The irony in my resisting a positive lifestyle change is that when it comes to diet and health, I’ve been been making poor lifestyle decisions for much of my adult life. By not taking my health and well being into my own hands, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing – committing to a lifestyle – but a bad one. Why is it easier committing to doing bad for the rest of your life than committing to doing good? Maybe some of you who are wiser can shed some light on that for the rest of us. In the meantime, I’m beginning my work on doing the right thing.

For me, the right thing looks like reducing the amount of animal protein in my diet. It’s committing to buying and preparing only ethically raised meat and poultry when I do consume animal protein. And I’ve also decided to stick to a reduced monthly grocery budget. Having done it over the past month I’ve realized that I waste a lot less food and take less for granted. Another step in the right direction is returning to a time when I always gave thanks for my food. At the dinner table when we were growing up, my father would ask God to “bless this food to our bodies, and our bodies to your service.” It was a simple but powerful prayer, one that I’ve gotten away from saying as an adult.

So as I begin the process of permanently folding my new lifestyle changes into my daily life, I keep reminding myself that success in the long run comes, as with everything else in life, one day at a time. I don’t have to think about being healthy and living healthy for the next (hopefully) 50 years, I just have to make those little decisions today that add up to making the day a good one. Then repeat, one day at a time.

For the past 3 weeks I’ve been able to buy healthy, whole, unprocessed foods, on a budget of approximately $25 a week. I promised to make my eating more about health and wholeness and less about carbs and calorie counting and I did. And, miracle of miracles, I have not stepped on the scale once in the past month. Was it a piece of cake? No. But it wasn’t that hard either. As is the case with most life challenges we undertake, I’ve discovered a few things along the way.

• For one, I’m very fortunate to live within a few miles of a farmers market, Trader Joe’s and a vegetarian food co-op. I’m very aware that being in close proximity to these places makes healthier, conscious eating, much easier. That realization is helping me not to take that fact for granted.
• Putting limitations on how much and what I could eat, made me much less wasteful and much more thankful.  I realized that, when it comes to food anyway, I’ve been confusing my needs with my wants for years. My “little” $25 budget is how millions of people live out of necessity every day. In fact, in most of the world, $25 a week for food is a luxury. Putting myself on a budget reminded me of just how blessed I am in that I have access to three squares and clean drinking water every single day.
• From as far back as I can remember I’ve allowed an over-emphasis on what and how much I’m eating to control my life. Calorie counts and fat content have become more important to me than where my food is coming from and what impact it will have on my health and the environment. At 39 1/2, if I don’t get a grip on that now, who knows when I ever will. Last week when I demolished those chicken thighs with 5 days left in the week, I was forced to sit with the fact that I do not manage food the way most people do. Getting a grip on what I should and shouldn’t do when it comes to food is key in my quest to be fit at 40.

The experiment might be winding down, but my revised way of thinking about eating healthier and more consciously is just beginning. At the end of the week I’ll update you on how my last week went and I’ll share my plans for moving forward.

If you’re involved in your own Fit at Forty challenge and would like to share it with our readers, send your story to contribute@womenatforty.com.

On Wednesday morning as I sat down to eat yet another bowl of oatmeal, I thought, “I can NOTeat another bowl of oatmeal.” You see, sadly, unlike my longstanding relationship with chicken, I have no addiction to, or affinity for, oatmeal. Especially when it’s not drowning in brown sugar, cinnamon or the fake little chunks of apple or peach they add to those handy pre-packaged individual-serving size- bags.  No, now that I’m getting my oatmeal au naturale, it’s become an acquired taste I have yet to acquire. But the sweet potato, that was something I could work with, and work with it I did. A little bit of seasoning and a pat of butter, and that little root vegetable became the highlight of my chickenless-by my own doing-beanfilled week.

Next week, I’m putting off the grocery shopping until Monday and preparing my meals (at least the ones involving chicken) on a daily basis in the hopes of keeping the I-must-eat-all-this-chicken-at-once monster at bay. Wish me luck!

Image source: Ehow.com

Grace is a blogger and Women at Forty’s Senior Editor. She shares her weight loss challenges and experiences weekly in our Health & Beauty – Fit at Forty section.

The easiest way to explain my obsession affinity for chicken is to quote my (vegetarian) sister, “It’s in your system.” I like it stir fried, baked, stuffed, grilled, stewed, curried, browned…basically, if you cook it, I’ll eat it. You know how they talk about people being carbohydrate addicts, why don’t they ever mention the protein addicts? I know they exist because I am one. I went years without eating red meat, and could live without it now. The same goes for most other meat, but anyone who knows me knows how much I enjoy cooking and eating chicken. So when I baked my six very small chicken thighs (did I mention they were very small) and told myself they’d last the entire week, not even the dog believed me.

If you do the math you’ll see that if you eat two thighs per serving for both lunch and dinner you’ll have chicken for exactly a day and half. Which brings me to this week’s lessons:

Lesson number one – The next time I blow a considerable percentage of my meager $25 budget on free range chicken (my total for this week was $25.67) I’ll cut it up into bite sized pieces the way it’s done in many Asian dishes. That will stretch it over a longer period of time. Hopefully.

Lesson number two – Know your weakness, be honest about it and plan for it. Superman has his Kryptonite, I have my chicken. Next time I’ll only cook an individual serving at a time because as much as I love chicken, I’m not eating it raw and no matter how much I’m fiending for it, I won’t cook a batch up at midnight.

Lesson number three – if you eat all the good stuff at once, you’re back to beans for the rest of the week. Chick peas anyone?

The other thing I realized during this week’s grocery run was how much force feeding and injecting chickens fatten them up! It’s pretty shocking when you think about it. The free range chicken wasn’t nearly as large as the other chicken. And has anyone noticed that chicken just doesn’t taste the way it used to – specifically the fast food kind? Are our taste buds maturing as we get older or is the chicken just not cutting it anymore? Anyway, I’ll be back at the end of the week for an update on the now chicken-less remainder of my week. Bon Appétit!

Grace is a blogger and Women at Forty ‘s Senior Editor. She shares her weight loss challenges and experiences weekly in our Health & Beauty – Fit at Forty section.

The bubbly stomach and a little bit of boredom have been the main downsides to my challenge so far. There have been evenings when unable to eat everything in sight (because I’d have nothing left to eat for the rest of the week) I’ve been forced to figure out what’s driving my desire to snack incessantly instead of taking the easy way out and giving in to the urges. The process sometimes leaves me frustrated and angry, but having to work through those feelings have been a step in the right direction.

The positives of the challenge have been plentiful. I’ve found it pretty easy to stay within my budget even with the meat purchase. And forcing myself to stay within my $25 budget has reminded me to use what I have and use it wisely. For the past two weeks I haven’t had to don a gas mask and discard fermenting fruit and vegetables from my refrigerator, having eaten what I’ve bought with little to no waste. I’m also cooking more and planning meals more efficiently as a result of the challenge. I’ve even got my dog eating a bit healthier by preparing some of his food from scratch and buying dog treats without artificial ingredients. Side note – he too was grateful I gave the beans a rest this week.

I’m looking forward to next week’s trip to the farmers market. I’m surprised at how excited I get about shopping with a purpose and on a budget. Halfway through the challenge and I’m thinking that this might be a change I want to make for the long term. See you Monday for the next update!

Share your thoughts on  being Fit at Forty in the comment section or on our Facebook Fan page.

Grace is a blogger and Women at Forty editor who lives outside of Atlanta, GA. She shares her weight loss challenges and experiences weekly in our Health & Beauty – Fit at Forty section.

I made a sort of vegetable-bean-beef stew thingy to stretch the meat over several meals and I still have tofu, beans and vegetables left from last week. Just two weeks in, I can see that the real challenge here is not staying within the $25 budget, but not getting bored with what I’ve been preparing. Another thing that’s becoming really clear is that packaged foods, even the ones that claim to be all natural, have so many added ingredients that it boggles the mind. While looking for plain old tortilla chips over the weekend I found only a couple of brands that had 5 ingredients or less. What’s all the other stuff for anyway? And does everything have to have artificial color – what color are tortilla chips supposed to be?

I’m also learning to eat and like what I have on hand. Remember as a kid when you used to eat what your mom made for dinner, or you didn’t eat at all? Somewhere along the way we started confusing our wants with our needs. I don’t know about you, but doing that has gotten me into trouble in the past. Learning to be content with what I have now, is the biggest lesson I’m learning from my little experiment.  On Friday I’ll let you know how long this contentment lasts. Bon Appetit!

Share your thoughts on  being Fit at Forty in the comment section or on our Facebook Fan page.

Grace is a blogger and Women at Forty editor who lives outside of Atlanta, GA. She shares her weight loss challenges and experiences weekly in our Health & Beauty – Fit at Forty section.

I wasn’t exaggerating when I said that over the years, tracking what I could and couldn’t eat and weighing myself have become an obsession. Ironically, none of that obsessive tracking did anything to stop me from gaining weight. But it’s become so much a part of what I do and who I am, that not doing it seems foreign to me.  Enter my public declaration on Women at Forty that I’d do neither. Never one to lie (well, not to large groups of people at once) I refrained from calorie checking and weighing myself – despite being tempted several times. There’s something to be said for going public.

Why was it important to stay off the scale during this challenge? If you’re someone who’s struggled with weight their entire life then you know that the scale can become the most powerful “voice” in the house. It can dictate your emotions, what you eat and don’t eat and can shape your outlook on your entire day. If you’re someone who’s given your power to the numbers on the scale, NOT weighing yourself for a period of time can be a difficult, but ultimately healthy thing. For me this challenge is about returning my focus to food as nutrition not as nurturer-problem solver-companion-savior, regardless of what the numbers on the scale say.

I’m back to the market this weekend. My total last week was $25.72 (adjusted for the most expensive pint of orange juice I’ve ever purchased, bought during a meeting at a coffee shop on Tuesday.) I’ve actually got beans, rice and a few other staples left over from last week’s purchases, so I think I can come in under $25 this week. Hey, I might even be able to by about a half an ounce of free range chicken to add a little variety to this all bean thing I’ve been doing. I’ll be back on Monday with a total and an update on how my first weekend on the challenge went.

Share your thoughts on  being Fit at Forty in the comment section or on our Facebook Fan page.

Grace is a blogger and Women at Forty editor who lives outside of Atlanta, GA. She shares her weight loss challenges and experiences weekly in our Health & Beauty – Fit at Forty section.

Today begins day one of my $25 good food challenge. For those not in the know, last week, after being inspired by Oprah’s Food, Inc. episode, I challenged myself, during the month of February, to eat only healthy, whole foods all on a weekly budget of only $25. I’m fortunate to live nearby to a great farmers market, a Trader Joe’s and even a vegan food co-op, so finding whole foods wasn’t going to be difficult, but getting everything for $25 might prove to be.

Well, I’m glad to say that after sketching out a menu for the first week of February and going shopping this weekend, I came in at a grand total of $23.22 for my first week of shopping. The list of items I purchased includes fresh fruit (even some organic) like apples, bananas, cantaloupe and honeydew – organic chick peas (hummus anyone?), brown rice, six grain bread, tofu and soy milk. That’s pretty much it. Including the rolled oats I already have in my pantry, that’s 14 items. Let’s see what I can do with that.

I learned a few tricks while shopping this week. I went to the farmers market first thing in the morning. Since they bake on site without preservatives, they discount much of their baked goods 20% – 50% the day after they were made. If you buy and freeze them, they’re almost as good as fresh. I was able to get a $3.29 loaf of whole grain bread, without high fructose corn syrup (you’d be surprised to learn how many products have corn syrup in them,) for only $1.65! The one surprise I did get? I’ve been drinking soy milk for years, but I didn’t realize until this past weekend, how many of them include many more ingredients than soy and water. Because part of this challenge is only eating foods with 5 ingredients or less, I had to scour the shelves to find a soy milk that met that criteria. Fortunately I found Edensoy’s Organic Plain Unsweetened. It was more expensive than the others and there’s no telling what it tastes like, but I’m willing to give it a try.

I’ll add another post at the end of the week to keep you updated with my progress. Something tells me there’s going to be some Beano involved…

Are you taking on any personal health and wellness challenges in 2010? Share them with other Women at Forty – email us at contribute@womenatforty.com.

Grace is a blogger and Women at Forty editor who lives outside of Atlanta, GA. She shares her weight loss challenges and experiences weekly in our Health & Beauty – Fit at Forty section.

It’s time for a change, a real change – an “I’m about to turn forty so I’ve got to start taking this seriously” change. I’ve been heading in this direction for years now, but eating for health was far down on the list, somewhere behind carb and calorie counting and fat monitoring. And while I’ve never been a lover of junk food and have always preferred fresh fruits and vegetables over sugary desserts – when it comes to food, the choices I make every day are made unconsciously, out of habit, and with very little regard to health and where my food is coming from.

But my body was already sensing this, and has been putting me on alert recently. It now refuses to tolerate certain foods the way it used to (dairy, wheat and caffeine for example.) And after watching Oprah’s Food, Inc.  episode on Wednesday, I thought, well, this is surely a sign. But, how does a cash strapped, about-to-be-40-woman eat good, life sustaining foods on a tight (like Mariah Carey’s dress tight) budget? I’m about to find out.

Years ago a struggling artist friend of mine shared with me the story of how he saved up enough money to buy his home while making only about $8 an hour. He was a vegan, and even as a vegan, he spent only $20 a week on food. And no, he didn’t steal anything.

So, can it be done in 2010? It may not be as impossible as you think.  In my case, I only have to shop for myself, and I’m fortunate enough to live within a few miles of a great farmers market and a Trader Joe’s. Years ago I ate a largely vegetarian diet (until an unfortunate incident where I was accosted by an irresistible piece of chicken – no seriously), so cutting back on meat and poultry isn’t out of the question for me. I certainly won’t be able to go all out organic on $25 a week, but by buying fruits and vegetables from local growers, stocking up on beans and eating less – which is one of my goals anyway – I think this is doable.

One of my goals is to remove refined sugar from my diet and when I eat meat and poultry, limit it to grass fed and cage free. My only other rules include: buying products with five ingredients or less listed on the label, avoiding artificial flavor and color, eating preservative free products and avoiding caffeine. No calorie, carb or fat counting, and no obsessing. Even as I write this, it’s a relief to set a food related goal that isn’t tied to weight loss. It feels really good to make a decision for health for myself.

I’m going to do this for the month of February and keep you updated on my progress. So this weekend, it’s off to market I go. I’ve already got some great, healthy foods in my pantry – dried beans, agave nectar, gluten free oats, so it might not be so tough to stick within the allotted budget this week.  Talk to me sometime in the middle of February when all the beans I’ve been consuming turn on me, and that irresistible piece of chicken tries to friend me on Facebook…

Did anyone else see Oprah on Wednesday or watch the documentary “Food Inc.?” What are your thoughts on the whole conscious eating thing? Share them in the comment section or on our Facebook Fan page.

Grace is a blogger and Women at Forty editor who lives outside of Atlanta, GA. She shares her weight loss challenges and experiences weekly in our Health & Beauty – Fit at Forty section.