Meal plan and grocery shopping done for the week

I got up early today and got Bayou to daycare at about 7:15am. I came home and did a kitchen inventory. Using what I have on hand I made a meal plan for the week. Here's what I came up with:

* hamburger and french fries
* steak and noodles
* teriyaki chicken and rice
* blt's
* crescent dogs and mac &  cheese
* Mexican night
* breakfast for dinner

It's kind of high on the carbs but I'll fill out meals with fruits, veggies and salad. I don't want to waste what I have on hand so I'll use it and buy healthier as I go along. After figuring out the meals I was able to come up with a grocery list. It was pretty easy once I knew what I was going to prepare for the week. I went and did the shopping and got home at about 9:15am so I had plenty of time to put the groceries away and get to my 10am meeting.

As I was sitting waiting for the meeting to start I was looking over the Weekly magazine that we get each week at meetings. It's a small handout that has information on the plan, recipes and exercise suggestions along with an article about the week's topic. I filled out the exercise on motivation. I had to fill in the blanks on what motivated me at the beginning, what motivates me now and what will motivate me long term. It was really good to look at these things. I realized that there are a lot of resources that I can take advantage of when my motivation is low or nonexistent - leaders, other members, the online community, Power Foods and the GHG's. If I turn to these things in times of trouble I'll always get right back on the right path.

This morning's meeting was again on motivation. Each leader brings something different and something new to the topic. It's nice too to hear from other members on what motivates them or what they do to renew their motivation. We all have similar things that motivate us - health concerns, wanting to lose weight for an event, to look better, to buy "normal" size clothes, etc. I feel like I belong when I hear that other people are motivated by the same things that I am. There was a lady in the meeting who has lost almost 100 pounds. That motivates me. I like knowing that it can be done.

I had a headache and nausea when I went to the meeting and felt even worse on my way home. I hadn't eaten breakfast and think that I'm having caffeine withdrawal from not having soda. When I got home I took some medicine and laid down for a hour or so. I still don't feel good but feel better than I did when I got home. When I woke up I had lunch (a ham and cheese sandwich and chips). That helped a little but the headache is still really bothering me. I'm also very achy because it's cold out today. It's supposed to be rainy all weekend. We may even get some snow. Brr. Chill. Brr.

They had mini bars on sale for $4.95/box today. Usually they are $7.50/box so I got 2 boxes of them. I'll put them in the fridge and have them for snacks.

It's the weekend and I usually have a hard time then. I want to eat more on the weekends though i don't know why. I think that having a meal plan will help with that somewhat. I also need to have something for dessert/snack to be able to get through the weekend. I think I'll make a WW recipe of pumpkin oat bread. That will keep me from going to the 7-Eleven for snacks. Keeping away from soda will be hard but I know I can do it. I'm not drinking much water yet so I need to pick up the pace on that. I'll try to get the water in by drinking tea. It adds some sugar to my diet but it's worth it to get the fluids in. I'm going to have to think about why the weekends are harder than the week days. I think part of it is because David is home and we focus more on all the meals. I'm used to having cereal for breakfast and a sandwich for lunch and the figuring out dinner. When David is here he wants different foods and just thinks about it more so I think about it more. He always asks what's for the next meal. It puts pressure on me and puts the focus on food, which I don't need. I'll have to handle it differently if I want the weekends to be more successful.

I'll go pick up Bayou in about half an hour. We'll have hamburgers and french fries for dinner instead of eating out tonight. We usually eat out on Friday night but I'm going to try to stop that. David wanted to take me out for Mother's Day but I really don't want to go out to eat. We'll have to see how that goes. That's it for now. More later.