Goal #1: reducing cholesterol

Well, it too a bit more than a week, but I have finally gotten over the fact that I've been fooling myself all this time.

Don't get me wrong: I knew I was using overdraft. Somehow, I just forgot that overdraft is debt. Whenever I start thinking I've really got it together, reality slaps me back down again. Enough, I'm moving on.

My # 1 goal for this year is to reduce my cholesterol levels, and to this end, I've joined a UofT study called the Healthy Diet Study.

Last week, I received my first delivery of free food. It was an amazingly large amount of food. I gave some away, and I still had quite a bit left when I got my 2nd order yesterday.

The study asks that I try everything they deliver, so I did. I got a bag of oatmeal: I made oatmeal bread and have been having that as my breakfast grain all week. I got canned beans: I made meatless tamale pie. I got winter tomatoes (yuck), I chopped them and threw them into a sauce for my chicken. I had to go and do a grocery to go with all this free food and I didn't plan it well (plus, I went to Whole Foods!) so my spend for the week including groceries was over $200.

I got the hang of it this week: I spent more time planning my menu once I saw what was in the box, and my grocery bill came to $65. Based on last week, that means that my spend for next week will be about $75.

But the goal was never about the savings. That's just a bonus. This is part of my plan to lower my cholesterol and I've got to give it to them, I'm eating much healthier meals and, with the literature they provided (plus my friend the world wide web), I'm also learning a lot about nutrition.

The only drawback is I have to cook everything over the weekend 'cos I have no energy after work. This weekend, I'm cooking: turkey breast stuffed with spinach, eggplant-spinach bake, barley-chorizo skillet pie, kasha & zucchini salad, and some kind of oatbran muffin. I might also try some stuffed peppers one night. Haven't done those in eons. Veg-wise, I've got carrots, mushrooms and broccoli and I've got clementines, applies and pears for fruit.

This will take care of breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next week, and provide snacks as well. Should be pretty thrifty week.