meal planning

Not gonna lie. It’s day 3 and I already wanna tell this 30 day challenge to SUCK IT!

I’m tired of thinking about my calories/what’s going in my mouth…I just want an unsweet tea (I remedied this one, but I’ll get to that later)…I don’t want to exercise…I don’t want to care about what’s for dinner and make sure it’s healthy/calorie countable…

I have other crap to do!

I’m a horrible multi-tasker apparently. When I’m thinking about family dinners and exercising, everything else goes to the crapper. My laundry is taking over and I don’t want to think about how I’m going to sweat today.

Wah..wah…wah!

I wrote out 5 days of workouts & meals (one off day b/c of Halloween), but I’ve already skipped a dinner and while I’ve been active for at least 30 min for the past two days, it wasn’t what I planned on doing.

Blaaahhhhhhh!

Okay, I’m done whining for now…I think. Sometimes you just gotta vent (or how my husband lovingly refers to it..whine ;)). Regardless of my less than stellar execution so far, I’ve stuck to the guidelines I set for myself.

More water…check!
72 oz Monday & Tuesday

At least 30 min of exercise…check!
Walking on Monday, C25K training & a 7-min workout on Tuesday

Tracking food intake…check!
you can see my log on myfitnesspal.com (username: katiehigg)

(clockwise) water, almond dream yogurt, smoothie, spaghetti squash alfredo

Remember in the beginning I told you I remedied my unsweet tea problem? Well, see, there’s a school of thought that says if it’s unsweet, it counts towards your fluid intake for the day and you just need to be concerned with how much caffeine you’re taking in. And while all of my water logged has been straight water, yesterday I decided I needed an amendment to my rules pertaining unsweet tea.

Amendment: As long as 48oz of pure water is drank per day, I’m allowed unsweet tea. Preferably decaf, but not a must.

What I wanted to accomplish in these 30 days was to drink more water and less caffeine. I had gotten into a habit of nursing a large unsweet tea in the morning with breakfast and then not drinking anything else until dinnertime. Hence probably only getting in about 24oz of un-caffeinated beverage a day. With my new amendment, I will have to drink 48oz before rewarding myself with some tea. 😉

Moving forward I need to…

plan my day better
plan breakfast better
get at least one load of laundry done per day
not be so hard on myself

How about you? How’s your 30 days going so far?

Meal Planning should not be this hard!

Why oh why is meal planning so difficult for me? Please tell me I’m not alone in this struggle.

Really…

tell me…

pretty please…

*sigh* Okay, maybe I am alone after all. At least that’s how it feels. In my head, I know that it’s as simple as picking something out and buying the items you need to make it. I mean, I see people (online) do it all the time. They even do a month at a time! A month! I don’t even know what I want to eat on Tuesday. How do I know what I’ll be in the mood for three Tuesdays from now.

Let’s just tell it like it is. In reality, I over think this whole meal planning thing to D.E.A.T.H. Like, chop it’s head off, bake it, grill it, sauté it, then run it over with my car. It’s my inability to make a decision that causes this over thinking. I tell my husband that it’s a good thing I got married when I was young and carefree because they way I over think something as simple as meal planning, I don’t think I’d ever be able to decide who/when to get married!

If knowing what the problem is, is half the battle, then why the heck isn’t it any easier?! I know that I just need to make a decision, but I find something wrong with every recipe. It’s too fatty…next…the kids won’t like it…next…too complex…next…too simple…next…yuck, I don’t like mushrooms, peppers, carrots, etc….next, next, next!!!!

However, the flip side of not being able to meal plan is that it causes us to eat out or scrape together meals at home that are quite possibly worse than if I would have just made a decision and prepared a meal in the first place!

It’s a vicious cycle.

So, I am trying my hand at meal planning again. And when I say trying my hand, I actually mean, I spent hours searching for the perfect print your own meal planning sheet, but couldn’t find one. Then I decided to make one.

Open Photoshop…spend an hour creating a so-so meal plan sheet…print it out…now it’s time to actually eat so I have to stop meal planning and figure out what we’re going to eat.

vicious.cycle.

K, so I’ve got my meal plan sheet. I WILL plan some meals. Maybe only 2 or 3, but a girls gotta start somewhere, right?

Here’s my weekly meal plan I made. I’m sure I’ll hate it in a week or so. Heck, there’s stuff I would change about it now. But sometimes I have to stop myself from over thinking and just leave it be.

Click this link to download the PDF

Just to make a point of how insane I make myself, a FB friend said she just planned a month of dinners using her iPad and iPhone with the menu-planner app.

I immediately downloaded it.

Head – meet – desk. O_o

What was I thinking?!

Day 3 of 30 :: Checking in

Meal Planning should not be this hard!