Well, I succeeded through Day 6, and I'm no worse for wear due to my cheats from Friday. Saturday morning I had bacon and eggs for breakfast. Also, we did our first weekly weigh-in for our 12 Week Weight Loss Challenge (minus the weigh-in for our starting weights) and guess who's a winner this week? Oh yeah, this girl!
After breakfast I did an assessment of what food we had left from my ridiculous Whole Foods shopping last Sunday, and what I would need to go buy to get us to payday (this detox is NOT cheap). We actually really did eat all the food I bought, and that's a bit
ridiculous cost-wise for ONE WEEK and TWO PEOPLE. I don't know about you guys, but I
don't have $1,000+ to spend on groceries every month. With that in mind, I checked out the suggested Week 2 Menu, took some of those recipes, and then browsed through the book to add in some more affordable recipes, as well as considering some of the things I normally cook that we could eat.
For instance, there are some smoothie recipes with pretty cheap ingredients that I could make for breakfast instead of making every breakfast with meat. There's also a marinara sauce recipe that I could make and eat with zucchini noodles or spaghetti squash for a few meals, which also helps save with meat. I also have my own coconut curry recipe that I can make on this detox, I just have to change up some of the veggies (i.e. no sweet potato). Also, certain brands of guacamole (or your own homemade kind) as well as certain brands of cold cuts are 21DSD-approved. I could bring those for lunches, OR make my own salads with some of the dressing recipes provided in the book. In fact, that's what I made for lunch today:
For instance, there are some smoothie recipes with pretty cheap ingredients that I could make for breakfast instead of making every breakfast with meat. There's also a marinara sauce recipe that I could make and eat with zucchini noodles or spaghetti squash for a few meals, which also helps save with meat. I also have my own coconut curry recipe that I can make on this detox, I just have to change up some of the veggies (i.e. no sweet potato). Also, certain brands of guacamole (or your own homemade kind) as well as certain brands of cold cuts are 21DSD-approved. I could bring those for lunches, OR make my own salads with some of the dressing recipes provided in the book. In fact, that's what I made for lunch today:
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| Simple, fresh ingredients. |
I just chopped up a bunch of stuff I had on hand and used the 21DSD "Balsamic Vinaigrette" for my dressing. It was easy and tasty.
For dinner I made "Shepherd's Pie" from the 21DSD book, which was my first experience using ground lamb.
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| Bacon, sage, garlic, cauliflower mash, and some peas and carrots too! |
I have to say, while the recipe was a good recipe, I'm just not the hugest fan of the taste of ground lamb. I hadn't had it before and was willing to try it, but it's not my favorite. Unfortunately we still have about half the pie left but P seems to like it so hopefully he'll handle the leftover-eating on this one hahaha.
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| Ta-da! 21DSD Shepherd's Pie! And my 21DSD book in the background in my spiffy cookbook stand :) |
I did go to Whole Foods to get a few things to tide us over, but realistically I am going to have to switch our groceries to our normal store and not everything will be grass-fed, organic, etc. You do the best with what you've got, right? I got a few meat items, a ton of zucchini (it's affordable and makes "noodles"), more lemons, some mixed greens for salads, celery, guacamole, some plain full fat yogurt (going to give the "Banola" another go because I hate wasting and have a ton of it), some green bananas, and a couple other things. I indulged in a big bottle of sparkling mineral water too. I loooove Perrier and San Pelligrino and you name it, sparkling/carbonated mineral water is yummy, especially with some lemon. BUT it's definitely in the "indugence" column so I try not to get it very often.
I have been trying to think of ideas to help save money too. So far some ideas I have for lowering cost include:
- buying some produce frozen (I'm not a big fan of frozen fruit/veggies but for certain recipes/uses it really is the smart thing to buy);
- not shopping at Whole Foods;
- not getting everything organic/grass-fed, so prioritizing what has the worst stuff in it or is the most inhumane and going from there;
- Bulk buying meat at Sam's and filling our freezer with said meat to supply us for several weeks (we plan on doing this next weekend);
- buying produce twice a week to help prevent waste;
- following meal plans because just buying random stuff always results in waste for us; and
- making meatless meals more. Gosh meat is expensive (as it should be, we're taking lives to eat here, it's important to respect your food sources).
So we will be implementing some of these pretty soon and I'll let you know if it helps with the bills. We don't eat out much, I basically only go out to eat on date nights, so I think that also makes our grocery bills a bit higher, but our overall bills for the month lower.
Anyway, please comment below if you have any suggestions on other ways to save some moolah!
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