My meal plan for the week

Now that I am working full time outside of the home, I find that I need to be super organised over weekends to get everything ready for the week ahead. Over the last few weeks I have gotten into the habit of planning our meals for the following week on a Friday night. I then try to get to the shops early on a Saturday morning to get all the groceries done and then prep as many of our meals in advance for the week in order to  take a bit of stress off of me in the evenings when I get home. 

Before I started working, I doubled up on a few of our meals and popped them into the freezer. I have found this a huge help! It saves so much time in the evenings, leaving me with plenty of time to spend with my loved ones instead of slaving away in the kitchen.

This passed week I discovered a great blog called "Organize yourself skinny" (www.organizeyourselfskinny.com). The author is also a busy mom who decided to change her lifestyle for the better. On the blog she gives loads of tips on how to prepare healthy nutritious food in advance. There are some delicious looking recipes and inspiring ideas. Two of which I am going to try out this week: spiced apple oatmeal cups and salad in a jar.

I baked a batch of the spiced apple oatmeal cups this afternoon and the mere smell of them from the oven got my tummy rumbling. The recipe includes fragrant cinnamon and nutmeg, apples and chopped up walnuts. I have used pecan nuts in the ones I baked today because that's what I had in the cupboard. I will have one of these for breakfast with some yogurt. Each cup works out to 188 calories. 

For lunch I have made myself salad in a jar. It is a layered salad which is packed in a glass consol jar. I can hear you asking, "but won't the salad wilt?". The trick (apparently) lies in the layering and ensuring the jar is air tight and that it stays upright until you want to eat it so that the tomato juice and dressing doesn't touch your delicate salad greens. Once you are ready to eat, you shake it up, tip it into a bowl and voila! A healthy lunch in a few seconds! For my jars this week I have used a balsamic vinigerette and a honey and mustard dressing. Salad ingredients include tomatoes, cucumber, red onion, mini mielies, carrots, sprouts and feta. For protein I have used tuna (mixed with oreganum and spring onions) and rotisserie chicken. All of this is topped off with some butter lettuce. 

My meal plan for the week looks like this:

Breakfast: oatmeal cups and yogurt / boiled eggs and toast

Midmorning snack: fruit 

Lunch: salad in a jar

Mid afternoon snack: home made biltong and chive dip and crudités / fruit

Suppers:

Monday - beef stroganoff on buttered cabbage (from Raising Superheroes) which I prepared on Sunday.

Tuesday - bobotie and rice (freezer meal)

Wednesday - slow cooker Hawaiian Chicken and rice

Thursday - family dinner night at my in laws (and my mom-in-laws scrummy food). 

Friday - courgette spaghetti and mince

Saturday - braai and salad (the weather is supposed to be great again)

Sunday - roast chicken and veg

So that is my meal plan for the week. Other things on my "agenda": to replace sugar with xylitol, limit myself to 3 cups of coffee, TO DRINK A LOT OF WATER and to get back to gym.

Have a splendid week!

Until next time

XX-L

Spring: a new beginning

Sometimes life doesn't go the way we always plan. For the past 6 years I have been a stay at home mom and really happy with my life. At the beginning of this year, I decided to take control of my eating habits and started exercising (and blogging). Everything was going along swimmingly until winter hit....and I hit a wall. If you had asked me in February where I saw myself by September, I would have replied: "Ten kilos lighter, fitter and still a stay at home mom".In reality, where am I by almost the beginning of September? Back where I started in January....and fulfilling a new role as a working mom.

With this new role comes a WHOLE new routine and new challenges: time consuming daily commute, a desk job (my first one ever!), a full schedule in the evenings to spend as much time with my family as I can before bedtime and prep for the next day at work. When will I be able to fit in some exercise into this new routine? Healthy packed work lunches (and breakfasts)...Pinterest is a girls best friend. Weekends are there to get ready for the next week.

So, how am I going to balance my new busy work/family life schedule and exercise? Honestly, I don't know. Leaving home for work at 6am makes exercise BEFORE work difficult. We only get home at 6pm and then I want to spend time with Master J, Little Miss E and my hubby. It's very important to me that I am there for dinner time and to put them to bed...and by that time, the gym is closed. My only option is to walk for 30 min at the gym each morning from 5 -5:30am....a little bit of exercise is better than no exercise, right? And of course, with the weather warming up and it not being so soggy outside, our whole family can make a return to Root 44 parkrun - yay! As some added motivation, my sister and I have entered the 5km Gun run which is happening on the 11th of October. With that little challenge lying ahead of me, I will HAVE to make a concerted effort to get back to the gym and plan some fun-filled family fitness activites for weekends.

Sadly my new schedule does not allow me the time to continue exercising with Suzy or walking in the mornings with my walking buddies. I miss them dearly. Exercising in a group is so much more motivating than trying to do it on your own. Thank heavens for whatsapp groups so that I can stay in touch with these lovely ladies and we try to motivate one another through that.

I will also have to really watch what I put in my mouth. It is so easy to quickly pop out at lunch time for a take away or a piece of cake with that lunch time cup of coffee. Not only is it not good for the waistline, but the wallet suffers too. I am very fortunate to be working with some wonderful people, However, none of them have a weight problem....and they all love sweeties, cake and all things yummy. So I will have to learn to say no and put my blinkers on to what they are eating and focus on my healthy food. Thank goodness the weather is warming up, so it should be easier to get all that water in and eat lighter, fresh food.

Today I choose to celebrate all the changes in my life. I will look for ways to overcome the challenges and rejoice in all the GOOD things this change has brought.

Until next time,

XX-L