Weight Loss

So I wanted to bring "weight loss" up on the blog anyway, but I got a question from TJ in the comments... and thought well that's lovely.  I am a relatively new blogger - so I still get pretty overjoyed about stuff like this.   

Is the challenge/$ restrictions helping with his (or both of your) weight? I'm curious. I would have thought that he should have noticed enough of a change to not have to get a weight-losing mindset. But good luck to both!

The short answer: The restrictions have "helped" both of us with weight loss.  

The much longer answer:

Naturally, Huzbun's five dollar day experience has been a lot different than mine.  His company has been growing a lot lately, so work covers some meals and so forth.   Also, he works a lot and has had limited time to work out with any regularity.  Also, I let him have certain allowances - beer for instance.  It's cheating of course, but I like living with a sane person - and that requires allowing Huzbun to "have a life" as he calls it.  I also don't think there is anything admiral or attractive about a wife trying to dictate a husband's every move.  Or vice-versa.  Or anyone trying to dictate anyone for that matter.  Also, I don't mean to say that Huzbun needs to have beer to be happy (ie - he's not an alcoholic) - it's just a good example of me giving him space.  Anyway, all this to say - he has maintained, but not lost, which is good.   
       
Huzbun has never been one for balance.   The last time he lost a lot of weight (60 lbs), he did it with a balls to the walls style of intensity.  Nothing but lean protein and vegetables.  Crazy long workout routines.  It wasn't anything insane but more or less lived as though he was on the Biggest Loser Ranch, which is not something that works with most peoples daily lives... consequently not his either.  So right now he has about 20-25lbs to loose. 

Recently, he decided that he would make some changes.  He has been working out 3+ days a week, with a goal to do more.  He exhumed the beer from the house (made a donation to a party).  He's been talking non-stop about body-buildling - he's pretty "built" already, but it's covered in a layer of love right now.  .... and he agreed to run a 5K with me.  .... so yeah he's really pepped-up .... I just hoping that it doesn't go off like fireworks, to be forgotten about by next week.  My Huzbun is a very hard worker, but there's a burn out factor here.  Also, while I'm a pretty big fan of the The Biggest Loser Show, and as much as huzbun wants to live on the ranch, I don't.  I like cheese people!

Anyway, that brings me to me.  For basically all of my life I have been a "thin" person.  While maintaining my weight comes naturally enough to me, I don't think I have an extraordinarily high metabolism or any super special caveat.  I am just a relatively active person who eats doesn't eat a ton of sugar.  The way I monitor what I take in (ie eat) is by "feel".  If I'm hungry I eat, If I'm not I don't.  Also, I don't eat many sweets - not never, but rarely.  I think it's a system that could work for a lot people, but it's probably not that easy to learn, if you are not already doing it.  This is because people eat for many other reasons other than hunger.  That being said if I eat largely unhealthy food when I'm hungry - I do gain weight, which is why I don't think I have a miracle metabolism or anything, and also why I try to make healthier choices.   It's probably worth noting that there are plenty of good reasons to eat healthy beyond weight maintenance anyway. 

To be more specific to this challenge, I have lost about 2 lbs since the beginning.  It's tough to say exactly, because I don't actually weigh myself much.  This puts me about 9lbs less than my "fattest" and about 9lbs heavier than my skinniest.  9lbs is not a lot, but on someone of my stature, it's more noticeable.  Enough that I am pretty uncomfortable with myself at either end of the spectrum - obviously for different reasons.  I think the loss of two pounds can be attributed to the start of running, more than anything else - but it also might be a lack of Taco Bell.

Day 66 - The free food blog continues...

Huzbun made me some breakfast - eggs, sausage and hashbrowns.  A pretty straightforward breakfast, but what was great about is that he made all of it, and cleaned all of it. Huzbun helps in the kitchen quite a bit anyway, but this was extra nice. 


Then we went to my cousin's open house and they had this:

A really huge sandwich and vegetable buffet! YAY - for free food. 

Well actually we did get my cousin a gift (great job Z!), so maybe not free in the truest sense.  But I didn't count that gift toward the $5/day budget so.... pretty free. Also, my aunt gave me two bags of extra hamburger buns before we left, so sweet!

My aunt and uncle always do an amazing job with the "eats" and this was no exception. 

Housekeeping:

As of day 66 - we have reached $5.13/day so very close to the goal. (We will be on track on Day 68).  That included the $2.69 spent on Hawaiian buns for next Saturday's event.   

And.... j. has a challenge... which I want to participate in, but am not sure what to do with it yet.  I have until Friday to figure it out.  I was thinking Fajitas, but make the tortilla's from scratch... use rotel instead of salsa.  Doesn't seem creative enough to be challenge worthy though.  I think I have a tendency to psych myself out sometimes with challenges.

Day 48 - Huzbun is back!

My Huzbun is back in town, which means I probably will start eating on a somewhat normal schedule again.  lol.  I haven't been discussing what I eat on here as much, as it simply has not been interesting or notable.  Kind of hopeless when you realize a part of how you pace your life is hinged to another person, but I supposed that is how marriage works. 

So here is my mini-tribute to Huzbun's food successes over the course of this 90 day experiment, and as you might of guessed this wasn't his idea - so he's been a great sport.

Day 1 - He grills chicken 

Day 6 - He helps me make Pizza

Day 9 - He mixes up hamburgers 

Day 28 - He does good stuff with Mayo

Day 36 - He trys new food (umm... and he doesn't even like soup)

Oh, and he did agree to do this - so that's pretty big too.

Okay, I hope that I didn't make anyone gag yet.

Day 41 - Why we eat out

Well , we ate out again.   This is 8/12 for those of you keeping track, and for those of you smarties out there yes, that is over half, and yes we are under half-way there. 

We had a Groupon.  Have you heard of this?  Basically, it means we purchased a $30 gift certificate for $15 for a local venue (one we love) , which means we had a pretty affordable meal out, by most accounts.  However, it was certainly not 5 dollar day worthy. 

Also I think I should mention that 90 days is 12.85 weeks.  So in reality I would be completely justified in making the total allowed eating out times 13 (the once/week rule), which would make us only slightly more on track. 

The other thing I was thinking about is "Why is this hard for us?"  I mean we seriously had food thawed and ready to cook last night.  So it was not even convience per say.  

1) We don't need to do this.  There are a lot of good reasons for us to do this, but we don't need to.  We both have decent incomes, and while we both agree some food budget trimming is good, down to $5/day is more than is needed.  

2) This is our date time.  Huzbun and I fell in love over trying new foods and sampling wine- also this was how we spent most of our honeymoon (in Napa).  We like to cook "together" too, but certainly our favorite date was and still is going out to eat.  Food is inherently a social activity, and while you can split hair on what exactly that means and how it happens - it's still true.  When you are married, you look for moments of specialness to carry you through stretches of dull and difficult.  Before anyone concludes that "my marriage is especially dull or difficult",  I should say that "Life has times of dull and difficult and when you have a partner you experience that together" and it's good to have positved memories when it is those challenging times occur.       

3) Dining out has all the senses engaged

Taste - of course
Smell - the smell of the resturant, the smell of the wine
Touch - the feel of the chairs (or booth), the texture of the table
Hear - music in the background, perhaps other sounds
Sight - the decorations, the food (how it's displayed), and so on. 
  
It makes sense that we have so many memory connections with eating out because they say the more senses you engage in an activity the better you remember it - which I think makes it desirable in a more than just "it's easy" way.


Okay - all that being said - I'm not quitting or anything! 

This is just me figuring out my 5 dollar day fail in my (typical) introspective manner.  We are still in this, and we haven't totally lost sight of the goal yet, so keep reading and we'll continue to have fun.     

Day 9 - The husband is cheating!

Okay - hold your horses, it's not what you think, but he might of picked up this!

lol - I couldn't resist using that as my title... and according to him - beer doesn't count!

Anyway, today we made hamburgers.  mmm! We started with some ground beef.  I picked this up at Costco a while ago.  It's all natural, grass fed meat, which I am trying to do more of, but it probably cost me at least $3.00. 

We also used some on-hand seasonings, and two eggs. 

This is what it looks like right before we mixed it up.

with our fingers...

looking good! 

Now add some bread crumbs 

and mix some more so it looks like this:

Press them into burger shapes (I used a "burger press", but that's not neccesary)

Grill them up! notice we also are grillin' our beans.  

When you are done with cooking them on the grill - you can melt on some cheese.  

(I might of had a rolling rock too)

YUM!

So I added in the $3.00 for the meat in this meal - although it was quite possibly more, to be a bit more "realistic" about costs of freezer food.  So now average spent per day is $7.50 - though we could easily eat without spending any more for a while... so I think that should go down. 

I should add here that despite his "shenanigans" with the beer... DH has been super supportive of this whole process.  I don't talk about what he eats on here as much.. but a lot of breakfast cereal and sandwiches - a man of simple tastes my friends.  He even made me dinner tonight (I was just the photographer) - and I think earlier I might of even seen him operating a vacuum... although maybe that was all just a dream... ;-)  

Day 1 - Jerk Chicken

So here is some of the things I ate today:

Free Coffee (from work), Free "Thank you" Cake at work,  All of these were in the cupboard or freezer: Fiber ONE bar, Lean Cuisine and a Girl Scout Cookie

Then for Dinner we had a guest over and she brought a box of wine.  

This was mmm, mmm good

We also made dinner for her.  I picked up a 2 whole chickens at Costco for .89/pound. So $2.61 for the (1) whole chicken  I have never cut up a whole chicken before, but between me and the hubby we made short order of it.  However, we came up with some unusual looking pieces.  I wish I had remembered to take a picture of that... . 

I then used kitchen witchery to create a "jerk chicken" recipe with all of these items that I had on hand PLUS two clementines.  I will say here that the expensive ingredients are the Jerk Sauce we purchase in Jamaica and Famous Dave's BBQ Sauce.  Granted we only used fractional amounts.  If you want to make a jerk sauce from relatively low cost ingredients try this recipe.  I have used something similar before and it turns out great.  

The Final Product

To go with Jerk Chicken it's good to have Corn Bread and Fried Plantains.  We didn't have any plantains, so we tried to fry bananas in olive oil.  In retrospect, this was only an okay idea.  The bananas turned out a tad soggy or sometimes burnt.  I think it would have been improved if we had used Canola Oil and of course plantains.  Also, our frying technique could be a bit troubled

The Corn Bread Mix I had was dated as best to be used by October 2007... wow! almost three years ago!  We decided to try it anyway with an extra teaspoon of baking powder. 

  We had one egg and some milk (1/3 cup) (organic soymilk) on hand.  

Also, I think they turned out OKAY... - however they were pretty crumbly, but aren't they always?

So total spent today was $2.61 - Pretty sure we just ate all stuff we had around.  The game plan will have to change when there is less around.  Let you know how that goes.