For this adventure I'm going to need: an animal companion, a frying pan, and a LOT of willpower

Yeah...this is about how I feel when it comes to eating healthy: like someone has to shove it down my throat.





It's hard to eat healthy when you didn't have any good eating habits to begin with. Growing up in a low income family, you cleaned your plate since you didn't know how much or how little the next meal would be, and you made your grocery money stretch as far as it could. This meant cheap but plentiful foods like pastas and a lot of processed meats like bologna and hot dogs. Fruits and veggies were a rarity outside of school lunch, as was fish. Don't get me wrong...being able to shop for an entire month's worth of food on under $100 budget is an amazing skill to have. I am a grocery sale goddess thanks to my mother.

Now there is a new problem: I have a much bigger grocery budget to work with courtesy of my prince (he's working on his physique too, feel free to follow him on his blog Training to Beat Goku - Or At Least Yamcha), and making sure to buy AND COOK healthier foods is the new challenge.

My prince and I have a bad tendency of buying fresh fruits and veggies, then never using them. Or we'll stock the cabinets with healthier cuts of meat and make meal plans...and spend most of that week eating out somewhere.

And I LOVE to cook! It's rewarding for me to see my prince and our sidekick (i.e. roommate) eating something I made and are too busy stuffing their faces to talk.

 There's one major problem with that when it comes to weight loss: my specialty is BAKING.

Cakes, cookies, muffins, sweet breads, you name it. I love the smell of fresh baked goods.

And there's no fun in making something if you're not going to eat a little of it yourself right?







Unfortunately for me, 'a little of it' ends up becoming a whole lot of it.

To help get my eating habits under control, I joined Weight Watchers. I had participated in the program through one of my old workplaces several years ago, and that was one of the only times I had actually LOST weight. So we're going to give it a try again. I'm doing the online only program, since I'm busy enough during my week with school and work to worry about squeezing meetings in.

For those of you unfamiliar with Weight Watchers: instead of counting calories, you're counting points. A food has a point value based on calories, sugar, saturated fat, and protein. You only have a certain number of points per day, so you make them count by choosing lower point foods. Fruits and veggies in their raw form or steamed are worth 0 points, so they are a safe snack or can be used to make a meal more filling without increasing its point value (example, adding lettuce, tomato, cucumber, etc to a sandwich).

The trick is to actually USE all of your points. Eating well below your daily points isn't going to help you any more than eating well over the budget will. Just like eating way too few or way too many calories would.

Which will hopefully force me into a better mindset when it comes to bored snacking and stress eating. ESPECIALLY THE STRESS EATING.

"You" being my homework/group mates/grades/dogs etc.

I'm currently in the Master's program for Information Technology with a focus on Software Development and Business Intelligence and Analytics (hey, who said Disney princesses can't be smart?). Which means a lot of my time and brain power is used to study/program/do homework, etc. If I'm having a rough day, one of the first things I end up doing is reaching for a cookie. That's gotta stop.

So that covers the willpower and the frying pan...no where am I going to get an animal companion at this time of day?