I’ve written several posts about my struggles with food. And I’ve also written a lot about issues with working on a budget that is manageable and will help me pay down my debt. Both of these things are things that I struggle with a lot and it seems like whenever I get a handle on things, something changes and I have to start from the beginning again. I know there is a connection between addiction/eating disorders and debt, but the connection for me is just starting to register.
Since food is something I will always need to buy, I have to budget for it. But things change week to week on what I need so I’m much more flexible with my budget in that category. I try to stay within a budget that I set for each week, but if I have to buy food and I’ve already hit what I wanted to spend that week I still have to get food. I know that some of this extra spending is due to lack of planning, and I’m working on that. I also have realized that I’ve been letting food go to waste if I forget to eat it and that adds to my expenses. So I’ve been working on fixing both of these problems at once.
Recently my dermatologist put me on an antibiotic that I took twice a day for 2 weeks. I had to take the medication with food and I couldn’t take it at the same time as my morning medications because of issues with the antibiotic and a multivitamin. So I planned on taking it at lunchtime and dinnertime each day since that would work with taking it with food. At that same time I started working out at the Culver City Orangetheory location, which meant lots of early morning workouts. And I can’t really eat too much before a morning workout, but at the same time I can’t work out on an empty stomach. So I had to start experimenting with what I eat and when I eat.
This can totally change (because like I said, things always change when I think I finally have a handle on it), but right now it’s been working to drink a little bit of chocolate milk before my workout and then having a meal around 11am (brunch?) and then dinner. While I know that I should be eating 3 meals a day at least, this plan has been working for a bit for both my weight loss and my budget. When I only have to think about 2 meals a day, somehow it’s easier for me to meal plan. And it’s almost more like 1 meal a day because I eat pretty much the same thing each day as my mid-day meal.
I know that for some people this is a no-brainer. Eating the same thing every day is a weight loss strategy that works for many people. Having a lack of variety does work for some people, but it’s never really worked for me before. The only exception to this was when I was doing the UCLA diet when there was no variety as I had the same thing 6 times a day. But when I could choose from whatever I wanted, having a lack of variety would lead to me doing last-minute grocery store runs to get something else to eat because I was bored with the plan I had.
I don’t know if it is timing or doing the morning workouts, but the lack of variety is working for me. The number on my scale is slowly going down and I’ve been able to limit how often I need to go to the grocery store. I still have some wasted food, but it’s significantly less than it was before. And I know that if I work on planning things out a bit better, I can improve on the budgeting even more.
Even though I’ve known that my food budget was a bit out of control, things just finally clicked with me recently that I needed to work on this. It’s one of the few areas in my budget that has flexibility and I know that it is possible to eat what I need to while spending less money. Hopefully having this plan will not only keep my budget in a better place but will continue to limit how often I have to confront what I want to eat. If I don’t have to think about it, I can avoid grocery stores when I know that I am just looking for junk food to eat.
Just like every other time I think I have things worked out, I am hopeful that this may work but I am also realistic that this could just be something that is working temporarily. But I hope that whatever skills and tricks I learn while this is working are things that I can keep using even if I can’t keep up the current plan.
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Time For Some Planning (or Trying A Challenge Again This Month)
Routine Time Again (or Getting Back On Track)
Budgeting and Spending (or Sharing YNAB With A Cashier)
Food Scheduling (or Trying Out New Things)
Getting Back To Better Food (or Finding My Own Balance)
Still Figuring Out Meal Planning (or Will Food Ever Be Easy For Me?)
