so much wasted food
I am throwing so much food away lately. I do eat leftovers and take them to work, and my husband does too, but still, I find myself wasting food all the time. Part of me feels terrible about the waste, and part of me is amazed at how much I used to eat. It's especially true of restaurant leftovers. I had salmon the other day, took most of it home, had it for 2 more meals, and still threw away a good sized piece. It's just concrete, in my face proof that I ate way too much pre surgery.
Karen
Four years post op and I still buy too much food. I shop like I am still 240 lbs. I seriously have enough food in my freezer to eat for a month without ever stepping foot in a grocery and probably a lot longer.
I love a bargain and when something is on sale I load up. Then I proceed to get sick of whatever it is I bought. Doesn't matter if I've eaten it daily for the past year, as soon as I have a stockpile it no longer looks good.
I regularly clean out my fridge and freezer and give things to my neighbors. They love me. I don't think they've had to shop for a month themselves.
And my poor dogs. Chihuahuas. My baby girl was 4 lbs when I had surgery. Now she is about 9 lbs. They eat what I don't and they are all overweight. Every time we go to the vet I get the weight lecture. It used to be me that was being lectured about, now it's my poor dogs. Yes, I know it's not healthy but my oldest is 14 and she has earned the right to eat what she wants.
What has helped a lot is buying a Food Saver. I was just using it tonight. I cook my meals and freeze extras. Meat that is on sale gets frozen. I even freeze things like eggs. If it can be safely frozen I do it. I buy rotisserie chickens at Walmart for $2 and cut them up and freeze them. They taste as good when I heat them up as they did when they were fresh. And I always have chicken handy for recipes.
That is why I have such a large stockpile. I really should avoid shopping for a while until I have used more of the food. Instead I buy more and I don't even know what I have in there any more.
I also vacuum seal leftovers from restaurants. That way I have my own frozen meals to take to work. I've found that if I freeze things first in a tupperware type container, once it is solid I can vacuum seal it. Oh, and I have lunch meat and cheese frozen, too. I am going to try to freeze butter since it has been on sale for $2 a pound so of course I have 6 lbs in my fridge. No lie. I love butter and go through about a pound a week anyway but this is ridiculous, lol.
WLS 10/28/2002 Revision 7/23/2010
High Weight (2002) 240 Revision Weight (2010) 220 Current Weight 115.
Walmart chicken and butter for $2.00?! They are both $5.00 here. Another wow-- you can eat a pound of butter a week and your highest weight was 240#? Dang, I've been royally "taken" all the way around. Well, anyway my tip for having too much wasted food is perfecting salad bar opportunities. I choose protein like meat chunks, cheese, boiled egg white, and then a couple of veggies like cauliflower and pea pods...a cup of salad bar usually rings up under $2.00--try and beat that price ;)
The best purchase I ever made for my kitchen was a Foodsaver vacuum sealer. I actually bought my first one before I had my RNY, but I use it all the time now (and I am 7 years out, so I eat a lot more than I did early out, but I still end up with leftovers that can go bad before I get around to eating them). I still have 1/3 of a filet mignon that I got at dinner three weeks ago (a 9 ounce filet is three meals for me) and when I open it tomorrow night for dinner, it will be just as delicious as the second portion of it that I ate the night after the original meal.
I use them to vacuum seal cut up fruit (melons, strawberries, cherries) to keep them fresh long after they would have had to be thrown out, and I can grill a whole package of chicken breasts or a whole pound of hamburgers without having to eat the same thing all week long.
You can get one for about $75 at Walmart, Target, Amazon, etc.. The rolls for making the bags are much more economical than the pre-made bags.
Lora
14 years out; 190 pounds lost, 165 pound loss maintained
You don't drown by falling in the water. You drown by staying there.
I have learned to eat small, my boyfriend owns a pub and they cook for me often and they are amazed at the size of the plates of food I ask for, I was told a bird couldn't live off the amount I eat and typically they still give me too much if I don't monitor them while they cook. I love to eat fresh salads with grilled chicken. Sadly Americans have come to expect these huge plates of food.
