Day 05: A Sneeze & The End of The Week

It's Friday, which means it is the end of Week 1! It has been a very educational week. I'll probably do a summary of what I've learnt over the week this weekend. So far, I'm quite happy with what I've managed to achieve this week.

Today's meal is quite similar to Monday's meal except for the slight variation of fruit and dessert. I've been really hungry the whole morning because of last night's super exhausting 10km (nearly!) workout on the rowing machine so I decided something with more greens and a bit of meat, hence I opted for the popiah. So I hopped onto the lift and went down to the restaurant on the ground floor to pick up a popiah. While I was waiting in line to pay for my food, the man in front of me let out a huge sneeze away from his food on the counter towards my direction, which was behind him. I got worried about my food being contaminated as it was not fully wrapped in plastic. Both ends of the wrapper are open. Also, not to mention that this was in a restaurant that had food exposed on the shelves. If that did not put you off your meal, I don't know what would. Due to my severe hunger, that thought quickly faded out of my mind and into the call of replenishment.

The apple is a natural choice as I've procrastinated on buying it yesterday, and to add a bit of glucose into my diet, I bought two packs of chewys. I've decided to put one pack aside for Monday. I'm beginning to like this idea of purchasing slightly more for the next day but then it does mean that I'm saving less than what I would like to.

Yesterday, I mentioned that I had some leftovers which would be incorporated into today's meal. Well, that didn't really work out as plan. I was severely hungry today that I ate all my leftovers, and a bar of Weet-bix for morning tea and I was still famished by lunch.

So, that's the last meal of the week and I can't wait to start the next week although I am still deciding if I should cut the length of the experiment from 20 days to 10 days. I'll have to make that decision over the weekend.

Today's meal breakdown:

Main meal - Popiah, RM2.30
Snack - NZ Fuji apple, RM0.80
Dessert - Sugus stick x 2 (Blackcurrent, Apple), RM0.90 + RM0.80
Total spent = RM4.80
Savings = RM0.20

Day 04: Shortchanged & Leftovers

Note: I apologize deeply if today's post doesn't make much sense. I'm extremely exhausted and just trying my best to keep awake to finish this post. I'll see if I can improve on it over the weekends. 

Learning from yesterday's mistake, I decided to take things one notch down and shop carefully. I've been feeling really hungry and exhausted this morning due to the intense workout I had on the previous night. In order to keep myself awake and energized, I decided to have a bar of Weetabix. These bars are almost magical as a serving was enough to keep me active throughout the morning without feeling fatigued, but the side effect from that is the feeling of dizziness by lunch time. I knew I had to have a hearty lunch in order to survive the rest of the day. 

I had my mind set on a cheap snack from 7-11, which was below RM1.00. In fact, it's the only few items you can get from 7-11 for below RM1.00. The reason why I wanted to get this blueberry roll was because I ordered a simple onion and egg canai, which I thought was scarcely enough for lunch. I couldn't have been so wrong again. However, lets get back to the story of the blueberry roll and 7-11. After I paid for the item and as the cashier returned my change, I was confused as why he gave me 5 cents less than the correct amount. Politely, I told him that there was a slight mistake in the amount returned and he explained that they were out of 5 cents in the till. I was quite surprised because this is only the middle of the day and this shop is operating for 24 hours everyday. I felt terribly shortchanged as I imagined the total amount of 5 cents they could have accumulated for the rest of the day by telling customers that they're out of them. 

After I picked up my order of egg and onion canai from the stall, I went down to the supermarket to buy myself an apple but I ended up buying a packet of roasted peanuts instead because I needed something that can provide me with some energy for tonight's gruelling workout. 

Then, it was time to dig in. As hungry as I was today, after finishing that piece of canai, I felt comfortably full and opted to have some peanuts instead of the blueberry roll. Now, I have leftover food for tomorrow and this would then allow me to spend comfortably on tomorrow's main meal and dessert. 

Main meal - Egg & Onion canai, RM 2.50

Snack - Blueberry roll, RM 0.85

Dessert - Roasted peanuts, RM 1.30 

Change - RM 0.30, short of RM 0.05 due to lack of small change in the cash register.

Day 01 - Cheesecake & Weetabix

Today is the first day of the challenge and I've already started it on a wrong foot.  In order to avoid having a heavy meal during lunch, a big breakfast is necessary to keep me going for at least half a day. 

However, because it was Mum's birthday yesterday, all I had for breakfast was a slice of cappuccino cheesecake.

Later this morning, temptation struck. The furniture guy came over to unlock my mobile pedestal (I lost the key about a week ago) thus freeing the box of Weetabix that has been waiting for me. I knew that if I had taken a piece, it would be counted as cheating as having that as morning or afternoon tea would just defeat the whole purpose of this challenge. Hence, I have decided that Weetabix shall be only consumed as emergency rations due to extreme hunger and unless I am able to justify my hunger, that day will be nulled and counted as a failure. I've not thought about the consequences of a fail day but I hope I won't have to go through that anytime soon.

Perhaps, I'm being too harsh on myself. I have a bad feeling about this. I'm gonna die.

Anyway, here's what I had for lunch today:

1. Main meal - 1 Popiah (spring roll)

2. Snack - 1 Royal Beauty Apple

3. Dessert - 1 pack of Cream O Sandwich (vanilla)

Despite starting off with a bad breakfast, this meal managed, albeit barely, to get me through the afternoon without having to dip into the Weetabix box of shame. Also, today's spending is RM4.80 in total, RM0.20 below the set limit.

I hope tomorrow will be a better day. Come on, 19 more days to go!