Boredom

Almost everyone I know who is on a diet, attempting to diet, wanting to diet, etc becomes bored with their meals.  Boredom makes it so much easier to justify making bad nutritional choices and if you haven't noticed I'm a master of that mentality.  That's why mu hubby requested that I introduce a few new recipes a month so we don't become so bored with eating the same things week after week.  We've been together 8 years (married 2) this summer and when I think about all the times I've made our "staple meals" week after week its extremely easy to see how and where the boredom started. 

When I met my hubby I was 24 and could barely cook.  I didn't understand what flavors went together, why they were good together even really the concept of "good food."  At that point I was eating just because I was hungry without considering nutritional value or flavor quality.  Of course at my first real job right out of college I went up 2 pants sizes...talk about embarrassing.  Well I held onto those 2 pant sizes until I got pregnant.  Now I'm definitely above those 2 pants sizes and desperately wanting to go back to them as quickly as possible..that's goal #1.  Goal #2 is to eliminate those 2 pant sizes and get back to what I consider my "happy weight."  I'll consider myself at my "happy weight" when I'm not embaressed to wear shorts or just above the knee skirts and dresses out in public.  

Anyhow, I say all that to say that learning to cook for yourself is extremely important.  Everytime I hear anyone, male or female, announce proudly that they don't cook, it makes me very ill for them.  I turn into one of those ranting know-it-alls who lectures the youngin's on the value of cooking, and cleaning - this rant is for another day, for yourself.  Do yourself a favor and spend 5 minutes researching new recipes with flavors that you're curious about.  You have no one else to blame if you are bored with your diet...you have full control over everything you put into your body.  With millions of web sites, cooking blogs, cook books, magazines, tv shows, podcasts (you see where I'm going) there's no excuse not to feel free to experiment!  If you are using a small budget as your excuse then you should take some time to evaluate how much money are you spending on the foods that you don't enjoy and reallocate that money for foods that you do.  My opinion, if you enjoy it and it has nutritional value then its a much better investment since you won't be throwing food, or money away.  Just be reasonable and stay within your grocery budget.  

Some of my favorites:
www.foodnetwork.com
www.allrecipes.com
www.onceamonthmom.com
www.realsimple.com
www.tasteofhome.com

Sharing

Just a link to a blog post that I read today that kind of hit home with me.  I'm in the middle of the "OMG we're about to have a baby and our finances will change COMPLETELY" freak-out that every first time parent experiences.  I've given up on winning the lottery, hubby or myself getting a massive raise at work, and some unknown relative dying and leaving us a gazillion dollars.  I've accepted the fact that like everyone else I'm just going to have to put my big girl panties on and stop spending irresponsibly.  I would like to brag though that as of October this past year I have no credit card debt and I'm EXTREMELY proud of that fact.  Now if I can just convince myself that I don't actually need a smartphone....

http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2011/04/11/live-like-no-one-else-so-you-can-live-like-no-one-else/