In response to my Autopilot post I’ve tried to keep busy by helping others. In the past few weeks I’ve: Continue reading “Resetting Autopilot”
Category: Hobbies
Diet Update: LCHF Success
Not that this is what this blog is about 🙂 , but since my goal is to catalog my life and in it my journey to financial independence for myself I’m going to talk about it anyway. Diets. What we eat. Like a lot of women I’ve always had an issue with my weight: no matter if I was 150 or 180 pounds (shaking my fist at you society!). I’ve tried to lose weight almost consistently for about 13 years (and I’m 27 🙂 ). They have never worked. I’ve starved myself down to 125 – seriously, I ate 100 calories a day for three months, which is about the number of calories in 1 egg. Dumb, but it worked. I just didn’t realize that my body was mostly eating my own muscle so even though the scale was dropping I still looked plump because I had mostly lost muscle. Disappointing. That was the most ‘successful’ diet I’d ever been on to that point. Prior to that I would try to count my calories, be hungry, have headaches, not be able to concentrate and eventually give up and gain any weight I had lost back – and then some. Continue reading “Diet Update: LCHF Success”
Shocker: I Don’t Love Going Out Anymore
I used to eat out several times a week. If someone suggested it I was always down (unless it was near the end of the month and I’d run out of budget…). In January I did the Frugalwoods Uber Frugal Challenge where I severely cut down on eating out. I ended up only eating outside food twice for a total of $12.34: A friend lunch date at Chipotle (my suggestion 🙂 ) and a take out burger on 1/2 priced Wednesdays. Luckily this was the same month I started eating low-carb and as a result discovered that butter and cheese make anything delicious 🙂 . Continue reading “Shocker: I Don’t Love Going Out Anymore”
Writing for Myself
I seem to be writing several posts lately about what I don’t want to do 🙂 . I’ve learned a lot this year and it’s only early February. While working as an advisor for this financial start up I was asked to write blogs for her. I originally declined saying I had to write blogs for my current company (true) and was already struggling with that. That is still true to an extent. I find it a lot easier to write about a subject I am passionate about (finance) without a hidden agenda or a particular tone I need to hit that is not my own voice.
Continue reading “Writing for Myself”
Writing Cured My Writer’s Block
My latest job is unlike anything else I have done in my adult life. Instead of being a cog in giant ad agencies where everyone has their place and sometimes I’m asked to lend a hand in another part of the process, we are now all responsible for creating every part of the process. There are no writers or designers or strategists. There is no one dedicated to client service. We are all of these things. We are consultants. We’re whatever the client needs us to be. This is so refreshing and exciting. In the ad world I am usually bored with my work after 3 months and hungry to quit after 6, but now what we do changes so rapidly I’m always learning or doing something new. Continue reading “Writing Cured My Writer’s Block”
Eating High Fat Made Me Like Cooking
I’ve never enjoyed cooking. I’ve always seen it as a chore. I cook something for an hour, dirty many pots and pans and since I’m a fast eater scarf it down in about five minutes. This does not seem like a great use of my time. Bad ROI 🙂 . Now that I’m eating Low Carb, High Fat food while doing an Uber Frugal Month challenge I’ve discovered something weird. I don’t hate cooking anymore. I haven’t done a full 180, but I don’t mind cooking. I usually do it at least once a day. I make my breakfast from scratch: 3 scrambled eggs cooking in half a tbsp of butter, an ounce of mozzarella cheese, an ounce of an onion (high carb/sugary – who knew?) and whatever treat I want to put it in: yesterday it was pesto (yum), today it was avocado (YUM!). It takes maybe 10 minutes and I eat it slowly with my tea in a sun-soaked living room. Continue reading “Eating High Fat Made Me Like Cooking”
Dietary Musings Part II: High-Fat, Low Carb
I’m surprised by what my brain absorbs and clings onto. I just re-read my original Dietary Musings post. It was two years ago when I looked into a vegan/whole food plant based diet. I planned to record my ailments that the books I was reading claimed would be resolved by eating this way to track my progress. It….didn’t go well :). Cutting all animal products out of my diet made me tired, constantly hungry and didn’t cure anything. I dropped it after less than a month of creating unique recipes that frankly didn’t taste like much of anything at all and went back to my original American diet which includes bouts of low calorie eating combined with overeating at restaurants and binge drinking. Continue reading “Dietary Musings Part II: High-Fat, Low Carb”
The Results of an Uber Frugal Month
This January I embarked on an Uber Frugal Month with Mrs. Frugalwoods. You basically cut out or down on all unnecessary spending. I’m very happy this coincided with my new low carb, high fat diet. It made me not even want to eat out which is unheard of. Continue reading “The Results of an Uber Frugal Month”