most high calorie items are out of my budget, and the ones that aren't are not high on my "to be eaten" list.

How the fork do I motivate myself to eat more regularly? I still don't have any real form to my weeks. This would be much easier if it were a family project, or something like that. It's easier buying and cooking for more than one person. It'd also be better if I had people to swap cooking with. Or if I had, you know, more motivation than your average dead sloth.

Oh, yeah, and I now have three roommates. RM1, RM2, and RM2's girl friend, who will henceforth be called RM3.

Random and a bit whiny, but off I go, into another week. With a mango. And rice. And a can of coconut milk. Can't be that bad, right?

5 comments:

  1. Aw, sorry to hear about your week/end. I think that a key item to stay motivated to eat regularly would be what some others have already suggested-- making stuff ahead of time and freezing them. Even if it's stuffed pita-like-bread-thingy or wraps, cooked beans, batch of rice a week and such. Just make sure you do use it before it expires so it doesnt go bad. Variety is also a good thing, so you know it wont go to waste because you got tired of it. (So I guess I am saying, smaller batches)

    Have you tried writing down what you think you will eat in a coming week? You could spend Saturday making both a list of what you think you can eat for the week, what you have in hand, and making batch foods like rice and beans and those very pretty wraps you made last time. :)

    On a separate note, I wish I had your metabolism. Mine is dead, so regardless of how much or how little I eat, I can't lose weight. I can go from 1500 calories to about 1000 and see not a change. By the same token, I can go from 1500 to 2000 and see not a change either... Guess that's good.

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  2. Yeah, but making ahead and freezing is one of those places that having more than one person doing the same thing would be good. My freezer is full of gamer food, and somehow I doubt they'd be willing to give up more of their space. so they'd have to be *very* small batches, at which point the whole "freezer space" thing wouldn't matter anymore, 'cause I could fit it into my space in the fridge.

    Ah, the joys of shared space.

    I *have* tried writing down what I think I'll want to eat, and about 1 time in 10 it actually gets done at all. It seems I have enough focus to cook *or* make a list, both isn't happening. When I was working (at the place that will not be named) I cooked a bit more regularly, because there were only two or three things for me to eat- If I wanted something else I had to bring it. With no real form to my day, pressuring myself to get stuff done just doesn't happen.

    I'd rent my metabolism to you, but I haven't figured out how to transfer it yet. I could make a mint off that one. ;)

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  3. I hope that RM3 is paying a share of the rent. She should be, and maybe then you can take some of that extra money and put it towards that higher calorie stuff you can't currently afford.

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  4. RM3 makes less *with* a job than I do without one. I think she'll probably end up splitting rent with RM2. Utilities are bundled into the rent, and we each have a separate lease, so who knows. So long as she buys her fair share of the TP, it's not going to make much of a difference.

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  5. Maybe you could make a schedule? Like, break your waking moments down into 30 minute bits. And then schedule cooking and eating into it? Sometimes it's the only way I eat or get anything else done.

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