Weight Loss Training Tip #1

#1 I got serious about saving money. 

It is hard to say exactly what started the whole thing. It may have been my friend, Traci, telling us how much she was saving each trip to the grocery store, or it could have been when we saw some financial woes a little over a year ago.  Mostly, it was our desire to give.  Joey and I have always wanted to give and give BIG and so we have been attempting to get rid of the debt to free up cash first.  We have budgeted, rebudgeted and rerebudgeted and it was just becoming more and more difficult to squeak out any more savings.  Then, couponing happened!  I finally got past my feelings of being overwhelmed and the whole "there is no way I can do this" and I just dove in.  At first it didnt seem like I was saving very much money, in fact, I was stocking up on lots of goods but the money flow wasn't really changing.  I even quit my couponing in November and December.  But in January something finally clicked.  I was stocked up on many items and it was time to really make a dent in the grocery bill.  I shared in a previous blog that we went from spending a whopping $900.00 to a much lower $575.00 per month.  This saving is allowing us to pay off debt quicker and to give in one area that I will share about later. 

How does this affect my weight loss? Well...I really have had to do a retraining of the brain, and I have had to think more strategically about what I am buying. To do this, I have posted a calendar on the side of the refrigerator that shows each dinner I have planned for each day of the month.  Now, the meals do get shifted around a bit, with dinner invites elsewhere and such, so it is not rigid but planning it out helps so much. No spontaneous buys in the grocery store and when you know what you need for the week or month--less trips to the grocery store!  This always helps in weight loss!  With the calendar,you can better plan your coupon usage and better keep track of what your eating. I do not like journaling my food but Weight Watchers swears by it-It really does work.  With the posted calendar, the dinners are journaled already for you and things are planned out helping you to save money and watch what you eat.