Day 28 - Lessons Learned

Egg Salad Tacos with Avocado,

red currant tomatoes and cucumber salad

I've been asked what I've learned from this experience and what I will continue and discontinue as I go forward.

  

On eating on a dollar a day:

It's doable if you have access to a lot of home grown food, you shop wisely and you are willing to cook.  The food you purchase must be the healthiest you can find for your money.  You may have to give up some of your comfort foods, but you can come up with a lot of new, great tasting favorites.

I've become a better cook through this experience.  I've had to think creatively and discover combinations of flavors which were new to me.  It's been a rewarding experience to know what I can do with limited ingredients.  These were my favorite discoveries:

• Lemon Dressing - fresh lemon juice with a touch of olive oil, sugar, salt and pepper.
• Egg Avocado Sandwich - Mash egg with avocado instead of mayonaise. 
• Crispy Roasted Green Bean Snack - Roast green beans with a touch of olive oil and garlic salt until crispy.
• Orangesicles - Freeze blended oranges with vanilla soy milk and sugar.
• Teppanyaki Dipping Sauce - Fresh lemon juice (usually I use rice vinegar) and soy sauce
• Cold tofu and takuan - The combination of sweet and salty I didn't get tired of.

What I'll discontinue:
Oatmeal.  It's strange, but eating oatmeal makes my blood sugar drop and I get hungry.  Maybe it's the sugar in the vanilla soy milk.  Or maybe I need to eat more protein with it. 

What I'll add on to my list of unlimited foods:
Greek Yogurt
Fish
Sparkling Water

What I'll add on in limited quantities:
Sharp Cheddar Cheese
Almonds
Decaf Coffee
Honey
Dark Chocolate

On losing weight:

• I can eat all I want of healthy food choices and I will lose weight.
• Meals should be simple and quick to prepare.
• When you feel like a pick me up snack, take a nap instead if you can.
• Don't eat too late at night.
• Housework counts as exercise.

Day 28

Breakfast:
Oatmeal with soy milk, 1/4 banana and mulberries
Peach

Lunch:
Egg avocado tacos
Cucumber salad

Snack:
Small apple
Orange juice

Dinner:
Chicken stir fry with spaghetti noodles


Calories: 1135
Cost:  $1.01

Weight:  XXX - 6.5 pounds

Day 27 - Easy Teppanyaki

Here's a meal I can eat everyday.  It can be made with whatever vegetables and meat or fish you like.  It's simple, tasty and economical, and it's very healthy.

Teppanyaki is a style of Japanese cooking.  Maybe you've had it before if you've been to Benihana.  The meat and vegetables are cooked on a grill and served with rice and dipping sauces.  But you can make it at home very inexpensively. 

I haven't made this in awhile because I've forgotten about it, but I had a nice portion of chicken breast to cook up and some patty pan squash I harvested today.  I was going to stir fry them together and at the last second, I remembered teppanyaki.

All you have to do is grill the vegetables and meat in a little olive oil and season with salt and pepper.  The green beans were boiled.  The dipping sauce is simply lemon juice and soy sauce.  It is unbelievably tasty and you can vary the combination to your liking.  This meal tonight cost 41 cents.  It includes the cost of the chicken, onion, brown rice, olive oil, and seasonings.  The patty pan squash and green beans are free from my garden.  The lemon came from a friend's tree.

A meal like this keeps me motivated to eat healthy, everyday, for a long time.

Day 27

Breakfast:

Small apple with peanut butter

Tennis:

Orange juice

Lunch:

Bean tacos with avocado and pico de gallo

Peach

Snack:

Chocolate Peanut Bars

Dinner:

Chicken and vegetable teppanyaki

Grapefruit

Calories: 1360 

Cost: 89 cents

Weight:  XXX - 7 pounds 



Day 26 - Fear of the Unknown

I'm winding down to the end of the challenge, and people are starting to encourage me to continue into next month.

Right.

It's not that I'm suffering or anything.  It's just that I'm looking forward to celebrating at the end.  You know, with a strawberry pie or something like that.

The thing that scares me is that on July 1, I'll revert back to my old self and gain all the weight back and probably more.  So people, if you are reading this, please don't all bring me a strawberry pie.

So what should I do?  Someone suggested I need a new challenge in July.  Like maybe a 75 cents a day challenge?  Of course, I can do it, but I need to get on with my life.  The thrill of the challenge is gone.

Over the next few days, I need to think about how to manage this in the future.  I am counting the days to the end now.  Time is slowing down.  I'm starting to think about the things I'll be able to eat.  And now, I'm pretty sure I won't be able to continue status quo into next month.

This is scary.  The floodgates will fall on July 1 and bad things can happen...

Day 26

Breakfast:
Egg Overeasy
2 corn tortillas
Peach (from friend's tree)

Snack:
Orangesicle

Lunch: 
Oatmeal with soy milk and mulberries

Snack:
2 chocolate peanut bars
Roasted green beans

Dinner:
Pinto Beans with pico de gallo
Peach
4 free hard candies

Calories:  838
Cost:  69 cents

Weight:  XXX - 7 pounds

Day 25 - I am a Chocoholic.

These chocolate peanut bars are not fancy, but they really hit the spot.

My chocolate habit is rearing it's head.  If you know me, I love chocolate.  Just last month, I ate 2 pounds of See's candy all by myself.  Last month I felt like I could eat all the chocolate I wanted since I was going to be without them in June.

Then, I found this bag of chocolate peanut bars at the supermarket.  They were marked down from $3.99 to $1.  So I bought them and decided to eat them in my dollar a day challenge when my chocolate craving came up.  I think they were marked down because they were close to the pull date, plus, they were melted in the package. 

The past few days, I've been eating these everyday.  Just two pieces are 120 calories.  I'm glad I'm able to stop after eating two, but I'm worried because I'm starting to eat them everyday.

For lunch, I had red beans on brown rice with pico de gallo and avocado slices.

I feel like I have more energy.  I'm able to concentrate and get a lot of physical work done.


Day 25

Breakfast:
Oatmeal with soy milk, apples and mulberries

Lunch:
Red Beans and rice with pico de gallo and avocado
Plums

Snack:
2 chocolate peanut bars

Dinner:
1/2 Chicken Soup
Plums

Calories: 1255
Cost: 80 cents

Weight:  XXX - 7 pounds

Day 24 - Keep it Simple for Success

Today's breakfast: Peanut Butter and Fruit Tacos

Our lives are complicated.  So much more complicated than previous generations.  We have so many choices and more improvements are flashed in front of us each day by advertisers.  It's nice to have so many choices, but it can get so complicated and time consuming that it feels overwhelming. 

We just don't need it all.

Keep it simple.

That goes for eating too.  If it's fast and easy, you'll do it.  That's why I like fast food joints.  But they are not good for me and they make me fat.  They do make me happy, but they make me fat.

So, I've found this challenge pretty easy as long as I keep it simple.  That means I can get breakfast made in 2 minutes, lunch in 5 minutes and dinner in 15 minutes.

How?

Preparation.  And preparation doesn't take that long.  You can do it while you are eating, while you are watching TV, or while you're on the Internet.

This is what I did to be prepared:

In the beginning of the month, simmer a chicken to make chicken soup, put portions in the freezer.  Soak the dry beans over night and the next day, simmer them and put them in the freezer.

Each week, make a batch of oatmeal and brown rice and keep it in the refrigerator.

Every few days, boil a couple of hard boiled eggs,  roast some vegetables, boil up some pasta and make some salsa and keep it in the refrigerator.  Make some orangesicles. These things don't take long.

Each day, think about what you might eat the next few days and take it out of the freezer to thaw out.  It usually needs 2 days to thaw.  I freeze portions in 2 serving sizes, so when I prepare them the first day, I don't have to prepare it again the next.   For example, for dinner, I make enough to last 2 days, so I don't have to cook the following day, just heat it up.

Breakfast is easy.  Oatmeal in the microwave, add soy milk and fruit, toast and peanut butter or a fried egg on rice.  Two minutes.

Lunch.  Egg sandwich, tuna sandwich, grilled veggies, bean tacos...  I just need to mix a few things up and garnish.  Five minutes.

Dinner.  Soup or stir fry.  Get out the pan and saute some veggies, or add veggies to the soup.   Add pasta from the fridge.  Microwave the rice.  15 minutes.

Snacks.  Fruit.  0 minutes

Keep it simple.  It's not hard.  And, it only costs $1 a day.

Day 24

Breakfast:
Peanut Butter and Fruit Tacos

Snack:
Plums

Lunch:
Red Beans on Brown Rice with Pico de Gallo
Orangesicle

Snack:
Chocolate Peanut Bars

Dinner:
1/2 serving Chicken Soup

Calories: 1285
Cost: 90 cents

Weight:  XXX - 6 pounds

Day 23 - Secret Fruit to Lose Weight

Ha, ha, ha!  I bet I got your attention with the title of this post.  But there is a fruit I'm wondering about.  I'm wondering if it's helping me lose weight because ever since I starting eating them...and I've been eating a lot of them, my weight is really starting to drop off.

That fruit is...the plum.

It's definitely mostly water, because when you bite into it, it's like biting into a water balloon.  After the first bite, you have to stuff the whole thing in your mouth before it pours out all over your hands.

My husband brought them home the other day.  They were a gift from someones backyard tree.  I love them because they are sweet and filling and they aren't affecting me like prunes.  So I'll keep eating them as much as I want until they are gone, which might be by today.

For lunch, I had some bean tacos topped with pico de gallo and avocado.  On the side, I had cucumber slices with a little olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. 

 





bean tacos and cucumber slices

I want to tell you how I make these taco shells.  I put them in the toaster oven on the toast setting for a few minutes to soften them up, then I fold them over and finish toasting them.  They come out chewy soft and a little crunchy on the ends just the way I like them.  And, there's no frying oil and no mess.



Day 23

Breakfast:
Milton's Squaw Bread and Peanut Butter

Lunch:
Bean Tacos with Pico de Gallo and Avocado
Sliced Cucumbers dressed with Olive Oil and Vinegar
3 Plums

Snack:
Orangesicle

Dinner:
Chicken Soup
3 Plums

Calories:  1180
Cost:  $1.02

Weight:  XXX - 5.5 pounds

Day 22 - Even with food, less is more

Before I started this challenge, I wrote down some expectations, and one of them was that I didn't think I'd be wasting any food.  I pictured myself with slim rations and that I'd be savoring each bite.

Not so.

I'm on day 22, with 8 days left and I have plenty of food left.  I still have 2 containers of soup, servings of red beans and rice, and lots of corn tortillas and pinto beans for bean tacos.  I've got cups of oatmeal, 1/4 of a jar of peanut butter and more eggs to eat. I've got more vegetables than I can eat, and lots and lots of fruit.  I even have about 10 more chocolate peanut bars.

So am I complaining?  No, of course not, but it occurred to me today, that if I only had 1/2 this amount, it might mean more to me.

It's like everything else in life.  When you have plenty, you take it for granted.  Unfortunately, some of this food will get wasted.

Now, this would not be the case if I was continuing this challenge past June, because then I would be motivated to preserve as much as I can knowing that during the winter, I'll be craving these fresh veggies and fruits.

I know it's wasteful, but we live with such abundance that it's easy to throw away the wilted broccoli when you can have a pizza instead. 

Our grandmothers would never let something like this happen.  But our generation does.  We have many conveniences and we are too busy to save every scrap of food.

That's just the way it is.  I feel guilty about it.  But, that's just the way it is.

Day 22

Breakfast:
1/2 banana with peanut butter

Tennis:
Orange juice
Small apple and 1/2 orange

Lunch:
Red beans with rice and pico de gallo
Plums
2 chocolate peanut bars

Dinner:
Oatmeal with soy milk and berries

Calories: 1390
Cost: $1.00

Weight:  XXX - 5 pounds