Weekly Shop

I have not been one to do a weekly shop in the past.  I would find that when I would do weekly a shop, I would end up wasting a lot of food a I would buy things, that I know we would like, but with no real meal or menu planned.  So I stopped doing it, I started going to the supermarket in the afternoons, on the way to or home from school pick up.  The only problem is, that if I couldn't be bothered,  we would just grab take away.  Sushi, Japanese, Pizza (always from a local Italian restaurant so it's good pizza with really fresh ingredients, but yes, it's still pizza).

I shop at a local organic supermarket so I would tend to go shopping every two or three days as they get their fresh produce in on Monday's and Thursdays. 

My local organic grocery store.  Love the fresh produce.

But I have not been doing the three + weekly shop that I was doing! I now go to the "big supermarket" as we call it in our house (Coles, Woolies) on a Sunday to stock up on everything I need from the 12wbt weekly menu shopping list that I can't get at my local organic supermarket. Then on a Monday, I go to the "little supermarket" organic grocer. To stock up on everything else.

My trolley of shopping for the week.

I can not tell you how much better it is doing a menu plan for the week! This has really saved me a lot of money, due to not buying random things that I think may be nice to cook, should I find a recipe and never end up doing. It has also made me a lot more organised so that I do actually cook at home, rather than racing out for some sushi.

So tip for everyone who is not following 12wbt, do up a weekly meal plan! Then shop for it! Makes things so much easier.

Menu Plan On 12WBT

I love Thursdays!

Thursdays are when the menus for the next week are released.  I sit down, print up the weeks menu planner.  Add it to my binder and cross out the meals I don't like the sound of and find something else to replace it with.  I then print up all of the recipes and add them to my binder.  I love this recipe book that we are creating on this challenge, they are recipes that are already becoming family favourites.

Once I have printed the menus, it's time to print off the week's shopping list.  I go through that and cross out the things we don't need (for the meals we don't like).  I add other things (for the meals we are replacing) and off I go to the supermarket on Sunday afternoon and do the weekly shop.

I love how easy most of these recipes are.  I am time poor.  I am often tired after working all day, so to then come home and cook dinner can be a bit of a chore in my household and take away is a regular occurrence due to this.  We do still get take away I will be honest.  Well I don't, I will use one of my already prepared meals from the 12wbt menu as my take away, but my family does love Japanese and this is our most regular take away.   But the recipes for 12wbt are SO easy!  Easy and quick to prepare and really delicious.

There was a beef and broccolini stir fry the other night.  I had it as is and my son had it with rice!  We both LOVED it!  Gobbled it down and it is now going to be a regular on our dining plan.  I have loved the lunches too.  I think my favourite has been the Beef, Horseradish and Beetroot sandwich.  I have had this many many times as it is easy for me to make in the morning and take to work with me.  Another favourite is the rice cakes with avocado, turkey and sprouts!  YUM YUM YUM.

For breakfast this morning I had an egg and bacon wrap.  It was an egg, some cooked bacon and sprouts in a mountain bread wrap.  It is SO tasty and I have had it a couple of times now (have swapped another breakfast for this one).

Now I have had some I wasn't a fan of, the Fish Stew was one of them.  I just didn't like the spice flavours,  but from the 12wbt forum comments, I seem to be the only one who didn't like it, LOL  But we all have different tastes, which is why being able to swap for another meal item is great.

Anyone thinking about doing Michelle Bridges 12 week transformation challenge and are worried about the food.  Don't be!  The food is fantastic.  Easy to prepare, easy to cook, great for time poor and the portions sizes are great!  Much larger than I expected.

Task 6... Organise and Diarise

Another task complete.

I really loved this task!  I love being organised!  One of my favourite stores is Kikki K.  I could wander around there all day and buy almost everything in that shop.

I have purchased a few things to help myself get organised for this 12 week challenge (life time transformation).  I have purchased a book called Fit Book  This can be purchased in Australia too, I bought mine from a discount nutrition supplement store just up the road from me.   This is a fabulous diary to keep track of your food and exercise.

The next thing I have done is to print up all of the recipes for the coming week, as well as a few more.  There were a few recipes that I didn't like so I have just decided to have different recipe for that particular meal.  I have found other recipes where a serve is very similar calories.  I have bought a folder, dividers and plastic pockets and have added all of the printed menus into Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and desserts.  At the front I have a printout of my meal plan for every meal for the whole week. In another section of the folder I have also added some pages of preferred snacks.  So that is the meal planning all organised.  All I have to do now for this is to create a cover for the folder.  It has a plastic slot at the front of the folder for me to slid a piece of paper into it, so I want to create something really inspirational to put in the front.

I have printed off my exercise planner for this week and will be adding that to another folder all of it's own.    I purchased a weekly planner from Kikki K and have written out the week's plan for exercise, supermarket shopping, work and activities.

I still think I will tweak this planning as the weeks go on.  I really do love planning and having things all set out and organised.  This was such a fun task!