Take grocery shopping into your own hands. The following three steps will help you to properly navigate your way through the grocery store in order to support your healthy lifestyle, avoid diet sabotage, and impress your family or the significant other in your life. Carry these tips in this article before you make your next trip to the grocery store and remember to never go grocery shopping if you are hungry.
STEP 1: THE SHOPPING LIST
Before heading to the grocery store prepare a comprehensive weekly shopping list. I recommend sitting down on a Sunday to plan out your main meals for the week, from there you can create a shopping list of all the ingredients/items you will need to make your healthy meals. You can do this on a scrap paper, in a notebook, iphone or blackberry.
Having a list will help you stay focused in the grocery store and avoid picking up “temptation items” that can be detrimental to your healthy, clean eating diet. Lastly, remember to stick to the main rule: IF IT’S NOT ON THE LIST KEEP IT OUT OF THE CART! That meals not even an extra candy bar at the counter. Sticking to the list also helps you stay within your budget.
STEP 2: THE GROCERY STORE
For the majority of your food items you will only need to stick to the perimeter of the grocery store. Processed foods and foods that contain sugar and startch are what is normally found in the aisles. Along the perimeter is where the fruits, veggies, meats, dairy, and whole grains can be found. You can venture into the aisles for food items like flax seeds, oatmeal, cooking oils, spices, or whole grains.
STEP 3: READING LABELS
Reading food labels can be very confusing and most people don’t really know what to look for. Avoid foods with: Trans fats, long ingredient lists with lots of artificial ingredients and added chemicals, unhealthy additional sugars such as sucrose, glucose, sugar, maltodextrin, corn syrup etc. Do not believe everything you read because occasionally food labels make claims to trick you into thinking they are the healthy choice when they truly aren’t. Watch out for statements that include claims like “no added sugar”, “contains real fruit”, “all natural”, “fat free”, “low carb”, “high protein”. Be aware and investigate these claims by checking nutrition labels and ingredient lists. These claims are made in order to deceive people into buying it so don’t fall into their trickery so always double check.
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