My Week 1 in a nutshell: I met my bento-oriented goals for Week 1, but failed to meet my fitness goals.

Bento wise, I did pretty well. I met my goal of planning ahead for the week, making a bento every weekday for The Guy as well as myself (though he didn't need one on Thursday or Friday), and for keeping my bento calories under 500 (my set goal for lunch).

Planning

I did fairly well with planning. Chicken thigh meat was on sale at our local butcher, so I bought a couple of kilo of it and cut it up into bite-size pieces. I used chicken twice during the week. I also had some frozen shrimp that had to be used up, which I did. Chinese broccoli made its appearance twice, as did spinach, as well as my old standby carrots.

I did make a few changes on the spot, but more or less followed my plan. (Dinner plans did change quite a bit from my plans though.)

One plan that didn't work: I meant for the stewed root vegetables I made for Thursday's bento to go in at least one more bento round next week, but uhm, they've already been eaten! I guess this is a hazard you face if you have hungry humans other than yourself around the house!

The bentos

I've already posted them to the flickr pool, but just to have them all on one page:

Monday bento (described in detail here), about 450 calories:

Tuesday bento, about 450 calories:

Wednesday bento, about 420 calories:

Thursday bento, a vegan bento about 400 calories with the clementine (I didn't eat the mini-onigiri, which would have added about 50 calories):

Friday bento, around 400 calories:

What I need to work on

• As I said at the top, I failed to meet my exercise goals! I have no good excuse except that I was super-busy, have a slight cold and well, it's so cold outside! But in Week 2 I will do better - I have to!
• Bento was fine, but dinner and snacks went a bit awry. I have to watch the mindless snacking much better, and look at dinner portions. (Pasta may have to go for a while...) I also felt I didn't eat enough fruit.

How did your week go? Share your thoughts, and see how other people participating in the Challenge did in the Just Bento forum!