When I first started my new lifestyle, I had a lot of bad grocery shopping habits to break. It’s amazing what the smallest changes can do for you. Here is this Friday’s Fit and Healthy Lifestyle tip.
Today’s Tip: How best to do your grocery shopping on a healthy diet
- First, never go shopping while you’re hungry. You should have a snack before you go grocery shopping or go after a meal if at all possible. If you go while hungry, you’re more likely to pick up more than is already on your list and unhealthy items to boot.
- Speaking of a list, you definitely want to make a grocery shopping list in advance. We keep our list on the fridge and add to it throughout the week so we can keep tabs on what items we need to restock. Having a list helps us to stay on track choosing healthy items. There are many items that end up in the cart that were not on the list but we try to limit that.
- Begin your grocery shopping trip by picking out fresh foods first. We always head over to the produce section and start with fruit and veggies. While you’re there pick out one or two new items to try that you have never tried before. Don’t forget that frozen veggies are good to have on hand as well. Next move on to the meat section and pick up some goodies there. I find that having those healthy items in my cart first make it easier to stay away from the junk!
- It’s best to avoid the isles in the center of the store as much as possible and shop the outer isles first. This is something we still need to work on a lot because it’s my goal to cut down drastically on processed foods. You find most of the junk food in the center isles. Also, try to stay away from the deli when it comes to side dish type items like mayo laden potato and macaroni salads, etc.
- Grocery shopping online can help by keeping you from constantly adding things to your cart that you really don’t need. It’s easier just to toss things in the cart when the product is right in front of you but when ordering online, you are more likely to be able to skip past the temptation and follow your grocery list. It’s been a while since we have done our grocery shopping online through Peapod so we might have to try it again sometime.
- We shop at a variety of stores from the main large grocery stores in our area to specialty healthy food stores like Trader Joe’s, The Fresh Market, Whole Foods, etc. We can get some unique healthy items from each of these specialty stores. I would like to check out a few local farmers markets to see what they have to offer as well. We used to go to a fruit/veggie stand but the produce was just not up to par. I have heard good things about the website Local Harvest. You can find farmers markets, family farms and more via this website.
Do you shop at farmers markets?
Lastly, WebMD has a great printable healthy grocery list that I thought would be useful so be sure to check it out.
What are your best tips for grocery shopping on a healthy diet?
I highly recommend joining a CSA – Community Supported Agriculture – program. You get a weekly veggie delivery at a fraction of the cost it would be to get those veggies at the grocery store. You also get a lot of veggies you may not have tried before… but it’s a fun challenge and forces you to eat those daily servings of vegetables.
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Casey,
Thank you so much for your input. I appreciate it.