Infinityface here coming back for another post.
I completely missed a week but I am back! I am two weeks in with my decision on going vegan, and I said it before and I'll say it again, it's not as hard as I thought it would be!!! But from this day on I guess you can call me the "Cheap Vegan"! I have been on two shopping trips to Whole Foods and I even checked out Trader Joes and I haven't spent as nearly as I thought I would. I have friends that are vegan and they told me that they have about 500 dollars set aside for their grocery bill!! Wait.... What? He'll no! My bill has been $265 for the month! Let me be honest with myself, 265 dollars a month for groceries is more than I usually budget for because I was a junk food junkie. I was convinced that I was too busy to prepare meals at home because there wasn't enough time in the day. So my out food budget was about ummmmm..... Another $300!! (Cringe) don't judge me. So I guess I can't be to blown away by my friends budget cause I was spending the same amount. BUT! I no longer eat out- per se and I made whole meals for these past few weeks and I'm spending less than ever! Ok let's break this down:
My first shopping bill at Whole Foods was $105 but if u take away the protein powder-$22, the virgin olive oil-$12 and the African Black soap-$7 I'm left with a $64 grocery bill that lasted two weeks! I bought spaghetti sauce, spaghetti, 2 bags of meatless crumble, tofu sour cream, tofu shredded cheese, bag of potatoes, mushrooms, carrots, bulk of red beans, onions, green peppers, almond milk, vegan butter, non dairy yogurt, 2 vegetable broths, 2 avocados and corn tortillas. With that I made smothered potatoes (sometimes with a side of tofu cheese and sour cream), spaghetti with meaty meatless spaghetti sauce, and I made tacos! I made enough to last for a bit. I also spent another 30 dollars on fruit, oatmeal and ground flax seeds at the local grocery store. I have a friends from Ghana and Senegal and two weeks ago my friend from Ghana made me a stew they call Tomato stew. Usually they add goat meat or beef to the stew but my friend made mine meatless. The ingredients and seasonings are all natural and no meat by product that I know of was used. Man, man, man....
Tomato stew is soooooo good when eaten over rice. So all that came up to $104 of grocery or food
that I've eaten for the last two weeks.
This weekend I went shopping again and spent a total of $150 for the next two weeks at Whole Foods and Trader Joes! Now, this week I admit that I was being super lazy and thought about simple meals to prepare. I discovered some very tasty delicious cereal that are gluten free-and some that are not gluten free but organic-that taste very good with my almond milk. So I bought 2 boxes of Cascadian Farm organic honey nut O's and a box of Natures Path Sunrise Crunchy Maple, almond milk, 2 vegan lemon tarts, bag of jasmine rice, organic raw blue agave, soy ginger sauce, gluten free hot oatmeal, 1bean and rice burrito (to try) and 3 large bottles of coconut water at Whole Foods. This came to $75.
I actually went to Trader Joes first because I never been there before either. I was hoping I would have the same magical experience I had going to Whole Foods for the first time - I didn't. To start, I picked the wrong day to go as there was high traffic in the area where Trader Joes was because a
liquor store opened up next to the store! I think it's a Trader Joes type liquor store but still... Really? All this traffic for liquor? I guess. Anyways, as soon as I walked in Trader Joes immediately I noticed that it was smaller than Whole Foods. It's funny because compared to the big named grocery stores, I thought Whole Foods was tight. But small is an understatement on the square footage of Trader Joes. But... Ok! No big deal. I was relieved that there wasn't a lot of people in the store based on the fiasco in their parking lot. So, at Trader Joes I bought 3 types of pre cut fruit, 2 bags of fresh veggies, organic hummus, super spinach salad, stir fry veggies, and marinated tofu. Honestly, there wasn't really much else. I was considering getting almond butter but the price of it said "nahhh.... Peanut butter is the dopest!" Lol! So I spent a total of $55
I don't know if I was half distracted cause I was on the phone while shopping, but I wasn't really seeing anything that fit my needs at Traders. I'm a little bummed because I hear so many positive things about Trader Joes and I had high hopes for this store, but Whole Foods stole my heart. I can say that Traders is a little bit cheaper than WF and I can pick up a 2buck chuck in the same trip! I will try them again though, give them a second chance.
I also received some more African dishes from my friends so i also have more Tomato stew and my
friends from Liberia hooked me up on some peanut butter soup! So I'll be eating on that for a few days! I looooove African dishes! They are so tasty and well seasoned with all types of peppers and spices. I'm soooo sorry I don't have pictures so you can visualize the scrumptiousness of he meals that I've been eating. I'm still new this blogging thing and I haven't figured out how to do that yet.
Ok so fitness. Uh, yeah. Ummm..... Ok see, what had happened was I live in Minneapolis and winter has begun here about a month early so needless to say, I can't get out of bed. Now, because it's hard to get out of bed, I don't be having the time to be packing clothes for the gym AND lunch because I wait till the last minute to get up. However I did pull my DVDs out and placed them next to the tv annnnd I spoke to my personal trainer to get a schedule set up for us to begin. I'm really excited as my trainer trained me for about 6 months and he did one hell of a job on my body! However, it's
been about a year since we trained together needless to say, my pythons are GONE! My back fat that was going away now waves at me when I look at them in the mirror and the zippers on my knee high boots are screaming. I didn't let myself completely go in the year but there is definitely a before, after and after after. I promise that I would have completed at least one workout by next Sunday. Cross my heart. Ugh, I actually dread my first workout.
I have been keeping up with the positive affirmations with Pinch Me Living. I actually like it! It does keep me positive and I do get this renewed feeling of self accomplishment and motivation to do and be better. I've also programmed alerts in my phone calendar to send me reminders to pray. I try to get in about 5 prayers a day. In these past two weeks I've also completed the book Art of War by Sun Tzu. I kept hearing about this book and how people say they live by the war tactics and apply it to real life. I think I need to read it again though, possibly study it cause I didn't quite see how it can be applied to my own life -yet.
Now, as far as my appearance, I am struggling honey. Now I did buy some new organic soaps and the organic coconut oil for my skin and hair. I then pulled out old natural fragrance oils to use. I can say im proud of myself that I'm actually getting dressed one step above what I normally do. But this cold is making me want to just throw on anything and head out the door. I did go to MAC and pick up some natural mineralized skin finish, love joy blush and verve lipstick as my everyday face. So...... Maybe I'm doing better than I thought. But I know I can do better.
So that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Lol. Again my apologies for not having any pictures. I'll figure that out later. I also apologize for being a week behind. I will also try my best to upload a vlog but I'm having problems finding a good area to film. Don't nobody wanna wanna see a chewed up video so I'm taking my time to figure this stuff out so I can get a vid I'm fine with.
To Infinity and beyooooooood.....Face!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment