So it is 2015! You can't use the holiday excuse anymore. Your talking about starting a new meal plan, working out, the whole works! Let me help you get started right. I want to share some tips that I use while shopping to make sure that I am hitting the right areas of the store! ;)
1) Prep for Success
Make sure that you have your meals for the week prepped out and ready. What I do is plan a few different recipes for each meal. For example maybe 2 lunch recipes, 2 dinner, and 1 breakfast. This is because I usually have plenty of left overs. So no need to cook each night/day of the week!
Have your meals planned out and write the ingredients that you need for each recipe out on a grocery list! Here we goooo to the grocery store! PS- when you are writing out your grocery list, think about where in the store you will get those ingredients ;) … are any of them in the middle aisles??
2) Shop the outside aisles!
When you are shopping in the grocery store, the key is to stick to the outside aisles. Why? Because the middle aisles are usually filled with canned and boxed foods- a no no for a clean eating diet.
Below is an example of what shopping in the grocery store should look like. And this is really what it looks like for me! In and out of the middle aisles just a little bit and then back to the outside. When I started taking clean eating seriously and started the 21 day fix, this pattern just kind of fell into place. I heard about "shopping the outside aisles" after I had already been doing it. But it makes sense right?!
The chips, pop, candy, boxed dinners, canned veggies, etc. Stay out away! :) Spend more time looking for fresh produce that you can snack on and make healthier meals with.
When I walk into our grocery store, the first thing there is produce. I do the majority of my shopping there. Then I work my way around the store… meat, dairy, frozen, checkouts! I do go into the middle aisles a tad just for maybe some salsa, almonds, chicken broth, or oatmeal. But other than that I really don't need anything in them.
3) Produce is your friend :)
Like I said before- when I am in the grocery store, the majority of my time is spent in the produce department. You should have vegetables incorporated into your lunch and dinners. And also eating fruit each day. These things seem to disappear out of my fridge fast, so I pick up a LOT of it! ;) And to be honest- I usually have to make a few extra runs to the store during the week if/when I run out of produce.
When I got home from the grocery store the other day I decided to take out all my groceries and figure out how much of each category I was buying. This is what my groceries for the week typically look like. Neil works on the road during the week so I am cooking for Chloe and I. Granted I usually have some things at home still that I don't have to buy and I also end up going back to the grocery store sometime at the end of the weekend for more.
As you can see in this picture, 60% of my groceries are produce. 20% is dairy. This is usually egg whites, unsweetened almond milk, greek yogurt, some yogurt for Chloe, and maybe some cheese if a recipe calls for it. 15% is meats. That is typically chicken breast, maybe salmon, ground turkey. I like to get my protein in other forms too- like Tofu and egg whites. Only 5% of the groceries I bought were shelf items. TWO items- chicken broth for my chicken picatta that I will make later this week and walnuts for a new salad that I am going to try out!
Do you need help getting started with meal planning and clean eating? Feel free to contact me through my blog or Facebook and I can give you more tips! You can also check out my recipes which are also located on my blog for some ideas! Let me know how it goes!
Remember: Find clean recipes, write a grocery list, shop for food, and consciously make sure that you are sticking to outside aisles! Happy Grocery Shopping!! :) Did I mention that I LOVE grocery shopping?! LOVE IT!!
xo
Briana
No comments:
Post a Comment