Weigh In Wednesday - 2 days late, sue me!

Weigh-In Wednesday

So like anything else, you can not know with your weight if you are improving or not if you don't know where you start. And even though it is not a number that I envision myself at, nor ever thought I would see - right now I'm proud to say that I weighed in at 203 lbs. at my doctor's appointment on 9/11. That is pre-baby #2 (yes, #2, not #1 - that's the goal here folks!) weight...meaning I was just a couple pounds over that when I got pregnant with my son. Now like I said, that is not at number I ever thought I would see and I'm not what I envision for 203 lbs., but never-the-less that is where I'm starting.

Where I would like to be - first of all, my desire to lose weight is not necessarily for aesthetic reasons (don't get me wrong - I want to look as good as the next person, but if you know me...you know I'm more comfortable and happy in baggy sweats and a pony tail than I ever would be in a slinky, little sexy number. I think the human form looks sooooo much better with a lot of clothes on!), but more so that I used to be very active when I was younger and we had the nursery and I was a lot more fit. That is where I want to be...I want to run around in the yard with my daughter and not feel like I'm going to pass out, I want to chase my kids thru the house when they get older, I want to be able to go and do whatever they want and not have to stop because I'm out of shape and can't keep up. So if getting fit (which yes I understand means that there has to be a component of exercise there too!) means that I will lose some weight then that is great - but just losing weight is not my only objective. I'm keeping track of my weight for pure statistical means, I'm thinking I will pay more attention to the way my clothes are feeling - which by the way I have been able to use my belt for the time in 2 years wooo hooo! - and my activity level.

Things I'm trying to do:

1) I've cut soda pretty much completely out of my diet. Occasionally I will drink a Dr. Pepper or a Coke - once every couple weeks of something, but not on a regular basis. I usually have 1-2 cups of coffee in the morning to get going (remember we get up around 4:30 or 5 during the week) and then rely mainly on ice water the rest of the day along with a glass of milk at night. I will occasionally make a gallon of sweet tea, especially if we are having company, but mainly there is just water in my cup. **Budget benefits too!**

2) I'm also cutting back on my portion sizes, both at meals and snacking. With snacks I've gone thru and divided them up in to single snack size bags so I don't sit down and eat a whole bag of chips when I should only be eating a handful. This is going to be one of the biggest adjustments, b/c I'm very used to eating until I'm stuffed and can't anymore - but I think within a couple of weeks my body will adjust. "Mind over matter, mind over matter". **Budget benefits too!!**

3) I'm going to start getting more active. A friend of mine is also interested in losing weight so we are going to meet 2-3 days a week to walk at the university's track for 30 mins - 1 hour. Then the other 2-3 days of the week I have workout videos at the house to do, or I have a membership to the gym on the base where I work. So my goal is to work out in some way, shape or fashion at least 3 days a week. One day a week I'm going to be going to gymnastics class with my daughter where parent participation is required so that should help too!

That's it - seems to simple but eating less and working out more shouldn't be brain surgery! So we will see how this goes and I will try to update weekly - encouragement is appreciated!

Stretching the boobs....lessons from a nursing momma!

I'm going to try and talk about different things on different days of the week - Menu Planning on Monday, "Stretching" on Tightwad Tuesday, Weight loss on Weigh-in Wednesdays, Gratefulness on Sundays, and anything else in between - so for Tightwad Tuesday, here we stretch!

In case you weren’t aware I am the proud mother of not only a 2 ½ year old beautiful, blonde devious little girl, but also an 8 week old handsome little boy who I am continuing to nurse after having returned to work 2 weeks ago. There are lots of reasons that I choose to nurse, one of the main being to save money on formula. However, nothing is free – including nursing! There are supplies that must be purchased to start pumping and other supplies that must be purchased to maintain this lifestyle. How I save money or saved money on these is how I “stretch the boobs!”

First of all your pump – these sell for all shapes and sizes and are only supposed to be for one user. That being said, I could not afford the $375+ for a good pump (Medela) when I had my daughter. Luckily, for me but not for her, I had a good friend who was unable to nurse her son, who was 3 months older than my daughter, and had purchased a pump that she'd only used 1-2 times that she sold to me for $75. One of the best investments I've ever made - personal opinion: if you can find one of these bad boys at a yard sale or consignment sale, they are well worth the investment and you can replace the necessary parts fairly inexpensively! I say fairly inexpensively - all in all - I've got about $100 in my $375+ pump and that is after I have used it for my first child (nursed for 5 months), lent it to another friend for a year, purchased replacement tubing, etc. and now using the pump for my son.

Second of all your breastpads - those pads you put on the inside of you bra to prevent leakage, and trust me you want something! Actual breastpads sell (if I remember correctly from my local Wal-mart) for about $8 or something for around 30 pads (yes these are nice individually rounded pads...they are so pretty - do you hear my sarcasm!?). My little money saving tip is to instead purchase the cheapest, heavy flow generic maxi pads you can find and cut the pad in half. You can get a package of say 30 pads (cut in half = 60 right?) for about $6 or something - there again prices are all approximate, but you get the gist right? I think the maxi pads are much better equipped to handle excessive leakage, as you may sometimes have and it is much more cost effective!

Third your bottles - with our daughter we used the Playtex drop-in type bottle b/c they were given to us. However with my son I was able to get about 20 Aveno (sp?) bottles for about $15 at a yard sale. Now with these bottles I don't have to keep buying the drop-ins, I have enough that even when I'm washing the ones from day-care I have others, and I will be able to re-sell them when I finish with them!

Next is your milk baggies - now this is something new I'm trying, and I will let you know how it turns out. But when DH and I were at the store Friday, I had run out of the individual milk baggies the day before and needed some more for this week in order to pump, I picked up the box of baggies that was $10 for 30 6 oz. baggies......I quickly did the math in my head and figured I would be using 4 baggies a day meaning this little box would only last me about 7.5 working days. That just seemed ridiculous to me, however that is the only option available - or so I thought. As I was strolling down the aisle where the sandwich baggies (which I divide up snacks) were at....I stopped and stared at the quart freezer bags $1.30 for 20 bags. I asked DH, and I'm still working this out so thoughts or suggestions are appreciated, what he thought of using those instead of the individual baggies - "so long as you think it will work, I don't see a problem". My thinking is when we get out the milk from the freezer we are preparing all 3 feeding for my son for that day, so why can't I just lump all the milk for that into one bag? We are trying it and so far the lumping and freezing part seems to be going fine, I guess we will see how the thawing and dividing part goes in a couple of weeks. But as far as saving money goes - this will be a huge money saver b/c I can put all of one day's pumping into 1 bag so a $1.30 box of 20 bags will last me for almost a month of pumping at work vs. 7.5 days! I guess we will see!
Like I said before, like them or not, these are ways that we are tying to tighten our budget and "stretch the boobs"!

Menu Plan Monday

I'm tired and in a rush b/c it's bed time...meant to do this over the weekend but I forgot (imagine that) so here's the quick version...just for Menu Mondays!Breakfast - same as last week

Lunch - same concept as last week

Dinner -
M - Dinner with parents
T - nacho night with friends
W - Ham and mac & cheese (probably with some veggie thrown in)
R - my cousin comes in, Fried shrimp, homemade potato chips,
F - Dinner at parents
Sa. - BBQ with friends
Sun - Baked cod

Last week's recap - we did really good! Fri. night we ended up eating at Chic-Fil-A, a guilty pleasure of mine, b/c we were out and about (now I don't even remember what we were doing!) Sat. night we ended up eating with friends and Sunday night we ended up eating at my parents, but other than that we did really good. This week will be the true test b/c I'm supposed to cook more - we shall see!

Stretching the burger...

Our family is a big meat family - I mean if my husfand could live off of meat and potatoes he would! But meat is such a huge budget killer! Bodie and I both hunt and we both strongly believe in eating what you kill - and we do. We get a freezer full of dear meat in the fall, and then we will also have dove, goose, quail, and duck if we are lucky. Sometimes though it is nice to have a little ordinary browned burger for your spaghetti or for taco night. I read on some other wonderful persons blog a long time ago about a way to stretch your burger and make it a little healthier for your family so here it is replayed for you!

First of all I try to by the least expensive ground chuck - and usually I can get it at Kroger for less than $1/lb b/c I buy it after it has been marked down - this is usually within a couple days of its sale by date. Now some people won't buy meat like this and I understand, but my thought is since I'm either going to be cooking it that day or the next or freezing it, that it is alright. So I will usually get atleast a 3 lb roll, if not a 5 lb. roll. This weekend I got 2 5lb rolls marked at $4.17 each, then I had a coupon from Kroger's for $1.50 off $5 or more of ground beef, and another coupon for $3 off when you spent over $15 in the meat department (I bought some other marked down items as well.) So let's say my 5 lb rolls cost me an average of $3.25/5 lbs. = less than a $1/lb. I take that burger, brown it with salt, pepper, and garlic powder/salt.

Next, you need to stick about 3-5 carrots and 2-3 celery stalks in the food processor until they a nice mush (yeah, I know it sounds disguisting but I SWEAR you can't tell!..too much).


Add this to the burger and let it cook for a little while...
A little "orangie" but looks the same as above right?!

Take the skillet off the burner and let it cool. Then divide up into freezer bags (I use a 1 cup measuring cup and put in 1 1/2 cups which when weighed equals 12 oz.). This is where I see some of the bigger savings from preparing the meat ahead of time. By doing it this way I get 7 "1 lb" bags of burger instead of only 5 or less.
My thought is this, when I'm mixing this burger in with spaghetti sauce, nachos, or chilli - am I really going to miss the 4 oz. I shorted myself from the true pound? Or am I really going to notice the extra veggies that I used to strecth my burger...probably not (at least I don't...however DH did find a celery string that wasn't processed enough and being the big veggie lover he is, he definately let me know!).

So this is just one way that I'm trying to not only stretch my wallet but also my burger these days!

Let 'er rip!

For a long time I operated under the frame of mind that if something was bothering me I kept it to myself - well, not so much anymore! I'm trying to do a much better job of letting someone or anyone know when they are getting on my nerves, making me mad or upsetting me. I used to harbor these feelings inside and stew over them, but I figure what does that really do? Nothing. Because then the person doesn't know what they are doing to upset me, therefore they can't fix it - if they want to. Also I usually remember it for much longer and all that accomplishes is to make me continue to be upset or resent that person for something that they didn't even know that they did!

I'm trying not to yell or say mean things, that is not the purpose of "expressing your feelings". What I am try to do is "express" my feelings of hurt, anger, aggravation, in a calm manner before whatever is happening goes too far. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't but more and more I'm getting things off of my chest!