Mom and Baby Workouts: Week 1 (1/14/13)

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

Casual Workouts with Baby

I'm trying to incorporate some casual workouts into my days. I know that if I consider a workout a "routine," I'll fail miserably. As I've mentioned, schedules in any shape or form freak me out. I'm working on finding ways to "schedule" without "scheduling." With that said, I think my working out started this weekend without me realizing. It started with playing with my son to keep him awake and distracted near bedtime, then taking him for a walk...

• Thursday night - squats with Ethan while holding him up in the air. He liked these! I had to take a break every five squats or he got a little nervous about hanging in the air. I did about 15.
• Friday night - peek-a-boo squats - Ethan pulled up on the couch (he's just starting to pull up), and I hid on the other side of the couch in an extremely low squatting position, and popped up for a game of peek-a-boo!
• Saturday - The weather was beautiful! Nice and sunny and warm! 25 minute walk. He got tired an hour before bedtime so I walked him around the house a bit and let him crawl all over me while I did about 40 crunches.
• Sunday - Another beautiful day! 25 minute walk. I did what I think I'm calling "baby bursting crunches". I hold Ethan under the arms while I force myself up into a full sit-up and lift Ethan up as high as I can!

After randomly doing these things to both entertain Ethan and get in a little exercise myself, I realized that when it's with my little boy, I don't mind a little routine at all! I'm going to try doing all of these exercises into one day, every day. If I don't do all of them, no pressure! I'll blog this info and post it at the end of this week.

Things I may add that are super easy to do:
Toe-raises (I've done these while washing dishes before)
Overhead presses (I have some small weights for this - I can count for Ethan!)

Groceries, Deviations, Leftovers, and Proposed Meal Guide for Week of 1/14/13

I've decided on an on-again-off-again cooking schedule. Every other week I will cook. In between will be leftovers, prepared meals, and 30-minutes-or-less meals. I have a few unhealthy meals planned, but I will try to modify these in the future.

Actual Weekend Meals - I deviated from my intended schedule as of Friday night.

Friday

• Dinner - McDonalds (yuck!)

Saturday

• Breakfast - Sausage, eggs, and grits
• Lunch - Toast and cookies (ugh!)
• Dinner - Thai food (beef and broccoli in peanut sauce)

Sunday

• Breakfast - Sausage, eggs, and biscuits
• Lunch - Biscuit...??? (I don't remember! probably junk food)
• Dinner - Homemade sub sandwiches

So obviously the weekend was shot. I tried to get back on track at the very end so that I could start the next week off right. Here are the foods left over that will push into this week.

Leftovers

• 4 red potatoes
• 2 sweet potatoes
• edamame and cooked red potatoes
• 3 servings of minestrone (frozen)
• sausage
• onions
• bell peppers
• beef medallions

In hindsight, I probably should have planned out my meals before shopping for groceries. I excluded baby food for our son.

Grocery List (publix)

• Sandwich meat (turkey and beef)
• tortillas
• shredded lettuce
• 4 yogurt cups
• 4 bananas
• 1 mixed fruit bowl
• 2 bowls chili
• 2 bowls minestrone
• 1 large potato salad
• 1 large baked beans
• frozen beef patties
• 2 bags frozen vegetables (microwavable in bag)
• 2 bags frozen veggies and potatoes (microwavable in bag)
• Orange juice
• grapefruit juice
• mixed juice (100% natural)
• hummus
• gluten-free rosemary and olive oil crackers (my favorite!)
• frozen breakfast sandwiches (for hubby)

And here's the Meal plan. I'm only going two days out this time. Any further and I find the schedule too restricting and difficult to follow with leftovers and prepared foods. I will probably purchase a rotisserie and do chicken, veggies, and potatoes for dinner one day, then chicken salad sandwiches another.

Monday

Breakfast - Yogurt and trail mix (frozen breakfast sandwich for hubby)

Lunch - Leftover sub (me and hubby

Dinner - Chili and potato salad (for hubby), and Leftover edamame and potatoes with crackers and hummus.

Tuesday

Breakfast - Banana and trail mix

Lunch - Minestrone soup (prepackaged...I'm kind of going through a minestrone phase), (wrap for hubby)

Dinner - Sausage potato bake - 30 minute meal

Not sure if there will be leftovers from the sausage potato bake. If not, I will cook the sweet potatoes as a side dish. Also, since the onions and bell peppers are pre-chopped, in the future I will just buy ground turkey and throw those veggies in the patties. That will cut down on the sodium content and other preservatives (and random ingredients I can't pronounce) that are in the frozen prepackaged patties.  I also need to buy REAL butter! Trying to avoid margarine and spreads in the future.

Week 1 Meals

This isn't going to be a super awesome popular blog. I'm just documenting my weekly meal plans to have a list to pull from. I noticed that I cannot stick to a rigid meal plan that plans my meals too far in advance, so I'm going week by week, and one day at a time in some cases. Feel free to use if you'd like.

Monday

• Breakfast - Yogurt, trail mix
• Lunch - Snacks (trail mix, granola - This was an accident. Forgot my lunch and didn't want to spend money!)
• Dinner - Homemade Chicken Noodle soup

Tuesday

• Breakfast - Yogurt, trail mix
• Lunch - Leftover chicken noodle soup
• Dinner - Publix Lemon dill salmon burgers, roasted potatoes, and edamame

Wednesday

• Breakfast - Trail mix and banana
• Lunch - leftover chicken noodle soup
• Dinner - Homemade minestrone soup and garlic bread

Thursday

• Breakfast - Trail mix and granola bar (if it ain't broke...)
• Lunch - leftover minestrone soup
• Dinner - leftover chicken noodle soup

Friday (proposed meals)

• Breakfast - Trail mix and granola bar (or Cheerios)
• Lunch - leftover edamame and roasted potatoes
• Dinner - leftover minestrone soup

Saturday (proposed schedule)

• Breakfast - Bacon, eggs, toast
• Lunch - Creole shrimp and sausage stew
• Dinner - Some kind of bake with potatoes, edamame, bell peppers, onions, and sausage

Sunday *Grocery shopping (proposed)

• Breakfast - Eggs, an apple, oatmeal
• Lunch - leftover stew
• Dinner - Something out of the pantry...probably some processed foods since I'm trying to get rid of those.

Notes:

• My original plan was to cook on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. But with so many leftovers, I figured I could push Friday's meal to Saturday. 
• Froze leftover minestrone (2 servings) for next week's lunches. 
• I need more fruit in my diet! 
• After I finish eating my leftover granola bars and pre-packaged oatmeals, I will be working toward eating very few processed foods. Next weekend will be my weekend to eat out for dinner since we have tickets to a show.
• I also snacked on veggie chips and a few multi-grained crackers throughout the days. These will be eliminated as well.

Next week's proposed dinners - Since I did so much cooking this week, next week will be lazy. Remaining leftovers (if any) will be lunches
Monday: Footlong subs
Tuesday: Sandwich wraps
Wednesday: Rotissiere
Thursday: Beans and sausage with spinach
Friday: Eating out (dinner and a show!)