Grocery Shopping

This is our first blog with the new format! We will discuss a topic and how each of my books would address each. Today’s Topic is Grocery Shopping:

TimerDiet—TimerOrganizer—TimerSavings

Make Menus

When grocery shopping you want to make sure that you know what you are going to do with each item that you buy. How will each purchase be consumed? Do you have a purpose for each purpose that is well-balanced? Can you combine your purchase with other purchases or things you have at home that will make it well-balanced including dietary fat, protein, and carbohydrates. 

Each week when it is time to grocery shop take a few minutes to make some menus for the week. They don’t need to be specific—fish, green vegetable, and some rice the details can be decided later, based on the sale items. Perhaps it is taco night or pasta night…either way make sure that you include dietary fat, protein, and carbohydrates.  This includes your breakfast, lunches, and mini-meals (i.e. snacks)

Organize Your Fridge!

You may have so many groceries in your refrigerator and freezer that you have no idea what is good, expired, or even goes together to make a well-balanced meal. It is better to have less groceries in your fridge that you know are fresh and good for you than be filled with many foods that are “not in your best interests” or have already expired and will not be useful when it is time to make dinner.

Take 15 minutes with the trash can in hand and get rid of anything that you would not be willing to eat right now. In other words if you don’t think it is fresh today, then toss it. Now organize what you have left by areas that make sense to you! Some people like to organize by breakfast, lunch, dinner, or snacks, while others like to organize by products, cheeses, meats, salad mixings, cooking vegetables, toppings, etc. Whatever organization makes sense to you go for it, keep it, and make it work for you to save money and use all the groceries you bought instead of throwing them out because they went bad.

Save Your Money

Grocery shopping is the one area that you have the MOST control over your budget. You decide what you buy and how much you buy. I read a statistic that the average family throws out a little over $1,000 each year! Do you have something that you could spend $1,000 rather than the trash can? I know I do! I am not perfect I promise I have to deal with the same thing that all of us do. But, most of us don’t even realize what we are doing. We throw food out in the trash without realizing the actual $’s that we are throwing out. So when you are throwing out food, take a note pad and write down an estimate of how much you are tossing. So if something cost $10 and you used ½ of it then you would write down $5 as the amount that you wasted. Do this for at least a month and get to the point where you are throwing away less than 2% of your food budget. Life is all about choices and the wisest choice is to buy what you want AND need and to not waste any of it (well not much of it anyway!)

Sherri Sue Fisher, author of TimerDiet, TimerOrganizer, and coming soon TimerSavings

Halloween Candy!

Halloween Candy!

It is that time of year when all the temptations are around us constantly until the New Year. TimerDiet devotes all of Chapter 7—Holidays and Various Events, just for you!

Don't Get Spooked by the Halloween Candy!

The Best Defense is a Good Offence!

Here is an excerpt from my book TimerDiet Chapter 7—Holidays and Various Events: “Halloween: Don’t buy candy that you will want to eat yourself. There is usually some kind of candy that is not very tempting to you. For me, these candies are Almond Joy, Hot Tamales, and Gummy Bears—they just don’t do it for me, so I feel very safe buying them. However, do not get me around a bag of Snickers, Reese’s, or M&M’s. I will eat them in a heartbeat! Keep this in mind when you pick up goodies to hand out. No one needs to know that you are not crazy about the candy you hand out. When there are leftovers, you won’t be tempted to eat them, nor will you be tempted to open the bags ahead of time to get a taste.

If you have children and are used to getting into their candy, decide this year, it is hands-off! How much and how often you allow the kids to eat is a personal decision that you will need to make. If you can give some away to a good cause, do so. Some dentists have a program in which you bring in your Halloween candy and they donate it to the troops.”

Get a Head Start on the Holidays!

With all the “eating” holidays coming soon, it is important to have some good information to make sure that you don’t gain weight and if you are in the middle of losing weight to make sure you stay on track!! (It CAN be done xoxo)

Sherri Sue Fisher, author of TimerDiet and TimerOrganizer

TimerDiet is available in Hardback, Paperback, E-book, and Audio

Clickhere to go to Amazon and get your copy!

Accountability

Diet Plans Where You are Accountable to Someone Else May Backfire!

We hear about having an accountability partner and be accountable to someone else for your diet plan. Is this really working? I can’t imagine asking my best friend to tell me to my face when they think I am screwing up and being “happy” about them telling me. Let’s even go to a worst case scenario. Your friend is also losing weight and by all accounts is being perfect and losing weight faster than you. Now you have your best friend on your case and losing weight faster than you are. Will this motivate you? Or make you give up and say, “I just don’t want to play this game anymore!”?

So try these new rules for being accountable to you and only YOU:

1.      Do not tell anyone that you are planning on losing weight

2.      Keep a journal of what you ate so you can learn how certain foods affect you

3.      Always do things that you love to do

4.      Never create a reward system for reaching your weight loss goals

5.      Keep a journal of your exercise progress, see how much you are able to increase in time and weight, it is exciting!

Diets and weight loss plans are all over the place right now and it can be a little overwhelming. Just remember that you have the power to lose the weight you want within you! Keep your friends for fun, sad times, and someone to talk with. 

Sherri Sue Fisher, author of TimerDiet and TimerOrganizer

The Scale!

My Scale IS My Best Friend

This morning I woke up and I was at my “Whoa” weight…a first in at least 6 months. I don’t say this to brag, but to tell you that my scale is really my best friend.

She tells me when I am doing good

She tells me when I am in danger

And like a real best friend--she only tells me when I ASK!!

If you haven’t finished my recent book TimerDiet, then you may be asking what the “Whoa” weight is. In Chapter 9—Now That You Have Lost the Weight, I discuss how to maintain your weight in great detail so that you do not end up gaining the weight back. I found that when I had lost weight in the past (not weighing myself daily) there was usually a time where I was a size smaller than I had planned. I would stay there for a few weeks and then go back up even more than where I wanted to be. So I discuss how to avoid this in Chapter 9.

I hear so many times all the downfalls of my “best friend” the scale:

There could be other things happening that affect your weight like muscle mass  

So she may not have the whole picture

You will go crazy if you check your weight every day since it fluctuates

So she may constantly give you feedback that you cannot handle

Once a week is more than enough to weigh yourself

So much could happen is a week, that she wasn’t able to warn you about

You missed some days where she wanted to tell you—You did a great job!!

You should just know by the way your clothes fit

You shouldn’t need to ask your best friend since you are all knowing

To all these objections I say, “Hogwash!” It is just her reflection of the situation, she is unbiased, and she has nothing to gain by giving you inaccurate information. It only takes 15 seconds every morning after you have woken up and emptied your bladder. And just like a best friend, you don’t have to agree with her!!

Sherri Sue Fisher,

Author of TimerDiet and TimerOrganizer

Family and Your Weight Loss Plan

How to Incorporate Others into Your “Diet”

Don’t announce that you are going to lose weight. You want to have made some significant progress. I think around 10 pounds is a good starting point to feel confident that you can lose weight. At some point others are going to notice and begin asking if you have lost weight. I truly recommend down playing the situation and let your weight loss speak for itself.

 

Include Family in Menus

 

You do want to include your family in the menu planning. Learning actual nutrients and how to create well-balanced meals and mini-meals is education that should be shared with the entire family. Make sure that you are selecting foods that you and your family love! There is no sense in eating foods that you don’t like. Food is to be enjoyed! Make sure when you go grocery shopping that you have your menus’ figured out and you buy only foods that go together and for which you have a plan.

 

Eating More Often

 

When you are losing weight you will find that you are eating more often than you are used to.  Mini-meals are a great way to get you from one major meal to the other. Some people call them snacks, but I think of junk food when I hear the word snacks, so I prefer mini-meal. Your family and friends may be interested as to what is going on. If you can just let them know you are a little hungry and decided to eat a little something. You should never be full or hungry. Your goal is to always feel just right.

 

Exercise With Others

Feel free to do physical activity with others, including your kids, just don’t associate it with losing weight. Your physical activity should always be about your health and not your weight. Stress management is another advantage of daily exercise. Even a walk after dinner with your spouse can be a nice way to finish the day. I really cannot stress this enough…DO NOT WORKOUT TO LOSE WEIGHT!! Work out daily aerobically and be sure to include weights into your routine switching off between arms and legs daily.

 

Once You Have Lost Weight

 

After you have lost weight you will have changed the way that you and your entire family looks at food and exercise. Remember that losing weight is a solo-project. But, the education of the principles of nutrition and daily exercises are great gifts to share.

 

Sherri Sue Fisher author of TimerDiet and TimerOrganizer