My Weight Loss Toolbox: Meal Calendar, (part 1)

Food/Calorie Journal
Scale
Walking App
Meal Calendar
Digital Food Scale that Weighs in Grams
Weekly, Detailed, Shopping List
Walking Buddy (My Daughter & My Dogs)
Yeti 36oz Rambler
Walking Shoes and Walking Socks

Let’s explore these one at a time.

FYI: There are a lot of calendar pictures in this post.  Plus it is long, so I will be splitting it up in to several parts.

I have said this many times and I am here to say it again: I need to have a plan.  I am not a go with the flow type person, I want to know what is going on and I want to be involved with the planning.  This aspect has stretched to multiple areas of my life, but most notably, my planning was one of the best tools my family used to lose weight. 

I highly recommend creating a meal calendar.  Some people plan a couple of days out or one week – I plan dinners for the whole month.  I reserve an hour or so block during the day that I will be building my food/meal calendar to sit down with my calendar and recipe books and create our monthly plan.  I first take into account anything that will be going on throughout the month.  Birthdays?  Holidays?  Vacation/trips?  Invites over to someone else’s house?  Gatherings that we are hosting?  (We used to host a family dinner night every Monday and a friends/cousins game night every Wednesday.  We liked to entertain).  Once I have these dates noted, I take into consideration the season.  Is it Winter?  Will I be craving large meals with gravies and potatoes?  Think oven usage or a bubbling cauldron or a slow-warming cast iron skillet – it cooks slowly in your kitchen, filling your house with warmth and amazing smells of spices, juices, and comfort.  Is it Spring, which means Winter in Wisconsin because Wisconsin doesn’t warm up until May?  Spring brings new produce options like asparagus and strawberries.  Yes, technically we can get these products any time, but when you eat in season, asparagus is coming in Spring.  The oven is on and the stove is bubbling still in Spring, but not for quite as long.  The outdoors is begging you to stay out a little longer.  So fresher foods start to grace the dining room table.  A summer dish sneaks by, every once in a while, as if it is a reminder that Summer IS COMING!  (Wisconsin – we need to remember what Summer is like).  A Kielbasa or smoked polish sausage with buttered noodles and a random vegetable…no, it’s not a healthy meal, but Grandma made it often and she turned out just fine, besides, it’s a promise to your family that Summer will be here soon.  It is a reminder that the outdoor grill will be in use and there will be a reason to gather [easier] outside.  And then Summer comes and the humidity is intense and you wonder why you ever wished for Summer.  The kitchen is turned off.  Off!  If your family wants a hot meal, they can microwave it.  Husband (spouse, child, random stranger) asks “What’s for dinner?” and you point to the cut fruit, melting sliced cheese, and cereal that is on the table.  I personally cannot eat “big food” or “heavy food” in the summer.  I eat cold foods and light easy things.  Cut fruits, vegetables and hummus, sliced cheese and nuts make it to the calendar as a meal often enough.  And then Fall.  The humidity starts to drop and the weather starts to turn, ever so slightly.  It is not cold – not yet.  Dare you say comfortable.  It is comfortable.  Heavy foods are not needed yet – not the big roasts and huge meals – but warmth is wanted.  Soup.  Chilis.  Stews.  Casseroles.  Layered potato dishes.  Slow cooker lasagna.  Meals that you “accidently” add just a little too much cheese to…Fall meals.  I keep the seasons in mind as I plan for the meals ahead.  If something special is going on, I try to incorporate meals to add to the day.

Then I add my “givens.”  Some givens change here and there.  One given that I do not see ever changing is Taco Tuesday.  I just cannot see my husband being okay with Taco Tuesday disappearing.  Another meal for my husband is “Sushi Friday” which is on the last Friday of the month.  I do my best to remember that one.  For a short while, I ordered Sushi every other Friday because I had an evening personal development class I was going to.  There was also a large stretch of time when on Thursdays I would rotate the meal to be salads, stir fry or curry.  It was easy to remember, cheap to buy for, and most importantly, it came after game night on Wednesday.  One of our game night guests glanced at our calendar that hung on our basement door and said “So you’re telling me you just have a salad for dinner?  Why?”  I explained that I allowed for less than healthy food on Wednesdays – for game night.  We had guests over, and even though there were healthy options, there was also an hors d’oeuvre, salad (usually), main course, dessert, and a late-night snack.  There was a whole day’s worth of food just for that get-together.  (I really miss game night…)  So, Thursday allowed my body to level back out – quickly.  I may have screwed up on Wednesday by having my cake and eating it too (or in most cases, having Scoop De Ville ice cream from the downtown shop in Hartford, Wisconsin) but I would get it together and have a vegetable-based dinner on Thursday to normalize.  It also helped even out the inevitable weight gain that momentarily happened.  (Can you tell I miss Wisconsin and seeing people yet?!) 

Side note – do you know how many farms I have seen while out here?  None.  Only while driving to the destination – from Wisconsin to our new house.  Farms dot the state, but they are not close to us.  Do you know how many times I saw a farm in Wisconsin?  Almost daily – because I walked my dogs to it – 5 blocks away – almost every day.  Population density is almost three times as much here in Norwood, Pennsylvania as it is in Hartford, Wisconsin.  Growth zones are different – as Norwood’s is 6b-7a maybe even 7b and Hartford’s is a solid 5a, maybe 5b.  The Tyler Arboretum here is Norwood, Pennsylvania has been growing lettuces all through the Winter – only covering with a miniature hoop house over individual rows if it gets “cold.”  Nothing is growing in Wisconsin because they are frozen under snow!  My daughter is digging in our backyard with a stick and is making holes in the yard because the ground is not frozen.  When moving into our house in October, placing our birdfeeders were listed high on the to-do list, as we needed to put shepard’s hooks into the ground to hook the birdfeeders to.  Depending on the year – without an auger or directed heat source, there are several months out of the year where one simply cannot push a steak in the ground in Wisconsin.  No issues in Norwood.  I need to pick out what I think I am going to be growing here and get some seeds going in the house as the growing season starts earlier here.  I was shocked to find how early I need to get started on this.  These changes impact me and some of them throw me off. 

When I am thrown off, it impacts my mood and then I do not want to be productive.  If allowed, I will take an easy way out and throw in a pizza or order out for dinner.  I do not feel like cooking.  I’m in a bad mood.  “What a day.”  “I deserve a break…”I will tell myself all sorts of things to allow my laziness to set in.  This calendar keeps me centered.  Many, many MANY, days, I do NOT want to cook.  It is not always fun.  Cooking is not something that I just was born loving to do.  No.  I learned to like it.  Because what other species (besides male lions, queen insects and a species of ant) figures other “people” should care for them and feed them?  Food is a basic necessity, and someone has to cook and that is the role that I filled in our household.  And instead of hating that I am the one to do it, I took it on, made it interesting, tried new things, got excited, and LEARNED to like it.  No matter what attitude I am in, no matter what is going on, my food calendar will dictate what is being served on the dining room table, whether I feel like it that day or not.  And that is pretty powerful.  I plan these meals when I am in a good mood, satiated and not stressed or rushed.  That way I am making healthy (or at least healthier) decisions compared to when it is 17:00 (5pm) and I need to figure out a dinner on the spot.  This statement is long winded – TLDR – the calendar keeps you grounded, no matter what!

My past calendars served their purpose – they were a tool for planning meals.  After the year was up, I put them in my daughter’s craft bin to use for scrap paper.  The calendar pictures could be cut apart and used on art projects or collages.  To my surprise, I only used one picture so far – December 2019 – but all the other calendar months are intact.  So here it is.  I am no pro, but these are the meals that we had over the past 3 years:

This was my first attempt at true meal planning.  Before this, I would have a rough idea of what we would be eating but I did not have it planned out.  Real quick recap of the time leading up to this first plan:
-Then fiancé, now husband, Lucas, purchased house (duplex) 3/2014
-Lucas and I got married 10/2014
-Had our wedding reception 11/2014
-2 days later, opened my blacklight, indoor, miniature golf course: Brisingamen’s Indoor Miniature Golf
-Lucas and I continued to go to our full-time jobs plus run the golf course with no employees of any kind until 6/2015 when I persuaded my cousin who just graduated from high school to watch the shop in exchange for an apartment, utilities, food, and internet.  He agreed.
-Whoopsie!  That IUD that I had, that still had 3 years of potency left – yeah – it was defeated by a stubborn willed fetus and we found out we were pregnant 10/2015.
-Continued to work full-time and run the golf course until the birth of our daughter 7/2016.
-My position at my job has officially switched to a part-time position. 
-We decided to focus on Catawba-Lynn, our daughter, instead of the business, as I knew I was incapable of doing both.  Indoor miniature golf closes 5/2017. 
-The next day, Lucas creates his consulting business, and it takes off.
-I fully quite my job.  I stay home with Catawba-Lynn.  This allows Lucas to concentrate on his full-time job and his 20+ hour weekly consulting he is doing.  I love working, but this set up is best for the family.  8/2017.
-Lucas quits his full-time job to transition over to full time consulting.  This was very scary, but we believed in each other and we knew it was a risk worth taking. 12/2017.
*So yeah, life was a little different right before I started this meal calendar, but I figured with all the change, why not change up the kitchen and the way we eat too.

I was very ridged in the beginning.  I had to have everything planned out.  I was not used to mandating that a fruit and vegetable had to be with most meals.  (We have a fruit and a vegetable with all lunches and dinners – breakfast is a pass because of the make up of the meal).  The numbers that I write at the top of the calendar denote what breakfast and lunch we were having.  I had not switched over to a constant breakfast of fluids and a protein shake yet.  The checkmark means I made the meal and the line across means it did not happen.  Looks like 4^th, 5^th, 6^th, 28^th and technically the 31^st did not happen.  And some others were switched around on the fly.

Now look at this first month!  Do you see any unpronounceable meals or ingredients?  (Except for my spelling, guys.  Don’t ding me on my spelling!  It is bad!!)  No – this is just an average person trying to throw some food together – healthy or not – with a very fluid plan!  Come on!  Burritos? Pot pies?  Nachos?  Hotdogs?  Pizza?  Ravioli?  For weight loss?!  No way.  But this is how it started.  This was the start so I could get us eating at home, saving money, and to get the routine in place.

*Explanation of meals:
-Thanksgiving: I basically recreate a (smaller) Thanksgiving meal.  Smaller cut of turkey, and then all the goodies – minus the green bean casserole and pies.  I never made green bean casserole and honestly, even today, I am not at pie level baking yet.
-Cherri Pizza: Our friend, Cherri, brought pizza to game night, as I was a little overwhelmed with whatever was going on at the time.  I miss game night so much.

Did you notice that Taco Tuesday was with our family from the start?  Like I have said, I do not think my husband “will allow” Taco Tuesday being cancelled.  It may be grounds for divorce.

Wow, so you are starting to see some of the switching around going on here.  8^th did not happen.  Beef and Gravy happened on the 9^th which means Fish Foils got moved to the 15^th, cancelling Untidy Joseph.  Chinese almost did not happen on the 16^th, but I pulled through and microwaved a couple of frozen foods (that is how I do homemade “Chinese” night).  Texas Roadhouse was added in to one of the Sundays (I blame my parents.  I am going to guess they took us out – they love Texas Roadhouse).  Pork chops were pushed to March (3^rd) because I guess Taco Bell took precedence and Hotdogs got cancelled on the 22^nd to make room for Creamy Chicken and Carrots which was supposed to be on the 17^th but needed to move because of a wine tasting event I made up.  Ah, yes.  Wine tasting, two weeks in a row, during weight loss.  (Got to love airing out dirty laundry).

This wine tasting event was amazing – worth every penny (it was so cheap) and every pound that I was set back!  (I can say that now but maybe not then…)  Alright.  I love wine.  My favorite bottle is an open bottle!  I do not really have a favorite because wine changes.  It changes in the bottle.  It changes from year to year as the grapes grow differently.  It changes with temperature and handling.  It changes with your mood.  And it changes with the food on your plate.  I had an idea.  Invite friends over for a wine tasting event – but the wine could only be Winking Owl – Aldi’s $3 wine.  And all the food accompaniments could only be purchased from Aldi.  Fruit, cheese, chocolate, microwaveable Asian spicy noodles, crackers, flavored nuts, soups, chips…the whole point was to sit with a very cheap glass (taste) of wine and enjoy it and then experience how it changes with different foods.  We purchased every type of Winking Owl wine that was sold at the neighboring city Aldi (the Aldi in Hartford, Wisconsin does not sell alcohol) and on the 10^th, Lucas and I tried my idea by ourselves, just to see if it was worth sharing, and it was fantastic.  We invited friends and family over for the tasting on the 17^th, serving some of the pairings that we found during our practice run on the 10^th and allowed for exploration.  We wished the turn out would have been better (short notice) but for those that were able to come – it was fantastic!

Did anyone notice that protein shakes were making an appearance for breakfast?  (This became our norm for well over a year, later on).  And French toast?!  French toast got its own breakfast number, apparently.  Guess it was a planned caloric nightmare to start the day off, not just an accidental slip up or give in to a craving.  I say that because my portion control in 2018 was not the greatest yet.  And I like maple syrup.  I never intended to share these calendars with anyone.  My intention was to create an easy, cheap tool to get our family by and hopefully help us lose weight.  And it worked.  And you can see, I surely am not perfect.

Alright, the 6^th and 7^th were cancelled, (not sure why, but I think it was due to Luke’s consulting) 15^th was added to the 16^th because we went out for dinner, Burritos on the 24^th was moved to April, I did not get to have “Frozen Vegetable Mixes” for dinner on the 30^th (sometimes Lucas says “No”) and on the 31^st Meatless Meatballs did not happen because that meal takes an extra day of prep – and that is Luke’s meal to make – and he did not do it.  (I am going to have to see if he ever made those again for me.  Nope.  Did not.  Guess what is coming back in 2021…) 

By the way, Lucas worked from home at the time, so I was making all of these meals for him as well.  We were very glad Lucas was able to see Catawba-Lynn during meals throughout the work week.  The 19^th starts the first “Mexican Week”, where I make Mexican food for dinner each night.  Yes, these are generic meals, but this week is still loved by Lucas and now my daughter, so I think it is a win.

Oh gods.  Frigg had to be shaking her head.  So may arrows.  Alright!  The 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd, did not happen because Lucas had a consulting trip and I was fortunate enough to come with.  So, Lucas, Catawba-Lynn and I drove to Skokie to stay in a hotel.  Catawba-Lynn and I walked around the area while Lucas worked.  We walked because I did not want to spend money on tourist stuff and go shopping.  I was very frugal with our budget – still am.  And besides, this was a new area to explore – so I had to do it!   Sadly, I had not started cooking in hotel rooms yet, so I believe we went out those nights.  The 4^th and the 11^th switched.  5^th meal became the 6^th meal which became the 7^th meal so that the 7^th meal was the 5^th meal.  But it looks like Roast, the 5^th meal, might not have happened at all.  13^th did not happen; 14^th was supposed to be the 9^th but ended up being the 21^st meal.  We skipped Leftovers on the 22^nd and went out instead.  We had our leftovers on the 23^rd.  We went out on the 26^th, so the 26^th was pushed to the 27^th, which was pushed to the 28^th, which was pushed to the 30^th and poor peanut butter and banana sandwiches for dinner never happened.  Wow, what a month!

Catawba-Lynn was just under two years old in May 2018.  Lucas and I discussed going to the World Wide Data Vault Consortium held in Vermont.  It would be excellent for Lucas to strengthen his skills and interact with people in his field, as he worked from home and did not get to share his interests with much of anyone.  With my parents watching our dogs and my cousin watching the rest of my pets, we embarked on our drive from Wisconsin to Vermont.  I did not have meals planned as I did not know what to expect with such a long trip and such a young child.  But I did pack food.  I had a whole cooler full of salads, cut fruits and vegetables, protein bars, eggs, cheese, Diet Coke, and snacks that we could eat on the road and in the hotel room.  That trip taught me what not to pack (sliced cucumbers do not travel well – and neither does the rest of your food when the cucumber container breaks open and slimes itself all over the ice and water in the cooler.  Ugh, that was a nasty mess to clean up.  I did not need to plan meals on this trip – just snacks and breakfasts for the three of us and lunches for Catawba-Lynn and me, as Lucas was taken care of during lunch and some of the dinners and we would go out for the others.  I remember this month.  I barely cooked!  It was so hard to get back in the swing of things for June.

The beginning of the month started slow but turned out much better towards the end.  Again, peanut butter and jelly and banana sandwiches got cancelled.  However, if you did notice, there was a “Beer Garden” in here and Casa Tequila is a Mexican restaurant that we used to frequent, that got our business for Taco Tuesday two weeks in a row.

*Explanation of food: Power Bowls!  Man, these are good.  The 7^th was the first time I put them together, hence why the day is written out weird.  I had to draw a bowl and try and figure out where the ingredients would fit. 
The ingredients for that day were:
-Lettuce
-Black beans
-Kidney beans
-Pinto beans
-Broccoli
-Rice
-Corn
-Salsa
-Chick Peas
-Peas
-Tuna
-Cheese
-Canned potatoes
-Guacamole
-Eggs
-Quinoa
-Nuts
-Onions
-Bell pepper

And I am going to take a pause here. I will post the second half of 2018 in a couple of days.
Let me know if you have any questions about the calendar.
Have a great one, everyone!