Total Health Tuesday: Its getting real!

After clearing space in our (intentionally) small pantry, I hit Whole Foods and Trader Joe's:


Why are my groceries worth posting you may ask? I am sure at some point I will say more, but for sake of giving attention to the actual topic at hand, I will simply say that I have battled my weight off and on since I was nine (my profile pic was a few years back in better days). I know what to do to lose weight in a slow, healthy fashion and how to make flavorful food that is also good for you. But when I am bad, I am horrid. Since I was doing all the right stuff and not seeing results last year, I really went off the rails the last few months. My habits show on the scale--the proof is in the pudding (or in this case the pudding led to the proof?).

I didn't need the scale to tell that. I just feel disgusting. We went to Disney just before Halloween; after Halloween it was practically Thanksgiving. Hanukkah felt like it was the next day, and then it was instantaneously New Year's. It has been 10 straight weeks of parties, dinners, and occasions not to cook at home or fill the fridge (at least very often). In 2015 one of my resolutions goals is to get healthy. This may involve an actual diet plan or trip to a nutritionist. It will definitely involve working out. For now, however, it is just about getting real.

I just want to get some real food in our bodies. To that aim, our family and several friends are taking the 100 days of real food 10 day pledge.

Since I have so much knowledge from past weight loss about reading labels and eating organic, I thought it would be a snap. Time will tell, but shopping was not easy as I thought. I had to box up some surprising "off-limits" food during our pledge to avoid temptation. Yes, I knew easy mac was processed and out of the question, but the Organic Whole Cereal (it has added sugar) and organic breadcrumbs?!. Here is what we boxed up:


As you can see above, the bulk of the trip was devoted to organic produce. I couldn't get organic squash at either store, but I feel okay with that as we don't eat the skin. I did get some organic (or grass fed) dairy products including two blocks of cheese, milk, Greek Yogurt and Irish butter. The seafood that you can see is all frozen and wild-caught. I have a great fish monger, but I will have these if I don't get there. I didn't have to buy meat as we already have a deep freezer filled with grass-fed beef from a cow share and some non-hormone chicken (though it is not local). Finally, there are some canned and boxed items, some of which are not organic, but all of which are just made from whole fruits and vegetables:


The food cost was almost double our normal weekly spending at $240. I think the cost is offset by the fact that this includes food for lunches that my husband and I normally eat out. The fridge was also really bare from winter break, so any grocery trip may have been costly. Today is the first day with the food--I will be back to talk about our experience thus far next Tuesday.