Tag Archives: Trader Joes

Food Plans (or Working From Home Does Have Some Diet Benefits)

Posted on October 31, 2014 | Comments Off on Food Plans (or Working From Home Does Have Some Diet Benefits)

I’m basically only working from home now. It’s probably going to stay like that since any additional jobs I add on will pretty much have to be done while I’m working my other job (unless I find a night/weekend job).

I used to have such trouble with lunches when I worked outside of my house. Remembering to pack and bring my lunch was one issue. The other was the temptation of all the other food available nearby work.

I don’t have that issue anymore. My work hours are 10-3 and I don’t really get a lunch break. I’m able to step away from my computer to eat lunch, but I pretty much stay at my desk because I never know when a chat or phone call will come in.

Because of this, I’m eating pretty much at home for all my meals. My breakfasts on work days are almost always toast and peanut butter. It keeps me full and it’s not too bad calorie wise.

Dinners are a lot of prepackaged meals, but I’m still considering that better than ordering pizza or Chinese food delivery. I’m again being careful with the calories, but I know that there are things in the prepackaged meals that I don’t need.

Lunch is a little tricky since I am pretty much eating at my desk and have to stop every so often to help a customer. I’m working on finding things that I can eat over a long period of time incase I get stuck helping a customer for a long time. I’m really liking the egg white salad mix from Trader Joes. I eat that by itself with a piece of fruit (that’s exactly what I did yesterday). Also, the premade salads from Trader Joes are really yummy and don’t go bad or get weird if you don’t eat it all right away.

I’m finally out of my food rut of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I’ve told myself I can only have peanut butter once a day and right now, I’m really liking it for breakfast.

I know that I need to start cooking more and stop eating the prepackaged food, but I’m looking at this a baby steps. I haven’t had any fast food for a long time (easily over a month ago) and I haven’t been ordering delivery food either. I’m finally getting those bad habits out of my system.

Now I need to focus on the next step of introducing more good habits in. This is such a long process for me and I know that I need to be patient. I’m just trying to focus on the steps I have done so far and not how many more I need to go.

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Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff, Work

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Adding Variety (or Trying To Be Adventurous With My Food)

Posted on July 24, 2014 | 5 comments

I’ve talked about my food rut before. I pretty much eat the same few things every single day. I have 2 or 3 different things that I will make for breakfast, lunch is pretty much always a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with some fruit, and dinner is some sort of salad or frozen entree.

Some of this food rut is due to my OCD and other parts of it are due to laziness. I’m not a huge cook, and especially during the summer when it’s so hot I don’t want to use any appliances in my house.

But within my few things I eat each day, I’m trying to change up some individual items.

For breakfast, instead of eating plain greek yogurt, I’m adding some granola that has flaxseed in it (I actually don’t mind the taste of flaxseed). That might not seem like a huge change, but it is for me. And I’m noticing that I’m not as hungry when lunchtime comes when I do add in the granola.

Dinner is still a tough one for me. 3 nights a week I’m getting home from Orangetheory at dinnertime and I’m starving. I need something to eat quickly. So I’ve been eating salads from Subway (no dressing just vinegar) or frozen entrees from Trader Joes (I’m loving the cod dinner right now). I’m working on trying to pre-make salads at home, but it seems like the veggies go bad before I use them up. So spending a little money to get a salad made isn’t too horrible. I’m also looking into some no-cook or slow cooker only recipes that freeze well. It’s tough when you cook and it makes 4 or 6 servings. I’m ok with leftovers the next day, but I don’t want to eat it multiple days in a row. So I need something that I can freeze.

My latest attempt at adding variety to my diet was changing up the fruit I eat at lunch. Most of the time I eat a banana and occasionally I’ll have an apple, but that’s pretty much it for now. I’m not a picky eater, I just am set in my ways.

So the last time I went to Trader Joes, I walked around trying to find another fruit that looked good to me. I saw some peaches that looked nice so I got them.

A day after I purchased the peaches, the mass recall of fruit (including peaches from Trader Joes) happen. And yes, I double checked everything and the container of peaches that I purchased is on the recall list.

I haven’t returned my peaches yet (maybe I’ll do that tomorrow), but now I’m definitely not eating them.

I’m trying to not see this as a sign that I shouldn’t change things up. It’s just dumb luck.

But it probably will be another week or so before I end up trying another fruit for lunch time. For now, I’m back to my bananas.

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Not Letting A Slip Up Be A Set Back (or I Splurged Again)

Posted on July 18, 2014 | 3 comments

While I thought I had learned my lesson about splurge meals, I guess I didn’t. I did another splurge meal, but it was more of an afternoon than a meal.

A little back story.

Over the years, certain grocery stores feel “unsafe” to me. I know where the things are that I like to eat, and with muscle memory it seems like I just walk to those foods and put them in my basket. So I’ve avoided certain grocery stores over the past few years.

Now I go to 2 different stores near my house, an Albertsons and a Trader Joes. I used to go to Albertsons a lot more, but there are more “bad” foods for me there. So I only go for certain items that I know I can get at Trader Joes (which used to include a specific sparkling flavored water but I haven’t had one of those in over a month).

But even though I go to this particular Trader Joes, it’s starting to feel unsafe for me.

Yesterday, I had to go to Trader Joes to pick up a few items (mainly household things). I decided that since I wasn’t doing my usual shopping, I wouldn’t walk through the aisles the way I typically do. I thought that would shock my muscle memory and I would be able to walk out with just the few things I needed.

I got my items but ended up right next to one of my “bad” foods, which happens to be the fresh mozzarella. I wasn’t planning on buying it (I didn’t need it), but somehow it ended up in my basket along with a few other things that I used to eat all the time but have tried to avoid lately.

And like I was on auto-pilot I bought those items, brought them home, and ate them (in a particular order which I’ve always done).

And as soon as I did it I felt sick. There was no need for me to eat these things. Looking back, I had forgotten to eat at all before going to the grocery store (the graveyard shifts throw off my meal times) and that was a huge mistake. I try to never go to the store hungry. Not only does that make me feel like I need a certain food, my willpower is lowered and I just don’t think about it.

But I’m trying to tell myself that just because I had a bad few hours yesterday doesn’t mean I can’t have good hours after that. In the past, I would always tell myself that I could start a diet on “Monday” (Monday is really any arbitrary day in the future). I would tell myself that I would get what I wanted until then and then once “Monday” comes I’ll be good.

I’m not doing that this time. Today is a workout day at Orangetheory Fitness and I have all my meals for the day planned out (and I’ll be under my calorie goal so that will help with the excess of calories from yesterday).

This is progress for me. It might not seem like it, but I know that it is. I just have to accept that slip ups will happen from time to time and that I have to be ok with that. And that I can get back on track immediately and don’t need to go crazy.

I’m going to try to eliminate those “bad” foods from my diet, but I’m slowly removing “bad” foods. I haven’t gotten any fast food in a month (unless you count one In-N-Out burger on the way to Lake Tahoe). And there some delivery food that I used to get way too often and I haven’t ordered it for 3 weeks (which is really good for me). And there are other foods from Trader Joes that are “bad” and I have been able to avoid getting them for over a week.

It’s baby steps, but there is progress. I’m just trying to be patient with myself and more accepting of my flaws and slip ups. And just because I’m accepting doesn’t mean I’m ok with them. I just know that I can’t be too harsh on myself because if I do, I’ll just go back to how things used to be.

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