Liza's Random thoughts on food

Almost a full week's gone by, and I want to say that even though fruits and veggies may seem more expensive than pre-packaged foods, I think they actually end up being cheaper, at least for me.
When I last picked up groceries, I was determined to pick up all fruits or veggies with only a few non produce items that I needed, like tuna fish and eggs and milk. All in all, I think my grocery bill was barely over $30. Pretty good as far as groceries go, but that's usually my food budget (personal lunch money) for a couple of weeks. I didn't know when this food supply would go or if I would need to supplement my eating by buying more food, thus negating the cheapness of my grocery run.
Well, I realized that when I snack throughout the day, and when the snacking is random bites of fruit, I feel fuller and I eat fewer portion sizes at my "big" meals. For example, on Saturday I brought with me 3 hard boiled eggs (didn't have time to eat my breakfast at home!), a sleeve of wheat crackers, a cup of baby carrots, a handful of strawberries, and apple, and a tuna pouch. I snacked on those throughout the day, and I came home with 2/3 of the cracker sleeve and didn't even finish the carrots or eat the apple.
On Monday, it was more of the same: I ate a banana, then my apple an hour later, then 1/2 my strawberries, and two crackers with liberal amounts of water throughout. By the time I went to lunch at 1, I was barely hungry, but ate about 3 ounces of tuna one a bed of lettuce and dashed some balsamic vinaigrette that I had on hand. My snack during my weekly conference call was two more crackers and 2 or 3 baby carrots (carrots tend to be too sweet for me but I can take them in teeny tiny increments). When I came home, all I was in the mood for was a plate I made up of 4 baby carrots, a few more ounces of tuna and 5 crackers. A couple of hours later I was in the mood for noodles, so I just ate the noodles out of a ramen pack, but over all, that day I only consumed like 1300 calories and burned about 250 of those calories on the treadmill.
I guess the moral of the story is: if I eat "like a girl" and just snack on foods that are more nutritious for me anyway, I will feel more full and end up eating less. I don't have to overthink my foods and feel like I need a fully prepared meal all the time. I need to go back to how I ate when I went to school:I ate constantly throughout the day. I always had a snack with me, and I need to be able to do that at work, rather than wait for hours to go by before eating anything.