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Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Organization Event

I've been inspired.

I've been inspired to be ORGANIZED and have a proper order to everything in my life...well, ok...not EVERYTHING, BUT I've started off with, you guessed it...FOOD.

Because well, food is my life.

I know I should think of food as fuel and not life, but...whatever.

I ENJOY FOOD AND I'M NOT AFRAID TO ADMIT THAT!

But anyway...today while I was working hard I got inspiration to create an Excel file to help me with menu planning/calorie tracking.

Now let me give you a little bit of background:

A couple of years ago I got a pretty incredible job opportunity as a technical trainer.  I basically taught people how to use computers and I had a specialty in Microsoft Office.  I didn't get certified before I left the company and I wish I did because it'd be a hell of a thing to have on my resume.  Although it was an enjoyable job (for the most part) and it paid well and had awesome benefits, there was a lot that I couldn't stand so I only did it for about two years.

The point to telling you this is I walked in barely knowing how to use Excel (I charmed them in my interview) and I walked about being an advanced user and a HUGE fan.  I used Excel as much as I could and I loved learning about all of it's capabilities (seriously, Excel is AWESOME). 

My thought was to create a workbook that would allow me to easily plan my meals for each week as well as have it bring over the calories for each food item.  I had some functions in the back of my head that I knew I could use, but I was afraid I had forgotten HOW to use them since it's been a while since I've used any of them.

Needless to say it was a success!  I'm so thrilled with the final product, I did have some help with some cosmetic stuff so I can't take ALL the credit, but I accomplished what I wanted.

This is an example of what it looks like:

Below the Grand Total row there is a blank section titled "Shopping List".  The idea is to plan out your meals, print the sheet out, write out a shopping list and then keep your menu on your fridge for reference during the week.  I think it'll help with time AND with me sticking to my caloric intake each day.

This is a rough test of it, I was still adding to the food database and testing at this point.

So anyway, I wanted to brag because well...I'm pretty impressed with myself for it.  I'm hoping to eventually encorporate it into what initially inspired me to do it and that was couponing and budgeting, but that'll be a while down the road.

I'll also have you know I got a swift kick in the butt at TOPS this week, causing me to wake up when it comes to my dieting (more on that for FAF).

I do have pictures of all my meals from today!



For breakfast I've been eating old cereal that I've got to eat up in my cupboard (I'm poor, I spent too much on Arbonne at my Princess Party :x ).  This is Cascadian Farms Organic Chocolate O's.  With some applesauce (yesterday I hate my last banana as I prefer fresh fruit with my breakfast).



You can't really tell what this is but this is actually Panera's french onion soup.  What I do is I'll buy the soup for a group and I can usually get 4-5 lunches out of it (I've been eating it all week).  So this is a serving, with a piece of the baguette and a granola bar.  I actually did NOT eat the bar, which is what I love about this soup, it keeps me FULL!



Dinner consisted of meatless/soyless chicken nuggets, fake mashed potatoes (my favorite, I know...I'm a sick freak) and a salad, with FF Catalina dressing.  This was such a good dinner!!!!

I found these fancy chocolate chip cookies that are "nutrient packed" - I'm not sure how true that is, but they're delicious.  I can have 2 for 100 calories...

I also had some pretzels!

Exercise - 30 minutes on the elliptical (3.10 mi) and 15 minutes on the arc trainer.

What has inspired YOU lately?

3 comments:

Ashley said...

I love your spreadsheet! I never thought about buying a group size of Panera soup! I've done it with Olive Garden's soup and salad before though. I heart that stuff. But it's not all that great for you. lol I've never heard of fake mashed potatoes?

And I don't get HOW, but it is true about that french onion soup. The day I blogged about it and you were eating it too.. well I got the pick 2, half a panini, french onion soup and a baguette, they forgot my sandwich and I didn't notice until I got back to work so I had only the soup and bread and was stuffed. It's a brothy soup! How does that work?!

Brandy@YDK said...

awesome job on the spreadsheet. I use excel for my job and i love it too. It's so handy.

and your meals look awesome. what a great idea to buy a bunch of soup at once.

Connie said...

I LOVE SPREADSHEETS!!!!!!!

I have tons of them! Great idea and you did an amazing job!

I think I saw those cookies yesterday....do you like them? They were $4 and I didn't want to spend that much if they sucked.