Tag: 50 cents

A Good Plateau

On By Michel McDonaldIn Cycling, Diet, Exercise, Health, Noom, WeightLeave a comment

Noom Logo I’ve complained before about a plateau that I was stuck in when I was 197lbs, but now I’m stuck again, but this time for good reason.  Here are my Noom weigh-in’s for July.

  • July 1 – 195.0
  • July 6 – 193.6
  • July 13 – 193.8
  • July 20 – 193.6
  • July 27 – 193.2

From the July 6 weigh-in to the July 20th weigh-in, I believe the reason for the halt in weight loss is because I’ve been eating the Michelina’s frozen dinners and not the Weight Watchers Smart Ones.  See, I thought that because they had the same amount of calories, fat and sodium that they would basically be the same thing, but I guess not.  We recently bought 40 of those too, so when we are able to burn through those, I will start buying the Weight Watchers again.

The reason we bought all those Michelina’s was because they were on sale for .50 cents each.  You can’t beat those prices, especially when we were broke this month.  I had no idea this was going to cause a plateau or even weight gain.

I think I might have an explanation for my current week’s plateau.  On July 20th, I finally started riding my bicycle again, so it has only been 1 week and I have only been out on the bike maybe 4 times, but I’m assuming that this week the reason I haven’t lost any weight is because I am gaining muscle.  At least that’s what I think is going on.

We have a scale which has a Weight Watchers logo on it and it can tell me my body fat, water, bone and BMI, and this week my body fat percentage went down from I believe it was 30.9 down to 29.6, so even though I am still basically the same weight, my body fat percentage has gone down and I believe it is because of the bike.  So, perhaps I think that I am losing fat, but gaining muscle and we all know that muscle weighs more than fat, so therefore, the scale isn’t very helpful to me in determining my weight, but it is helpful in telling me my body fat percentage and BMI.

However, my waist has gone up by 1/2 an inch.  Last week it was 39.5 inches and this week it is 40 inches.  I mean who really knows for sure what is going on.  All I know is that I am going to continue riding the bicycle and I am going to continue to eat a proper healthy diet despite what the scale says because I know that I am going to lose fat even if I gain muscle.

Gaining muscle is actually a very good thing because men who have a lot of muscle will burn more fat when they sleep, so I need to get plenty of rest, exercise and eat a proper diet and I will be on my way to losing more weight.

I’m not expecting that my weight will go down next week, but I hope it will.  We shall see I guess.  Here are my profile, weight graph and exercise summary for the week.

week_30-1 week_30-2 week_30-4

Light Strawberry Jam – Ball Recipe

On By Michel McDonaldIn Canning, Diet, Food, HealthLeave a comment

strawberries

I have been on a canning kick lately.  I’ve made my own homemade peanut butter and homemade applesauce and those were a success.  But now for the hard part, sugar-free or low sugar strawberry jam.  As I was Googling the recipe, the first thing in the results was from the Ball website.  It only has 3 ingredients.  Strawberries, Unsweetened White Grape Juice and Ball® RealFruit™ Low or No-Sugar Needed Pectin.  That’s it?  Oh well besides 6-8 oz preserving jars of course, which I have.

light sugar strawberry jam nutrition facts SparkPeople has a wonderful recipe calculator which you could use to find out how many calories go into any recipe.  I went there, added all 3 ingredients.  I figured out with an app on my phone that 8 oz is equal to 16 tbsp.  So I went to my calculator and multiplied 16 tbsp by 6 jars and I got 96 servings.  I went back to SparkPeople and typed 96 servings and my jaw nearly hit the floor when it said that each 1 tbsp serving of this jam is only 2.3 calories.  How?

I wanted to make my own sugar-free Strawberry Jam because of how expensive it is in the stores.  Have you seen those prices?  People who are diabetic can’t get a break anywhere.  If you have a special diet, you are going to have to pay a heavy price, and I just won’t do it.  I can’t recall the exact price, but a little 8 oz jar of sugar-free strawberry jam must be like $5 or $6, somewhere around there.  With this recipe, all I need are 2-1 lb baskets of strawberries which is basically what the recipe calls for, 4 cups worth, and right now they are 2 for $4.  So right there I’ve already saved money with just that.  Basically, I bought 1 jar and I am getting the other 5 for free.  Of course I am not counting the pectin which I already have, but that is only 3 tbsp and I’ll need 1 cup of the white grape juice.  If you think about it, the 3 tbsp of pectin and the 8 oz of white grape juice makes up and maybe another 50 cents for that 1 jar.

Why didn’t I ever think of doing this before?  I mean, how can I ever buy strawberry jam again for the rest of my life knowing it is this easy and basically has no calories?  All your calories in a regular jar of Strawberry Jam is from the sugar and high fructose corn syrup or whatever the heck is in your jam.  All my calories are basically from the strawberries and the grape juice and that’s it.

Do I even need to convince anyone besides the price and very extremely low calories?  I can’t wait to make this.

Holy Cow Delivery

On By Michel McDonaldIn FoodLeave a comment

Well Ron from Holy Cow Milk just came about 30 minutes ago with our yoplait, string cheese and bread.  I liked paying with PayPal because then I don’t have to use any checks but because of that person who responded in my first post for this company, I decided to pay by check from here on out.  At least if I pay by check I don’t have anything to lose because they don’t get their money until they deliver the goods.

I really love having milk delivered to my house instead of having to get it from the store.  Actually their milk is more expensive than the store by $1 per gallon because you can buy 2 gallons for $5 which is $2.50 each, Holy Cow charges $3.50 which if you go to the store and look that is still a very good price.  If you just buy 1 gallon of milk you are going to pay $5 for 1 gallon of the Albertson’s brand or the name brands like Foster Farms.  It just makes more sense to buy the Special Value milk for $5 for 2.

The thing I buy from Holy Cow is their bread for $1.50 a loaf, bread is expensive if you buy at the store.  They are outrageously expensive and with today’s economy you can’t get bread for less than $2.  The Albertson’s brand bread at the store is $1.79.

I also buy String Cheese which is like .35 cents.  I’ve never bought string cheese so I don’t know what that regular price is.  Yoplait is another thing I buy from them.  If you have gone to the store you will know that Yoplait is the most expensive yogurt on the shelves.  That stuff is over $1 each.  Holy Cow only charges .65 cents each.  That is the main reason I buy from them.  I can only get Yoplait when they are 20 for $10 at Albertson’s which makes them .50 cents each.  So .65 is a very good price and I’d rather give the money to Holy Cow than the big corporations.

I asked Ron to give us some business cards so we can pass them out in the neighborhood, I suggested magnet business cards that people can put on their fridge.  That is a very good idea.  I’m sure they are more expensive but you have to spend money to make money.