Week 2 Results

Well week two is down in the books and I am down 3lbs. YAY for me!  It is enough to know that I am on the right track. My clothes are even starting to feel better.  I have so much to learn about managing my points and keeping up with my food journal (which I did not do much of this week). I just ate what I knew to be under my allocated points for each meal and stayed away from the sweets.  I have not even started exercising yet other than walking the kids to the park a couple of times which is about two blocks away from home. But I am very interested in getting the zumba game for the Wii which I think will be fun for all of us to do.

 This weekend I am going to continue to prep for meal planning, finding recipes and preparing easy snacks.  I did fail at the snacking this week.  I did snack but I did not have snacks planned and that made it difficult. So for getting ready for next week I will plan some healthy snacks and pick up some extra veggies.  The morning snack I am doing well with fruit. However by the afternoon I want some chips.  So I have to come up with an alternative since I don't care that much for popcorn.


Tip of the week: Make yourself eat breakfast before leaving home.
Some mornings are very hectic getting myself and Riley ready for the day of school and work. I make sure she eats a breakfast and I have been forcing myself to sit and eat with her too. On the days that I packed my breakfast to eat at work and did not eat before leaving home I found that I was distracted by other things once I got to work and either ate it very late or not at all. Either way left me feeling tired and hungry all day. So much so that I make sure that on the weekends we both eat breakfast before 9am.  Taking that 5 mins to fuel my body gives me the energy I need for the morning after I get to work and I am not thinking of eating too early or actually eating my packed lunch early and buying lunch later in the day. Here is a sample breakfast.

Bowl of cereal + half a fruit ( we usually split a banana)
Instant regular oatmeal
1 Egg and Sausage Link
Breakfast bar + yogurt.

Again I have to keep looking for alternatives that would work well for us because we both get bored with the same breakfast each morning. I am very interested in finding smoothies for breakfast for those gotta get up and run days.

More organizing and some play time

Today I was inspired to clean the fridge before going grocery shopping.  Taking inventory and rearranging some items.  I love that this refridgerator has adjustable shelves which makes it easy to clean and make organizational fun... here are some before and after pics

Doesn't everyone's fridge showcase the art work of a 4 year old?

not impressive this is before 

another shot of the doors before

I had Riley's attention to help for about 15 minutes. She got right into washing the bottom out 

After shot. All clean and room for groceries.The shelves work really well for us placed where they were

I did rearrange the door shelves to bring the drinks up to a better level.

Now it was time to play

This is my little man enjoying the beautiful day we had here is south Florida. It was breezy , sunny, and just beautiful out.

She wanted the camera so she was not too enthused with me

I love this one looking right at me.

This is the little man trying to get me

Clearing the Pantry

So in getting ready for my meal planning I decided to clear the kitchen pantry and take inventory. This allowed me time to calculate points and write them right on the boxes of what we use the most.  I have a small pantry and things tend to get cluttered. Since we need to do the week's grocery shopping this is the perfect time to take inventory and start a weekly menu.

Here is my little man saying, "mom what are you doing?"

Before as you can see things are just willy nilly put in 

 I took everything out of the pantry and put it on the table and counters, I took inventory and separated everything into easy categories.  Then I played grocery store and shopping with Riley to gather everything back up. I got organized and she thought we were playing. So it was fun for both of us.

This is the after photo, I separated the items into categories  top shelf chips, breakfast items. See that I have extra black binder clips hung on the shelf. They make great chip clips or bag sealers. I had extra when we cleaned out the office and converted it to a nursery for little man.  Second shelf is for canned goods and common dinner sides. The third shelf is for baby food, non breakable Peanut butter & drink mixes.  The fourth shelf I organized our oils and baking supplies on the right and my commonly used mixers on the left. The bottom shelf I left for my basket that holds party plates, napkins and party cups on the right and on the left is the food saver machine and uncommon items which are used less because the trash can sits in front .   It is now easy to see everything we have and ready for healthy foods to come home.