Finally done the food shop

I was supposed to do the food shop the other day but I ended up doing a whole load of other stuff and simply didn't have time.

Today I went to Costco and got my usual supplies from there. I buy things like bottles of pepsi max out of there because they work out a lot cheaper but I don't buy much of their food because its usually very expensive. Today they had a deal on steak mince so I bought a 2.5 kilo packet which I will use to make lasagne and bolognaise tomorrow.

I promised myself I would use at least one day this week to cook some meals up that I can freeze so that gives me plenty to be getting on with. I also went to the regular supermarket and bought some chicken so that I can make that slimming world chili chicken thing that I made last week. Again I bought quite a big packet so I can make a good amount to give some for freezing.

I am very much looking forward to having some meals pre-made in the freezer just waiting to be reheated and eaten. Sometimes my biggest problem is that I cant be bothered cooking or that I don't have the time it takes to make a decent meal. When you have SED it takes twice as long to cook because you need to cut everything a certain way or cook it just so. For example if I am cooking chicken I cannot just chop that chicken into chunks. I must first cut all the fat or whatever that white stuff is off it, remove the cartilage and take out all the veiney bits. As I am chopping if I come across a vein or something like that then I need to get rid of it, that means checking every chunk as I cut it. It probably takes me twice as long to chop chicken as it would a normal person.

I used to be quite good at making things in advance to freeze but I somehow got out of the habit over the years but it is a habit I plan on returning to. Once I get back into the swing of buying and cooking the extra. Its not like it takes much more time and effort really because I am simply making bigger portions of whatever I am making at the time and freezing what I don't use.

I think being organised is going to be the key to my healthier eating/weight loss plans because it is too easy to turn to the same old junk when you are busy. It also gives me the chance to experiment (as much as someone like me can anyway) with foods in the comfort of my own kitchen. If I like them then its something else to add to the safe food list and I can potentially take it to work with me for lunch.

I still think work is my biggest barrier and this is one way round it. all I have to do is get a little more organised, surely it cant be that hard.

Need to do a food shop

Food shopping is something I struggle with, not necessarily because of my SED but because I just hate shopping. I hate the crowds and the waiting about, most of all I hate wondering around trying to find things that I just cant find.

This usually leads to me buying the same old stuff every time which does nothing to help my pitiful attempts at eating better. I buy foods I know are safe, foods I know I can eat and nothing else an while it might make sense to buy things I know I can eat what happens is I buy the same old junk week in week out.

I sometimes think its because I simply cant be bothered checking the ingredients of every single thing I buy, other times I think its because I am scared of trying things only not to like them and have to throw them away. I cant afford to throw food away, its as simple as that.

I am off on holiday just now and one of the things I promised I would do is cook and freeze some meals ready for going back to work. I managed to cook a slimming world meal last week (with a few minor variations) so I plan on making a massive pot of that and freezing it. I also like bolognaise so I will make a big pot of that too, I might make it in the slow cooker actually.

Other than those two dishes, I have no other meals planned. Perhaps I should work on my meal planning skills before I head out for my shopping. I did manage to find four slimming world recipes that I could adapt to make them edible, the only problem was they were all chicken based. I love chicken don't get me wrong, but I really don't want to eat nothing but chicken for weeks at a time.

I am going to go back to the website where I got the four recipes from to see if I can find some more meals that I can adapt to suit my impossible eating habits. This could take a while!

It has been a while

I haven't posted on my blog for ages, its not because I have given up or that I don't care, I have just been so busy with the move to the new hospital and other things going on. Food wise, not much has changed which means I haven't really had much to blog about.

I still eat the same thing every day at work for lunch, although I am starting to get a little fed up with it now. I plan to go shopping later on today and get some supplies to try and make a few different things that I can try.

They have finally put new microwaves in the canteen, while they are a good walk away from the ward, at least they are there. That should make a difference to what I can eat while at work, I just need to get organised at making stuff in advance the way I used to do before we moved to this new hospital.

The weight is steady, I haven't lost anymore as yet, but I haven't put any of what I had lost back on either. I haven't really had the time to go to the gym for the last few weeks but I hope to start back there next week once things have quietened down a little.

I am still struggling to eat more veggies, but I am definitely managing more than I was before. No new foods though which is maybe a little disappointing, but then I haven't really been putting the same effort in over the last few weeks as I had been before.

I tried a new food - it didn't work out

As I said in a few of my earlier posts, I am really struggling to find food that I can take to work with me. I tend to take the same few things over and over again and none of them are healthy.

I went to the supermarket today, and decided to try one of their pre-made pastas, the ones you just eat cold out of the tub. I have only tried one such thing before and I didn't like it but this one seemed like something I would like, just pasta, chicken, bacon and mayonnaise.

I checked the ingredients to make sure there would be no nasty surprises like onions and decided to buy two. The reasoning being that I could try one today and if I liked it then I could have it for dinner on nightshift tomorrow night. I came home, put the shopping away and sat down with my pasta.

I actually wasn't worried about it at all, I knew I liked everything in it and I have had some success with trying new foods which are combinations of foods I know I like. I figured this would also be a success and put a tiny piece of pasta in my mouth.

It tasted horrible, like onions. I have no idea how it tasted like onions because I made sure there was none in there but that's what it tasted like. I immediately had to spit it out and I kept heaving like I was going to throw up. Luckily I had a glass of pepsi max to hand and I was able to wash away the taste before I was actually sick but I haven't been able to eat anything else all day. Since I hadn't had anything before that either that means I have had nothing to eat all day.

If you ask me that's a big part of the reason I cant lose weight, all the experts these days say you need to eat regularly to lose weight - at least three meals a day. I could count on one hand the amount of times I eat three meals a day, sometimes when I am working I may eat three times but I certainly wouldn't call them meals. When I am at home I sometimes manage twice a day but often only once.

I still see today as a sort of accomplishment because I wasn't too scared to try this new food, I just wish I had been able to like or even just tolerate it.

Thankfully I am all to used to not liking things and I have a back up plan in place. I have my dinner for tomorrow night cooking away in my slow cooker as I type, perhaps I will even manage something small to eat before bed.

I need to try and plan better for work

Being on four nightshifts this week has made me realise that I really need to plan my meals better for work. Where I am is nowhere near the canteen, not that being near the canteen makes a huge difference - hospital canteen food is usually barely edible to me anyway. So I need to take my own food in with me. I have access to a microwave and toaster in work which helps a lot since there are not many cold foods that I can actually eat.

The problem is that there are just not many foods I can eat that can be taken to work for lunch, its not easy to take a full meal in, heat it up and eat it within half an hour. Most people bring sandwiches or snack type foods, the rest bring ready meals.

There are only two ready meals I know of that I can eat and I don't just want to eat the same two meals over and over again. I need to get more organised, especially if I want to stick to my healthier eating plan. I am going to make a shopping list tonight and stick to it when I go to the supermarket tomorrow.

I also haven't been to the gym this week which isn't making me feel too good about myself, but I just haven't had time with the four back to back nightshifts. I will try and fit in a wee hour or so in the gym tomorrow as well if I can, I will also check my weight. In theory I should have lost some weight since I have been so much more active over the last two weeks running about a massive hospital ward. However I don't think that will be the case, I have never lost weight on a placement, mostly because all I can eat when I am there is toast and junk food.

I also plan to spend some time tomorrow coming up with ideas for more informative blog posts. When I started this blog my intention was to try and convey how difficult it is for someone like me. How difficult it is to cope with social engagements that involve food, how hard it is to eat on the go, and how much of a struggle it is to lose weight. I wanted to tell people what selective disorder is and what it is really like to suffer from it, I also wanted to help people who are dealing with the same thing or have children who are. I feel all I have done recently is babble on about my own struggle, which was a part of what I had planned to do as I think it demonstrates how hard life can be with an eating disorder like mine, but that was never intended to be the blogs main purpose.

Perhaps it would help me to have some questions, so if you have any please leave a comment below and I will do my best to answer them in my next post.

My goal for the weekend

I have decided to set myself smaller goals to help me towards my healthier eating and weight-loss goals. The idea is that by breaking it down into smaller goals they will seem more achievable and I will hopefully be happily celebrating many of these small goals on my way to my big goal of getting my weight down to the point where I can pass my fitness test for the Army.

I am off all weekend, I don't start back till nightshift Monday night so I have two whole days off in a row. I plan on using that time to try and get to grips with something I am really bad at - meal planning.

I struggle with meal planning in part because I am just not very well organised a lot of the time and in part because of my eating disorder. Sometimes even foods that are a favourite will just be inedible to me for some reason, I have no idea why this is but I do know its common in people with Selective Eating Disorder.

That makes it very difficult for me to plan my meals ahead of time, what if the meal I have planned for tomorrow seems inedible to me when tomorrow actually comes around? So I have come up with a workaround for this. What I plan on doing is making a variety (or as much variety as someone like me can have) of lunches and dinners up over the weekend that can be frozen and reheated in a microwave since that's what I have in work. I can also plan some other quick to cook meals for when I don't fancy any of the frozen things but don't have a lot of time to cook which is often my problem while I am on placement.

I won't plan what days the food is to be eaten on or anything like that, I will just plan some meals to cook ahead of time and then I can just choose from those meals throughout the week. I have one of those keep cool lunch bags somewhere that will stop my frozen food from making a mess in my bag as it defrosts, I just need to find it.

This coming week I am working four nightshifts in a row which makes my meal schedule more than a little odd but I still think planning ahead of time is possible. My meals may be eaten at strange times, but that doesn't mean I cant plan them ahead of time.

Planning my meals will have a few benefits, first it will save me time which is something I really need to do on a week that involves four nightshifts. Secondly it will allow me to stick to my healthier eating a little bit better than I have done this week since I was so disorganised. Lastly I also think I might save money since buying pre-made meals is always more expensive, and I wont waste as much food since I will only buy what I need to make the meals I have planned. I will also have a shopping list to stick to which will stop me buying things I really don't need or cant use.

I am going to start by making a list of meals I can eat which are freezer safe, if I can buy the ingredients for those tomorrow I can start the cooking tomorrow night leaving Sunday free to cook the non-freezer stuff. I already have a reasonably well stocked fridge so I might even be able to start cooking with what I already have.

I haven't really planned my goal-setting any further ahead than this but I think I will make meal planning my short-term goal until I get the hang of it and it becomes a regular thing.