Try, Try, Again.

Seems that's my motto.  Try and try again.  Why?  Because I keep making bad choices.  Choices that take me three steps back instead of one (giant?) step forward.

This past week was a terrible one for me - diet-wise. Report cards were due on Friday, and that means I had to get them done and in the hands of the teachers prior to that.  Teaching two math classes, I have to have the grades in so that the homeroom teachers can type them into the main report card.  Those I did on Tuesday night and Wednesday night.  I worked at school for a while, then came home to make dinner and then work until about 10pm.  And, it is also Girl Scout cookie season, and yes, I bought too many.  I hate to disappoint my students who ask, and I do love GS cookies!  Of course, I don't think they mean for you to eat a whole box in one sitting.  (No, I didn't, but I came close. Those lemonade cookies are addictive!)  

Stress eating.  A common problem for many.  It's in all the diet books.  So what do you do?  You pack healthy snacks and leave them right on the desk in plain sight, but you know the cookies are in the drawer.  You know the chocolates are hiding there, too.  (Those Dove candy messages should say - "Put me down, Fatty!)  Teachers tend to get a chocolate craving right around 3pm when they can finally relax as the kids dismiss for the day.  I'm not making this up.  At 3:00, it's "happy hour," but we can't go to a bar -- no, there's plenty of work left to do.  (Don't get me started on how many hours a teacher really works!)  So we snack.  Sometimes on healthy foods, sometimes the worst alternative.

What else?  Oh yeah, birthday parties!  Now, I don't have a classroom of kids for my own, but in ways that's much worse.  No, I don't have to say no to 25-26 kids in my class when celebrating a birthday.  No, I am the lucky one who gets visited by all 80 of my students -- and some kids who aren't my students but just want to see if I give a "birthday prize."  (I do - here's a nice, shiny birthday pencil!)

Others tell me I should just think about where that cupcake or cookie has been all day -- or even in the past 10 minutes.  Some kid has been schlepping it all around the school trying to give it away.  They sometimes forget that you can help yourself and put their grubby little hands on it to hand it to you.  And who knows who coughed or sneezed, or spitted on the tray?  Yeah, you'd think that would do it, right?  Nah.  I eat it anyway.  It is so delicious - especially the cupcakes from Sam's club or Tops.  Yummy.  But I instantly regret it and feel like a failure again.

But isn't that the vicious cycle we all go through?  We try, we fail, we try again.  We keep trying, hoping things turn out differently.   But there is hope, still.

One of the strategies I've tried lately is planning out our meals on Sunday, then shopping for everything and putting it in plastic boxes in our extra frig.  When we get home there's no figuring out, "What should we eat?" and "Do we have anything in the frig?"  We know what we're eating and we have all the ingredients.  I have also planned for several crockpot meals to alleviate cooking at the end of the day.  Boy, is that nice to come home to!

But, the problem these past two weeks has provoked is too many leftovers!  Now there is just so much food in the refrigerator!  And with yummy leftovers, I look right past the salad.  Yes, I do!  (Hard to believe, right?)  We've cut back this week and only planned 5 meals so we can bank on some leftovers a few nights.

Here's what it all looks like in process ...  after I get home from grocery shopping, I start sorting out ingredients and put them in the boxes.  Then they go to our extra frig until the day/night they are needed. We do like this plan, but we're still working it out.

I alter the menus -- some to be vegetarian/vegan, others with a meat focus, and all trying to limit processed, high carb foods.

I copy and paste recipes from the internet, and reformat them to look nice.  I file these in a binder in plastic sleeves.  That way we won't mess up the paper when we are cooking, and we can write down what worked, what didn't, and if we liked it, we can make it again.

So, hopefully this week will be better.  Less stress, cookies disposed of, and only a few chocolates left to distract.  I'll post some of our favorite recipes from the week!  (Now, to bed before I eat something!)