Organization - Diet, Weightlifting, and Money

Since I have been sidelined for a few days I started on my to do list and my deskwork.  It was kind of like I had to make up for my vacation by indulging my organizational neurosis. (God keep me away from Pinterest).

Last summer I did a program called Zultz Wars at the Courthouse Athletic Club. It was kind of a weight loss/muscle building competition.  The best part of the program was the nutrition plan. It had you cook one day for the entire week, and the menu plan was low calorie, super healthy, and very tasty. I wanted to find something like that online so after looking around I found a few options.

Plan to Eat  - You put in your own recipes, (using a web clipper, you don't have to type them) or add friend's recipes. It will put your recipes into a weekly calendar and print out a shopping list based on the recipes you choose. Cost was $40 per year. I used a free one month trial last year and put in a bunch of my favorite recipes so startup on this would be pretty quick. The problem was that I would have to determine the nutrition of the food, and the total calories to make sure it was balanced. That's more work that it seems. If you eat the same three meals for the entire week (or weekdays) you don't want to miss something.

Menu Mailer - I used this for YEARS and I loved it. It gives you recipes for lunch and dinner, but different meals every day. That's a lot of shopping and cooking. I could see if you wanted to spend more time cooking, or had a bigger family this would be a good option. I have other priorities these days, like working out, playing music, and relaxing.

If that's not enough menu planners for you, you can find more here.

My point is that I couldn't find any menu's that combined nutritional balance, lowish calorie, one prep day for cooking, and delicious food.

So I called the Courthouse Athletic Club. For $20 per month I can get their meal plans without having a membership. That's a lot of dough, but I'll likely start up in September when my life gets back to routine. My second choice is Plan to Eat if the Courthouse plan doesn't work out.

That settled I moved on to exercise.  I'm a member of a great gym, close to my house, and cheap. That said I'm not actually going right now due to having to much fun. I'm cool with that, I'll head back mid August when I'm home more. Anyway mom asked me for a great beginner strength training routine. I have two. The first one I found here.  This woman has lots of routines, which involve a lot of compound lifts which are the best.

You don't really have to lift four days per week, you just do whichever is next the next time you lift. It usually takes me 6-7 days to get through this. This is a very short introductory weight routine. I had impressive results from it within 6 weeks. I added a few lifts to it after 4 weeks and then moved on to Arnold's beginner workout at 7 weeks.

I use a free app on my phone (also a website) to track my weight workouts called Jefit.  Not only does it track your weigh workouts, it helps you set goals, and has visuals of each lift so you can perfect your form. Most handy is the interval timer for lifting and resting. If you add me (user: Emilyoutland) I will send you this beginner workout so you don't have to type it all in, and when you are ready I'll send you the next beginner workout I got from Arnold's book. (Arnold's beginner workout is not really for beginners as you can imagine.)

Screenshot from Jefit

I sometimes use myfitnesspal to track my diet (I'm not looking at calories as much as macro-nutrient ratios) so add me there if you use it. (user: Emilyoutland)

As it is the last of the month I did my budget, I use Microsoft Money (still) and download my bank statements once a month (or more). I've tried other ways to do my budget/bills, but this really works well for me. I have it set up to automatically input my expenses 30 days before they are due. Then all I have to do is check to make sure the bottom line isn't red. Between using the Dave Ramsay envelope method (cash) for most things, and automatic bill pay, I haven't had any money issues in years.

Next project is to back up my pictures/documents onto my external hard drive.

Well I'm taking Ruben to his dad's house today, and for once I don't have any plans. Hmmm.