Food Stamps Challenge, Canadian Edition: Day 6

Good evening and welcome to the penultimate day of this interesting experiment.

Weight: 146 (down 2 pounds)

Meals:
Breakfast: Banana, 3 scrambled eggs, 2 pieces of toast with butter
Work Snack: Cookie, granola bar
Lunch: None
Dinner: 1/2 can vegetable soup

Today I did not have a big appetite.  The breakfast was extremely filling and when I came home from work I wasn't hungry for a meal like I usually am.  It could have something to do with today being a shorter day because I slept in or maybe my appetite is getting smaller from the challenge.  I must add that, unlike the pizza, the vegetable soup I had today was delicious.

I think I finally got used to the lack of coffee!  I had a good amount of energy and even had an hour-long bike ride and I felt more focused at work.  It's incredible how much of an effect a lack of coffee can have on you when you are used to having coffee every day; it really is a drug.  I miss coffee much more than alcohol.  

I ran out of eggs today but I still have a lot of food left over for my final day.  I still have pasta, cookies, bread, 1 bowl of soup, several pizza slices, some milk, lots of peanut butter, 1 granola bar and 1 hypothetical egg (since I accidentally bought a pack with one broken egg).  I am 100% certain I will not run out of food.  I think it's fair to say, at this point, that the food stamps budget is not horrible for one person, but it does not seem feasible for 2 or more people.  Tomorrow, I'll see if my leftovers post-challenge could feed a second person for a week.

Goodnight and see you tomorrow.

Food Stamps Challenge, Canadian Edition: Day 5

Day 5 it is.  I've been up 17 hours or so, so far (up at 5:30 for work...) and I am absolutely exhausted so I'll try to make this one quick.

Weight: Plateauing at 147

Meals:
Snack: Medium bowl of Mini Wheats
Breakfast:  Pasta with tomato sauce, cookie
Lunch: 1/2 box mac and cheese, 1/2 can tomato soup
Snack: Small bowl of Mini Wheats
Dinner: 3 small pieces of frozen pizza, cookie

 (My frozen pizza; much smaller than the box)

I ate a lot of food today.  I chalk it up to the fact that I was awake longer than usual but there was a lot of snacking...  I think that's because I didn't have any protein today.  Yes, that would make sense.  Those two factors probably made me waste a lot of calories.  I was hungry for all of this, too.  It wasn't just eating because I was bored.  

Today after work, I thought I deserved a reward (I know, right?  A reward for doing what too many people have to do their entire lives), so I went to a wine shop that offers samples and tried their Strawberry Margarita.  It was so sweet and delicious.  I wanted to savor it but I also didn't want to hold up the woman at the shop too long as she awkwardly watched me sip the sample.  Internal dilemmas...

I'm starting to run out of certain foods.  I am now out of Mini Wheats and Kraft Dinner.  I'm still confident that I'll be fed decently the next two days but there might not be a lot left over at the end.

Final comment for today: the PC Spinach frozen pizza was not very good... :(

Food Stamps Challenge, Canadian Edition: Day 4

Good evening!  It is Day 4.  This is one of the few occasions on the internet where taking a picture of your meal is appropriate and not annoying.

Weight: 147 (down 1 pound)

Meals:
Breakfast: 2 scrambled Eggs, piece of toast with butter, banana
Snack: Small bowl of Mini Wheats
Lunch: 1/2 box of mac and cheese, 1/2 can of tomato soup
Dinner: None (not hungry)

Lots of cravings today but I didn't give in to them.  Even when mac and cheese, one of my biggest temptations and my favourite foods, is available to me, I still crave other foods.  I guess I crave variety, lots of choice.  I found myself getting jealous of my brother, who could dress up his pasta with fresh garlic, vegetarian sausage, red pepper, olive oil, Parmesan cheese and other appealing condiments, while I could only have pasta with tomato sauce.

I did feel relatively energetic this morning without coffee, which was good.  Maybe the coffee withdrawal is over.  I'm starting to run out of things; 3 eggs left (one was cracked and I didn't notice until I'd used up a few eggs already), bread is halfway done, cereal is halfway done, 2 bananas and 2 apples left, 1 serving of mac and cheese left, etc.  However, I still have plenty of pasta, plenty of soup and an entire frozen pizza left over, which I'm going to have tomorrow for the Pizza and Movie Night my brother and I do every Friday. 

Still doing fine.  I'm just hoping for more energy before the week is over and really looking forward to coffee (and alcohol) again.

Food Stamps Challenge, Canadian Edition: Day 2

Hello again.

Today's stats:

Weight: Still 148

Meals:
Breakfast: medium bowl of Mini Wheats and banana

Work snack: granola bar and cookie

Lunch: 2 scrambled eggs, 1/2 can of tomato soup and piece of toast with butter

Dinner: 2 pieces of toast with butter and peanut butter, Mr. Noodles, apple

Admittedly I went overboard with the last meal and I still feel very full from it.  I felt tired today but still easily satisfied by my meals.  I did experience a few cravings for things, since I work at a grocery store and there are all kinds of tantalizing foods in the house that I can't eat.  The grass is always greener on the other side.  So far, I'm really not suffering too much or at all.  However, it is going to be much easier for one person to do this challenge as opposed to 2, 3, 4 or more people; a couple or a family.

I was also informed by my dad's girlfriend, who is much more knowledgeable than me since she has experienced financial instability and still does (but to a lesser degree), that just buying food with $35 doesn't give you the full picture.  When you are on food stamps, you also have to use that money for toiletries like pads, tampons, toothpaste, shampoo, Advil, toilet paper, shaving cream, etc which makes it all so much worse when you realize that.  One can always budget around that each week and save up for toiletries (eg. one toiletry item per week), but when you think about that, it just makes the budget so much tighter, even for a single person.

If I do this challenge again, I think I will include the toiletries and probably try it for a month.  But that initial purchase of just the essentials (toilet paper, shampoo, toothpaste, Advil, pads/tampons) would turn that first week into a 168-hour famine.

So far, so good.  See you tomorrow. :)