Meal Planning on $50 a week!

I am a little obsessed with lists and checking things off and planning things out (guess it's good I am a teacher). This week I really put in some time to plan out every meal I would eat. Oh, and I decided to do it all on only $50 per week.

I have a tiny problem with keeping my food spending within an acceptable range. I just LOVE to cook and sometimes give in to cravings and then BAM I have accumulated a pretty scary total in my grocery budget. (If you don't have mint.com you should go check it out. It categorizes your spending for you! Does anyone else get excited by pie graphs?!?!?!)

I decided that I was really going to stick to a budget for the rest of October and see how I could make it work. I thought that $50 a week was pretty reasonable being as though that would be around $200 in groceries total and that would be at LEAST $100 cheaper than I had been spending on groceries in the past. (My dad is probably flipping right now if he's reading this. hehe)

I spent $32 on vegetables at my local Freshfield Farms. I spent the other $18 at Whole Foods. Here's the breakdown:

Vegetables:                                                            Whole Foods:

3 Zucchini                                                                Chickpeas

1 red pepper                                                           Almond Milk

1 green pepper                                                       Eggs

steam in a bag broccoli                                          Soy yogurt

2 packages of mushrooms

romaine lettuce

5 apples

4 bananas

3 avocados

3 limes

1 GIANT head of cauliflower

1 tomato

First I made a list of all of the food I had in the house already in combination with what I bought for the week. I'll just give you a heads up that my meal plan for the week is on it's 3rd revision and it's likely it might change again. Revisions took place for several reasons: 1. I had to make sure that I was eating the food that would spoil first 2. I ordered some powdered pb online and it won't be here till Tuesday 3. I plan meals around the BF's schedule. He hates when I use the food processor so the meals that involves a lot of blending or noise I put at the end of the week HAHA. I'm sure there were more reasons, my being easily distracted, putting something on the list when I don't actually have it in the house, etc. I could go on and on. Here is what I have so far:

       Monday                         Tuesday                                      Wednesday

Bfast: Banana                Bfast: Banana & apple w/ PB      Bfast:Soy yogurt, apple w/PB

AM Snack:                              AM Snack:                                 AM Snack:

*pumpkin omelet w/              2 hard boiled egg whites           2 hard boiled egg whites

protein frosting

Lunch:                                       Lunch:                                        Lunch:

Cucumber, avocado, &         *Veggie "chicken" salad          *Roasted cauliflower & 

tomato salad                                                                               chickpea pattie
                                                                                                      w/ salsa

PM Snack:                              PM Snack:                                  PM Snack:

soy yogurt                              soy yogurt                                      celery & tofutti cream cheese

Dinner:                                    Dinner:                                          Dinner:

Veggie "Chicken"                Roasted cauliflower &                  *Zucchini noodles w/

Salad                                   chickpea pattie w/ roasted            basil & garlic pesto 

                                               zucchini & salsa                             sauce

    Thursday                                                                     Friday

Bfast:soy yogurt, apple & PB                           Bfast: soy yogurt, apple & PB

AM Snack:2 hard boiled egg whites               AM Snack: 2 hard boiled egg whites

Lunch: Broccoli, cauliflower rice,                   Lunch:  Salad w/ leftover veggies & beans

w/ corn & spices on top

PM Snack: Celery & PB                                  PM Snack: Celery & PB

Dinner: black bean, cauliflower                      Dinner:  Leftovers :)

rice & salsa lettuce wraps

What I did not include was a PlantFusion protein shake that I will have after workouts. That helps with keeping the dinner portions smaller. As you can see, the meals towards the end of the week get pretty vague. This is because I don't know yet how much will be leftover/if anything will have spoiled. Let's just call this trial and error week :)

The asterisk (*) by some of the meals means that I found these recipes from other people/blogs. I will post the details of those meals later but can by no means take credit for them. Like I mentioned in the blog before this one, I follow some amazing ladies who come up with these creations themselves. I modify them to suit my body's needs but the core of it all comes from them. If you are interested in the recipe look to their blogs or look here later for some specifics. :)

 Let me be SUPER clear about this weeks meal planning. I am by NO stretch of the imagination certified in nutrition or exercise. I do what works best for me.This is a flexible plan that I will most likely add to or take away from depending on my needs throughout the week. I have not calculated calories yet. If I have time that day I will use my myfitnesspal app to calculate what I'm putting into my body. I'll make adjustments based upon how I feel during the week. Other than that I am not suggesting that anyone follow this to a T. If you like some of the ideas on here, GREAT! If not, cool. This is an experimental week for me! If I can make it work, great! If not, I will adjust where my spending goes and try for another $50 week on Saturday. :) 

Enjoy your Sunday!

Eat Clean Til Halloween - Update!

Did you accept the challenge? 

I heard back from some of my friends and they said they were giving it a try! Whoo! I did my best to eat ONLY items that weren't processed... But I am a human (and a girl) so I slipped up more than once. I found that the days that I may have indulged were the days that I didn't plan my meals properly. FAIL TO PLAN - PLAN TO FAIL. This is just something that I try to keep in mind when I am tired and I don't want to pack any food and I just can't stand the thought of chopping something else or prepping some marinade, etc. The good news is, even with the slip ups I managed to lose 3lbs! Now, it's not my ultimate goal to drop weight, but let's be honest, there is a certain kind of thrill one gets when they look down at that scale number and it's smaller than it was 2 weeks ago. :) I did kick up my exercise routine so I know that helped, but I also noticed that I felt better during my workouts when I ate better!

I've been following some blogs and Instagram accounts of a few ladies who have this whole eating clean thing DOWN and they are super helpful as well. Here are the spectacular ladies that I follow:

http://getfitfeelsexy.blogspot.com/ This is Vevian's account and she is SO creative in the kitchen. I used the pictures from her Instagram account and her blog to help me do my meal planning for this week. (More details on the meal planning and calendar for the week later.)

http://powercakes.net/powercakes/ This is Kasey and I am SO inspired by her! She is SO fit and SO helpful. She is currently doing a #plantPOWER challenge during the month of October. Check here out for more details on how plants fuel our bodies with all of their yummy nutrients. 

http://livelifeactive.com/ This is Erin and it was her blog that I found that AMAZING list of clean eating foods! She was currently featured in a fitness magazine! How cool is that?! She also posted a push-up challenge (that I shared via FB) that I am participating in. Erin is definitely one of the ladies that I look to for inspiration lately!

PLEASE go check out their pages! They have recipes and tips and they are just so wonderful I know that you will want to get up and move just from reading what they have to share. :)

Ps. I hope it's okay that I gave them this "shout-out" I don't really know if there are "blogging rules". Eek! (Crossing my fingers!)