$2 a day: overall review

Sorry about the delay one day of this post, yesterday got pretty hectic. I’m in a little three piece acoustic group and we got asked to play a last minute show at a local pub in town so between class we were practicing and on top of that I had two basketball games last night.

I weighed in yesterday morning at 256 pounds, netting a total loss of 24 pounds for the 30 day experiment. I feel great for the most part, but am still excited to have a bit more freedom in what I can eat. I have around 20% of the peanut butter left, barely any butter left, apples, around 40% of the mayonnaise, around 1/3 of the ketchup, 1/3 of the pancake batter, and 2/3 of the syrup left. Everything else was eaten including all the eggs, tuna, bread, etc.

I have four receipts from Wal-Mart for the food I purchased which carries a running total of $52.44, plus the $4.50 I spent at Taco Johns totals $56.94. This is much less than I anticipated due to me just not being as hungry as I thought I would be at times, especially on weekends when I would sleep in really late and have a few beers at night time.

After updating my meal plan chart (which I will upload) here are my final average nutrition facts per day:

• Calories – 1738.73 (2000)
• Fat – 62.64 (65)
• Carbs – 234.48 (300)
• Sugar – 37.63 (0)
• Protein – 56.49 (50)
• Sodium – 4090.18 (2400)

Everything looks solid, and if you measure by unit prices I see I used $44.86 in food at an average of $1.50 per day.

I continue to have people notice how I look slimmer and they say I’ve lost chub in my face, all of which I’m very grateful to hear. I went back this past week and worked on some of my maxes in the weight room because I could tell I had lost a bit of mass in my biceps. I found out that if I lost any weight off my maxes it was no more than 10 pounds and in a few lifts I hadn’t lost any strength at all.

This is a meal plan/diet that I could suggest doing to handful of people but it really takes an amount of discipline to stick to eating these same things on such a regular basis. I love to cook and the amount of creativity I had in the kitchen throughout this experiment was far less than I wish I had. However, I stuck to it and I’m grateful because this has really got me focused and motivated to continue on with the journey. This experience combined with some forums I’ve been reading and advice of friends of mine who are knowledgeable about nutrition have helped me formulate a better idea as to how I can continue counting calories and what kinds of numbers I should be looking to hit if I want to continue shedding a few pounds. It’s nuts to think that if I were to continue on in this fashion (however I think ideally for my body weight and amount of activity I do that even my cutting calorie mark should be higher than 1800) I could lose 35-40 or even 50 pounds in the span of my second semester.

I’m excited to carry forth, and it was good yesterday to eat different meals such as chili and a homemade pizza. I got to marinate some chicken and for the first time I cheffed up a chicken and pineapple pizza which was one of the better homemade pizzas I’ve made. It’s good to be done but I’m not at all disappointed with the experience and certainly not with how it’s affected my mentality, motivation, and weight.

$2 a day: day thirty

Well I’m about to the end, I weighed in Monday morning for my own knowledge but since this is a short week and I’m about done I’m going to wait til Thursday morning when everything is said and done to post my final weight.

I am running low on food but I have plenty to eat today. I won’t go through all the pancake mix but should eat all the ramen, turkey, eggs, and may have a slice or two of bread left. The butter is about gone and the mayonnaise is a little under half left. I’ve been working on eating peanut butter randomly and it’s around 1/3 left.

I feel good, but I am glad this is going to come to an end. I’m getting real excited on what I’m going to attempt here again starting on Monday and right now I plan to give everyone a little background on what I want to do.

The meal plan I begin on Monday will be similar in the fact that I’m going to be eating the 5-6 regular meals a day, only I’m going to be eating a lot lot lot more fruits and vegetables. I plan to buy heads of lettuce and break them up for salads which I’ll put things like carrots, imitation crab meat, and light dressing on. I will be buying plenty of yogurt (even though it pains me to pay something like $0.50 a cup), and there’s a discount bread store not far away that they sell loaves of semi-old Sara Lee bread for $0.75 a loaf. I still plan on things remaining relatively cheap, but the difference will be I’ll be intaking more calories, a lot more protein, and much more variety in my meals.

I’ll have a comprehensive post coming on Thursday as to how I feel about the entire experiment, my weight, and more of the changes that are coming with my meal plan beginning the following Monday.

STEVEmcfly: thoughts on personal motivation

Today I’m going to write a bit about the keys to this diet that I very much want to maintain in the following months to track weight loss and things of that nature. I’ve read a handful of various “how-to”s so to speak on the internet for ideas on how to encourage yourself to lose weight and continue losing weight, all of which I believe have put ideas in my mind that I’ve used or used in some fashion to create my own form of motivation.

First, let me speak in terms of personal motivation. This seems to be the hardest thing for all people trying to lose weight, or accomplish anything such as writing papers, doing a project, working out, etc, to get started and maintain. I have tried watching what I eat before, I’ve tried cutting sodas (I don’t think people realize the magnitude of a soda drinker I was before this experiment), and I’ve tried other crazy ideas on top of all this.

My first experience where I was really happy with how I followed through with a personal experiment or a target of my personal motivation was a few summers ago when a few buddies and I started a blog to chronicle our experiences with polyphasic sleep. We did this fairly successfully (a few lapses, but the experiment I still suggest was a vast success) for around 45-50 days before I had to stop for external reasons (I was in a local band who had an 8-10 day road trip/gigs where I couldn’t continue the pattern), but I learned a lot from that experience in the fact that because we started a website to blog about our experiences, I felt like that helped structure the experiment which ultimately led to our success. What I’m getting at is the structure was the key to the success of the first experience and what I would say the key is to the success of what I’m doing right now.

When you structure an event in your life it gives you a better chance to latch on to it. Think about this, when you’re trying to climb a tree, sure, some successfully climb that tree by crawling up the branches, but most people can’t climb trees and merely by allowing some kind of structure to help can only increase your chances. If you use a stepladder, you’re going to be that much closer. If you were to grab a standard painting ladder, you can probably get anywhere you want to go on that tree. I would suggest this is the same with structuring events in your life as far as being motivated. I want to keep a balance of spontaneity with some forms of structure, finding that wonderfully successful middle ground. I would suggest the reason I’ve done so well with this particular meal plan is allowing myself be on the middle ground. The meal plan has plenty of structure, I know what I’m going to eat for the most part, but like in the middle of the experiment I allowed for a slight deviation of spontaneity to have a nice meal with a good relative of mine.

Next month I intend to continue in this fashion with slightly more spontaneity in the sense that I still want to structure (for the most part) the meals I’m going to eat, and plan on them, and continue to calculate the things I’m putting into my body. The keys to some simple weight loss right away is merely watching what you eat. You don’t have to go off the deep end in some crazy miracle diet. It appears to me that simply if you watch what you’re eating and set goals of approximate numbers you should be around, and if you can keep track of the numbers (even loosely), then you should be able to drop weight. I merely set a goal for my calories from (guesstimate) over 3000 calories a day to around 2000. I’ll end up being slightly under this even because of some waste and leftovers.

There are plenty of ways to keep motivated and on track with your goals. How about what we did? We started a blog. You can start a blog too! Think about this for instance, if you feel like other people are watching and double checking you at work you’re going to be more cautious about the quality of the work you do. It’s the same with the blogging experience. There are plenty of sites in which you can start a blog simple and easy and by blogging about it you feel a sense of responsibility to follow through.

On top of this, as far as watching your food, buy a palm sized notepad to carry around and write down what you’ve eaten throughout the day. If you start keeping track of things on a daily basis you’ll see what you’ve eaten and you’ll think twice about eating that extra roll, or even about eating your first piece of candy.

A thing I’d like to keep doing to keep my weight down throughout my life is sticking to the multiple meals throughout the day. It’s so simple to do. Even without cutting many calories, this could even cause weight loss. Merely by making portions smaller and eating every so often you will keep your metabolism working throughout the day, burning more weight throughout the day.

The last thing I’d like to mention that I’ve been forced to do by way of this $2 a day meal plan is portion sizing. We’re a nation that will eat whatever is in front of us. We totally disregard what our body says about how “hungry” we are and we eat whatever is on that plate or on that tray. By eating meals on smaller plates, or merely by not loading the plate up (and not going back for more) you can cut some calories effectively. I was forced to do this in fear of having to go over my allotted amount of money for the month, which has taught me this very important lesson.

We’re all in this together, there are a myriad of people trying to do the same thing you and I are. Find friends, engage yourself in a community, and help each other.

$2 a day: week three recap

Again, it’s Monday and I hopped on the scale to find more good news today. I weighed in at a cool 260 pounds this morning, putting the running total at 20 pounds thus far. This is great news for me, and it’s nuts to think about how my weight continues to drop in spite of eating decent and drinking a fair amount.

I have been looking through my cupboard and I realize I have a fair amount of food left still. I may have to start scrambling eggs possibly to use them up and I have to really pay attention that in these last days I am eating frequently. I don’t want this food to go to waste, and after it’s all said and done I don’t want to look at what I have left, do some math, and find out that for some reason I was taking in not enough calories/nutrients. It shouldn’t be too hard to keep this up, but I could see it hindering my weight loss a small amount as well.

I am going to make up my last main meal batch today which is the last half of the spaghetti. It’ll be interesting to see how the ½ pound of frozen sausage held up in the freezer this whole time. It’s been in there quite some time so we’ll see how well the flavor is.

I think after I look at the food I have left over and calculate all my average calories, sugar, protein, etc per day thats when I will be able to make a more accurate association of what I want to shoot for in terms of my plan for next month. Once I know more clearly what I can intake to continue dropping weight I should be able to devise a more precise meal plan and present that online.

It’s nuts to think about how I’ve dropped 20 pounds. I feel really good and I moved up a belt loop. Everything feels good to me, I continue to not have problems with hunger and am surprised at how I can eat this little relatively to what I was and be completely okay with it. Things are going well and it’s also crazy to think how close to 30 days it is, the last week really flew by.

$2 a day: day twenty

I originally wasn’t going to write today and save some more words for tomorrow but I have quite a few things on my mind that I want to talk about. I’ve been thinking about my meal plan for next month and I do intend on taking a few days break but I think I’ve formulated a few ideas for the direction I want to go.

The reason I feel I’ve been so successful with this particular plan is the set up and organization of it. I love the style of how it’s spread out and I can eat anywhere from 4-6 times a day and having these times being convenient in doing so. I want to keep this next month but I also want to add more variety in my plan as far as fruits and vegetables go, and I want the freedom to eat out occasionally. I also love to cook and this has taken away some of my creativity of cheffing, reducing me to merely making packets of ramen, batches of spaghetti, bagels, and things of that nature.

As far as sticking to the $2 a day, I think that would be tough to do long term, not because I haven’t shown the possibility, but because of the discipline it takes and the sheer lack of foods you can purchase. I want to continue to spend relatively little on food, which I think I can do as long as I continue to limit or stop the purchases of things like fast food and soda. I think that realistically I can spend in the neighborhood of $3.50-$5 a day for a much wider variety of foods and a much healthier variety of foods.

I want to do something along the lines of trying to stick for the same goal of average calories, protein, carbs, and things like that I’m doing now so hopefully I’ll continue to lose weight, and do it in the same style of eating more times per day at a smaller portion. This, to me, seems like it will fulfill me in a much more efficient manner. I would think I could shoot for the 1500-2200 calorie mark, something like 50-70 grams of protein, and as long as the carbs are nutty high and the sodium isn’t nutty high I’d be happy.

I also have been talking to my friend CODYmcfly about possibly trying this with me. He is quite the chef and is a good writer (check out his movie reviews), and had been talking about trying to drop a few pounds. I think he’d be a sweet addition and he loves to chef, and happens to be damn good at it.

I’m looking at starting this new meal plan hopefully on February 18th, which would give me a few days off to eat a few more things and relax more. I’m excited about what we’re thinking about and the things we can do.

 

$2 a day: day eightteen

Here we go again at THINKmcfly! Interesting things to report today. Everything is going really well still, I’m getting out of the mindset of some of the monotony of the experiment and have a much more optimistic outlook. Don’t get me wrong though, I can wait to get a plate of veggies in me when all this is over!

What I’d like to speak of today is how many comments I’m getting about my weight. I keep running into people and they keep making comments about how I look slimmer and how they’ve noticed a change. It’s only adding to my own feelings which are good as well. I still feel slimmer. In our basketball league I feel like I’m in better shape (which is obviously also due to being as active) but I feel like I have a little more spring and I can jump a bit higher as well.

I made up the brown rice and all went to plan. It made an enourmous bowl, the bowl I had to use is bigger than the bowl I contained the spaghetti in. I think I’m going to stick with that one can of Cream of Mushroom Soup, which is a little thin but it’s working out. The overall taste is semi-bland but a great mix up from the daily routines.

I don’t get it but I am continuously ruining pancakes. I’m not sure if its that its a stainless steel pan and I’m using not enough butter or something, sometimes I even use quite a bit of butter and it’s still turning out the same. The underside isn’t really cooking like I’d like it. It says flip the pancake after the bubbles break which I’m doing and it’s just not working out. I’ll have to try another pan. I have a iron-cast skillet that I need to cure before I use it, and I hear it’s unbelievably better for pancakes.

I feel good and am still going strong. My appetite is still low. The amount of water I’ve consumed is lower but I’m doing alright, trying to make a conscious effort these last few weeks to increase that back to more of what it was at the beginning of the experiment.

I’m still looking into what I want to do next month or after a short break from this. I almost think merely allowing $3 a day would allow much more room for a bit more variety and more fruits/vegetables and I think I’m going to toy with that idea a bit yet. Let me know if anyone has something they’d like me to try!

JUICEmcfly: experiment ending for me, sort of

I regret to inform you that I have pulled my name from this experiment.  Thinking about it over the last four or five days has made me realize what my true goals are, unfortunately this meal plan did not make the cut.  My last few days of the experiment were the toughest, and it was then I knew I could no longer continue.  Last Saturday I worked 11 hours with a one hour break between shifts.  I had time to eat one meal that day, something I won’t continue to do.  I have proven to myself that it is entirely possible to eat on two dollars a day, and Steve is still amazing me with his efforts.  This experiment has made me realize how important it is to eat healthy, and that is what I intend on doing.   I hope no one considers this to be a failed attempt, but rather an opportunity for greater things.

I have toyed around with some “diet” plans, thinking of the best and most efficient ways to lose weight.   What I have in mind, I think, will be extremely effective for me.  I have my food ideas all planned out, as well as a 3-step weight loss process I know will work.  This “diet” will be more flexible than my previous meal plan, and will adapt well with my everyday life.  I won’t go into detail just yet, but I will keep you updated in future blogs.  I will write every few days or so; that way neither you or I get burned out with my blog.

I hope our readers are understanding of my situation, and continue to support Steve and I.  Steve has done an excellent job, and the 1500+ people that have visited our blog have a lot to do with his success.  Thanks to all who have taken time out of their daily lives to support two men on a mission; a mission towards a better life.

JUICEmcfly

$2 a day: week two recap

Week two is now complete and this is day fifteen of the experiment. I still feel really good, and have quite a few things to talk about. This morning I woke up to a phone call from my cousin Mark who lives around 80 miles away, he asked me if I’d meet him for lunch since he was going to be in town so I met him around 11:45 am at Taco Johns. He picked up a super potato ole for me and I took it, but as I stated in the experiment I will go ahead and include this as if I bought it myself. I thought it was very reasonable and I don’t feel bad about it whatsoever but it does mean a few things.

So here’s where I stand from a money standpoint. I have three receipts, one for $42.60, the second for $5.10, and the third for $3.30. The super potato ole came to $4.50 after tax, putting my running total up to $55.50. This does mean I will go slightly over for the experiment from the perspective of allotting myself $60 for the entire month. I plan on buying a minimum of 2 more loaves of bread and 1 dozen eggs. I may buy up to 3 more loaves of bread, the 1 dozen eggs, and have contemplated adding a second can of cream of mushroom soup and/or buying some brown sugar for the oatmeal. Also, I must note that the bread went from $1.32 to $1.38, which is very disappointing. If I made my “minimum” purchase, after tax I’d be looking at $60.24, and if I made my maximum purchase, after tax I’d be looking at about $64.23 (I’m guessing brown sugar is around $1.30). Obviously I woulda been plenty fine without my Taco Johns today, but considering the circumstances I’m okay with the purchase.

Another note about the Taco Johns meal today is I cannot believe how full I was went I was done eating it. I was stuffed. My stomach has really shrunk something fierce, and I’m happy about it. It’ll be interesting how I modify my diet for next month, as I’m sure I’ll make updates about what I plan to do.

Now, more to note about how things are on my end. Overall I’m not always getting in the six meals a day, thats why I’m not sure if I’ll need the 6^th loaf of bread. I’d say for the month I’ll average a solid 5 meals a day. Also, at the end of the experiment I intend to look through everything and plug it in to the spread sheet as far as how much I guess I have left. I’ll note if I have 1/3 of the mayonnaise left, how many oats are left, etc, to get a real feel for about how many calories I consumed each day with my food. From this I will also get a good feel to calculate how much I spent on food and whatnot by way of the unit price.

I weighed in today at 265 flat, which is good. I lost 2.5 pounds in week two, if I keep going at a rate like this I will be very content. That would put me on pace for a lost of 20-21 pounds for the month, something I can be proud about. I think overall my target weight for myself would ideally be in the 230 pound range, and I am coming up with ideas of what I want to continue to do to eventually reach this goal.

I feel like everything is going well and I’m not as disappointed overall in how things are going as much so as I was earlier this week after some wastes of meals/etc. I am opening the second bag of bagels tomorrow which I am stoked for. The only thing to really complain about is how the price of the foods I am purchasing has fluctuated and how I’ve gotten in on most of the worst prices. I would of saved $0.60 on my tuna purchase merely a few days after I bought my groceries, and now the bread raised $0.06 a loaf, which will amount to $0.18 or $0.24, which doesn’t sound like a whole lot but when my target meal price is around the $0.20 range it’s definitely relatively a setback.

I’ll post in the next few days some of my ideas that I am toying with as far as what to do next. Half way done!

$2 a day: day fourteen

As this experiment moved forward I assumed the amount of posts would slow down to some extent because of the eventual monotony of what we’re doing is going to kick in. Today is day 14 and I weigh in again tomorrow. I’m not real sure how it will turn out, I could see anything from gaining a few pounds to dropping a few pounds, but I don’t foresee much of a sway either way.

I’m still extremely active. Usually on Sundays I play basketball from 4-6:30 pm or so but today I will pass on that. I have quite a bit of reading to catch up on in my philosophy courses and it’s by far the nicest day we’ve had here in the last 15-20. Right now it’s a whopping 41 degrees, feels like 36 says weather.com, but it feels amazing. I have the windows open in my apartment to try and air out the place.

As far as weight and whatnot, I feel good. I keep getting comments from people about how I already look slimmer, I feel slimmer, and from that respect I still feel really good about the experiment. However the monotony of the experiment is beginning to settle in. I really like the egg sandwiches, and I’m not at any time starving. I just would like more variety. I also can say I never thought I’d miss vegetables as much as I do, this diet defintiely lacks the fruits and vegetables.

I’m not down on the experiment, I plan on finishing it out. I imagine I’ll have more to write about in the last 10 days or so as I begin to see how things pan out as far as if I ever run low on foods and whatnot. Everything appears to be going solid though as far as portioning. The hamburger helper I just finished today, lasted me Wednesday through Sunday afternoon for something around 7-8 meals. I usually ate around a bowl and todays portion was a bit small so I made some buttered bread and I’m pretty full. I’ll be experimenting with the rice next.

Hopefully today I’ll get some more pictures up of my hamburger helper and my two latest receipts, and then I can post a running total of what I’ve spent tomorrow as I recap week two.

Days 8,9,10

I want to start by apologizing for my absence, but the last few days haven’t been very interesting.  I ran out of bread on day 7 and have yet to buy more.  This means I haven’t had any sandwiches over the last three days.  I have been eating mostly pancakes, oatmeal, ramen, applesauce, chimichangas, and bologna.  It hasn’t been too rough on me though.  When I weighed in on Monday I weighed 198 lbs – a loss of 5 lbs.  I am not as concerned about the number of lbs. lost, I am more concerned with how I feel; I have been feeling great.  Right now I am cooking up the last of my spaghetti and I can’t wait to eat it.  I will admit, I am starving right now.  I went to work at 11:00 this morning without eating breakfast, I wasn’t even thinking about it.  I had to work until 4:00, so you guessed it, I have yet to eat today!  I am not happy with my decision, but sometimes there’s nothing you can do about it.

Tomorrow I intend on picking up some more groceries although I have a mere $15 to spend.  Two loaves of bread and some bologna are at the top of my list.  Other than that, everything has been going well – better than I could have expected.  I do want to apologize one last time for not posting the last few days, I won’t let it happen again.  Thanks again to all of our readers out there!

JUICEmcfly