A Food Challenge Update

I've tried to post a couple of times this week, but when I get to the blank page, I don't know what to say.

So here's an update on the Food Challenge, which I need to keep track of more thoroughly. Here are some of the things I will talk about in this post. I will think of a better format to lay all of this out, but not right now.

• I will include
• my menu 
• my shopping list
• the cost of shopping
• the actual carrying out of this challenge. 
• what went well, when I messed up, what I ate that day

To review what entails in the Challenge:

• I will not:
• Eat out
• Get coffee from the oh-so-convenient-located-in-the-center-of-campus coffee shop
• I will:
  
•  Brown bag my lunches and daily snacks
• Eat healthy!
• Explore ways to streamline my meals and still have time to do everything else that needs done!

Eating out:

Eating out has not been much of a problem. I did eat out last wednesday because my schedule has me in class from 12-5pm and I then have rehearsal from 5:30-10:30pm, so I opted for a cheap meal of teriyaki noodles, but noticed it didn't really fill me up much. Then I thought of keeping track of how I feel afterward to remind myself that eating out might seem nice, but your body doesn't really like food like that.

Place	Price of Meal	Type of Food	Feeling Afterward	How long contentment Lasted
Rice Time	Free	Chinese	Immediately a little dizzy and nauseous	About two hours.

Notice that this meal was free. I think I might do a post later about what to do if a guy buys you dinner when you gave him money to pick it up for you. That was a bit of a pickle, let me tell you.

Coffee:

I admit, I had coffee from the shop last Wednesday because my sleep schedule was all screwed up and I had class from 12-5, but around 2pm I started to nod off. 

Lunch and Dinner:

Dinner has not been too hard, surprisingly. Last week I only cooked twice, but there was enough food left over for about three days of lunch and dinner. So, going off of that rubric, I have come up with an altered meal plan from the one I had before which turned out to be too much food. This is what January looks like. I normally would be cooking on a Tuesday or Thursday, since those are right in the middle of the week and I have a 3 hour block of free time from 2-5 in the afternoon. I still plan on using the groceries that I got before, but I shifted things around so that the more perishable items would be used up first. I'm not sure how well that will work out, but man, it seems a lot less daunting than having to come home and cook every night after rehearsal, around 10:30pm.

Week	Tuesday	Thursday
1	oops	oops
2	Baked Cheesy Pasta	Pasta and Zucchini
3	Chicken Pasta	Garden Chowder
4	Veggie Sandwiches	Vietnam Fried Rice

Lunches have mainly been snacks I eat throughout the day and I go home and have leftovers from the night before.

I already posted my grocery shopping, which I contributed $50 to. We haven't gone back to the store at all, and its almost the end of the month, so that makes me really happy!

Menu Plan Monday!

	Monday	Tuesday	Wed	Thursday	Friday	Sat	Sunday
Breakfast	Oatmeal, Toast, Yogurt	Cream of Wheat, toast	Fried Eggs, Toast, cottage cheese	Quinoa, yogurt	Oatmeal, yogurt	Eggs, bacon, breakfast sandwich	Any of the previously listed items
Lunch	Grilled Egg Cheese Sandwich, Carrots, Yogurt	Salad	Fried eggs with tomato sauce and Cheese	Salad	Turkey and cheese quesadilla	tba	tba
Dinner	Vietnam Rice	Garden Chowder	Sloppy Lentils	Black Bean and Egg Burritos	Pasta and Zucchini	Leftovers	Veggie Sandwiches
Snack	Almonds, string cheese	Carrot sticks, granola	Dried fruit, yogurt	Banana chips, granola bar	Dried fruit, banana chips	tba	tba

We are also having Veggie Sandwiches on Sunday, but apparently my blog format won't let me show it. 

This week is going to be a little rough because we have practically nothing in our fridge and neither of us at the apartment have a working car at the moment. So hopefully we can see if someone can give us a lift to the grocery store.