I have been going to the gym now for a good 2 months. I have lost 5 lbs since January. Out of context this seems great.. but guys.. its APRIL! Even if I only lost a pound a week, I should be down about 15 lbs. I have really been struggling with this lately but I can't beat myself up about it. I am eating the best I have ever eaten. I finally feel ok with eating very little processed foods. My daily diet consists mostly of : almonds, eggs, greek yogurt, chicken, tilapia, broccoli, salad, whole grain bread and peanut butter. I'm learning to like other things like hummus, and chickpeas. We eat more beans and brown rice. I bake or pan sear nearly everything and only treat us to a "fried" food occasionally. Even the kids are adapting. They are eating fruit, popcorn, and homemade granola bars for snacks, I hardly buy packaged snacks and stopped buying chips. I make homemade tortilla chips baked in the oven instead and my oldest LOVES them. I know its time to get groceries when the refrigerator is getting empty.
After meeting with the personal trainer, I have been trying to incorporate more weights with my exercises but for the last month, the scale hasn't budged. I began researching and realized that likely my 1400 calorie diet was too LOW. It seems odd, but I needed to increase how much I was eating in order to jump start my weight loss again. I am still in trial mode as I only began this a week ago. Although the scale isn't moving, it hasn't fluctuated up either so this keeps me hopeful. Like I had said this was really dragging me down. It is so frustrating to watch your husband literally decrease his food intake and start dropping pounds every day. I have to keep going to the gym even when I don't feel like it. I did have my body fat percentage evaluated though and I have lost between 3-5% body fat so that makes me want to keep chugging along also.
Today for example, I was going to skip it. I was tired, had a headache and just was feeling down. Right before I went to pick my son up from school, I told myself , "Who am I kidding? Jessica, get off your butt and go to the gym." So I did. After picking him up from school, off we went. While I was warming up on the treadmill, a couple moms from the school showed up and they invited me to come lift with them. I thought sure.. why not. She set up a circuit training routine and said we were going to do 4 sets. When I got off the couch today.. I had no idea this was in store for me. This was THE hardest workout I have ever done. I burned more calories in that hour than I ever have before. It was so hard but I am so glad I got up and went today. It looks like I now have my own personal trainer and workout partner. She invited me to join her anytime she was there and gave me her schedule.
I really hope this is what I need. I realized today that maybe I just wasn't doing enough or pushing myself hard enough and I just need to keep doing it and keep being patient. In time the weight will come off, for now I am enjoying my victory of defeat over the old me and becoming friends with the new one.
Showing posts with label groceries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label groceries. Show all posts
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
My take on coupons...and humanity
First I want to say that I understand not everyone who uses coupons is this way (I even use them from time to time), and that I don't mean to step on any toes but this is how I see the couponing craze, and how it makes me CRAZY.
If you have seen Extreme Couponing then I am sure it seems glamorous and exciting to think you can get things for free! I won't lie, I bought into it at first. I mean the thought of being able to get things for free, and lots of them, was amazing! I will be honest and say that I have never seen the show, but I don't have to, I get to live it every single day I go to work. I used to think it was fun and interesting. I wanted to be on the specialist lines and see what the deals were so I could go later and pick up the same things for little or nothing.
I had 5 newspapers delivered to my door every Sunday so I could get a bunch of coupons, I printed them off the internet and grabbed the high value ones I saw stuck to packages. I spent hours, clipping and sorting and organizing my binder, looking online for the latest deals, seeing when the next "double coupon day" was. I was never as extreme as some, but I had begun to develop a nice little stockpile in the garage of sauces and cereals, shampoo and deodorant.
As the show became popular, and more people learned the "tricks", coupon classes popped up all over and people would organize shopping groups, I began to feel much differently about coupon usage. I think the first time I began to question my feelings about it was when I was working and there was a phenomenal deal on cereal. Cereal for 98 cents! After coupons and doubling, they were 100% free. People were beating down our doors, price matching and doubling and buying literally hundreds of boxes of cereal at a time.
As I was working, I had 5 couponers in my line each with a cart full of cereal. Management began to question what to do, they were emptying our shelves, buying boxes that were different sizes that our competitor carried because exact sizes weren't stated. Regular shoppers were upset because there was no product available for them to purchase, they were all being hoarded by couponers. It was when they began yelling at me, belittling me when I didn't provide them with the deal they thought they were entitled to, that I began wondering how people can stoop so low, get so worked up over cereal. They were rude, mean, and felt they were entitled to the great deals.
This was when I quit extreme couponing. As a retailer, we provided a service to the customers, to make it convenient to shop at only one place by allowing price matching and coupon doubling. These people treated us like trash, bringing cashiers to tears, calling management and demanding they get what they deserve. We were taken advantage of, stolen from, lied to. It saddened me that people would be so gluttonous as to belittle people.
I understand that some people will say that the retailer got what they deserved. They opened their doors to it and shouldn't expect people to be different. Policies have been revised, programs put in place, yet it still is an issue and probably always will be. What I can't understand is how can people use so much stuff? I STILL have cereal in my garage from 6 months ago that my kids can't seem to go through. I have shampoo stocked up that will probably last another 4-5 months and toothbrushes to last a year. And this is with very mild couponing. I can only imagine that these people who have bought cases of things will be hoarding them for months and even years to come.
Aside from all the ethical reasons of why I quit there are other personal issues. A lot of the items that can be bought for cheap or free, are convenience foods and things that aren't really healthy. I try really hard to not buy pre-packaged foods and make most things fresh. I just had no use for much of it. My kids aren't huge cereal eaters so it takes them a long time to go through it. The time I was spending going through coupons was unreal!! I was going to school at the time, caring for my 5 kids, working and keeping house. I just honestly didn't have time to do it anymore. At that point, my time was much more precious than the money I was "saving". And really, I wasn't saving that much. I would spend $50-60 on coupon items and then still have to do my regular shopping so it worked out to where I wasn't really saving any money.
I understand that times are tough and people are trying to save money. Not everyone has the same beliefs as I do and that is fine also. I just wish people could look at it from other perspectives. By taking advantage of the retailer and realizing they are losing money by providing them this service, it will cause prices to increase. We have already seen bonuses disappear since this began. Understand that your cashiers are just doing their job, there is no need to yell at them when they are following policy and just doing what they are required to do, they are people too. Understand that there are people who don't coupon that might want the same product you want. There is no need to clean off a shelf just because you can. Its gluttonous and hoarding and selfish. Realize that maybe you aren't saving so much money. Healthy foods and making a meal plan and sticking to a grocery list will oftentimes save you a lot more money than couponing will. And lastly.. many of the things you see on TV are not realistic. Those people spend a majority of their day looking for deals, it is their job! Many of the tricks they use are not legal and are cheating the system.
If you have seen Extreme Couponing then I am sure it seems glamorous and exciting to think you can get things for free! I won't lie, I bought into it at first. I mean the thought of being able to get things for free, and lots of them, was amazing! I will be honest and say that I have never seen the show, but I don't have to, I get to live it every single day I go to work. I used to think it was fun and interesting. I wanted to be on the specialist lines and see what the deals were so I could go later and pick up the same things for little or nothing.
I had 5 newspapers delivered to my door every Sunday so I could get a bunch of coupons, I printed them off the internet and grabbed the high value ones I saw stuck to packages. I spent hours, clipping and sorting and organizing my binder, looking online for the latest deals, seeing when the next "double coupon day" was. I was never as extreme as some, but I had begun to develop a nice little stockpile in the garage of sauces and cereals, shampoo and deodorant.
As the show became popular, and more people learned the "tricks", coupon classes popped up all over and people would organize shopping groups, I began to feel much differently about coupon usage. I think the first time I began to question my feelings about it was when I was working and there was a phenomenal deal on cereal. Cereal for 98 cents! After coupons and doubling, they were 100% free. People were beating down our doors, price matching and doubling and buying literally hundreds of boxes of cereal at a time.
As I was working, I had 5 couponers in my line each with a cart full of cereal. Management began to question what to do, they were emptying our shelves, buying boxes that were different sizes that our competitor carried because exact sizes weren't stated. Regular shoppers were upset because there was no product available for them to purchase, they were all being hoarded by couponers. It was when they began yelling at me, belittling me when I didn't provide them with the deal they thought they were entitled to, that I began wondering how people can stoop so low, get so worked up over cereal. They were rude, mean, and felt they were entitled to the great deals.
This was when I quit extreme couponing. As a retailer, we provided a service to the customers, to make it convenient to shop at only one place by allowing price matching and coupon doubling. These people treated us like trash, bringing cashiers to tears, calling management and demanding they get what they deserve. We were taken advantage of, stolen from, lied to. It saddened me that people would be so gluttonous as to belittle people.
I understand that some people will say that the retailer got what they deserved. They opened their doors to it and shouldn't expect people to be different. Policies have been revised, programs put in place, yet it still is an issue and probably always will be. What I can't understand is how can people use so much stuff? I STILL have cereal in my garage from 6 months ago that my kids can't seem to go through. I have shampoo stocked up that will probably last another 4-5 months and toothbrushes to last a year. And this is with very mild couponing. I can only imagine that these people who have bought cases of things will be hoarding them for months and even years to come.
Aside from all the ethical reasons of why I quit there are other personal issues. A lot of the items that can be bought for cheap or free, are convenience foods and things that aren't really healthy. I try really hard to not buy pre-packaged foods and make most things fresh. I just had no use for much of it. My kids aren't huge cereal eaters so it takes them a long time to go through it. The time I was spending going through coupons was unreal!! I was going to school at the time, caring for my 5 kids, working and keeping house. I just honestly didn't have time to do it anymore. At that point, my time was much more precious than the money I was "saving". And really, I wasn't saving that much. I would spend $50-60 on coupon items and then still have to do my regular shopping so it worked out to where I wasn't really saving any money.
I understand that times are tough and people are trying to save money. Not everyone has the same beliefs as I do and that is fine also. I just wish people could look at it from other perspectives. By taking advantage of the retailer and realizing they are losing money by providing them this service, it will cause prices to increase. We have already seen bonuses disappear since this began. Understand that your cashiers are just doing their job, there is no need to yell at them when they are following policy and just doing what they are required to do, they are people too. Understand that there are people who don't coupon that might want the same product you want. There is no need to clean off a shelf just because you can. Its gluttonous and hoarding and selfish. Realize that maybe you aren't saving so much money. Healthy foods and making a meal plan and sticking to a grocery list will oftentimes save you a lot more money than couponing will. And lastly.. many of the things you see on TV are not realistic. Those people spend a majority of their day looking for deals, it is their job! Many of the tricks they use are not legal and are cheating the system.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)