Grocery Shopping & Food Preparation

Grocery Shopping And Preparing meals 

Grocery Shopping can do one of two things to your new lifestyle change.  It can make all your hard work exercising pay off, or it can reverse any progress you have accomplished.  If you think about exercising and how long it takes to burn calories (energy) and how little time it takes to eat, you can see the importance of Nutrition.   Think about the following situation. 

Situation 

You get up in the morning and go for an hour walk with your dog.  Lets say you walking at a moderate pace.  You would burn roughly 300 calories.  Upon returning home you eat a nutritious breakfast and then meet up with a friend for coffee.  You go to Tim Hortons and decide to choose a “health” blueberry bran muffin with orange juice.  Lets examine the following “healthy” choice you just made.

Blueberry bran muffin

300 Calories

20 grams of sugar 

10 grams fat

Orange Juice

140 Calories

0 grams of fat

33 grams of sugar.

A close examination shows that your “healthy” choice was not so healthy.  In fact, your hour walking the dog (planned exercise) was just ruined by the consumption of your blueberry bran muffin and orange juice.  

I am not suggesting that you give up Tim Hortons, as I would not recommend giving up any food.  All foods are good in moderation.  What I would like to point out from the above example, is that any active lifestyle can easily be out-eaten in a matter of minutes. It takes far less time to eat something then it does to exercise.  Please keep this in mind when making “healthy” choices and limit your treats to once or twice a week.  

Start limiting yourself to one “treat” a day.  This may be a major improvement to your current lifestyle if you treat yourself more then once a day.  When I first started making major changes in my diet, I treated myself to one enjoyable food every day.  In a typical day I was eating properly 85% of the time.  However, after several months of changing my diet, I now follow the 95% week rule (I choose healthy foods 95 percent of the week, and allow myself one treat per week, usually on Fridays or Saturdays).  If I do decide to treat myself, I usually exercise hard that day and limit my treat to something small.  For me a treat may be a peanut butter smoothie (a health alternative treat).  You will find after months of eating rich nutritional foods that your body will crave less treats (low nutritional valued foods).  You will be eating to fuel your body rather than eating for entertainment.  

Going grocery shopping can have a dramatic impact on your nutritional plan of action.  If you go to the grocery store and buy foods high in fat, sugar, and with little nutritional value, you are setting yourself up for failure.  Keep the following in mind when grocery shopping.

(1) Healthy eating begins at the grocery store. Fill your cart with whole grain breads and cereals, rice and pasta, fruit and vegetables, milk and milk products, lean meat, poultry, fish, eggs and alternatives such as dried beans, peas and lentils. Read labels to guide your food choices.

(2) Never go grocery shopping on an empty stomach or when you are hungry.  This will only cause you to buy foods that you “crave” and are not conducive to your lifestyle change.  

(3) Make a grocery list when you are able to think rationally.  Choosing foods in advance will allow you to make better decisions at the grocery store.  The old saying, a six pack is built in the kitchen is so true.  Just think, you can exercise for 1 hour per day, but what about the other 23 hours in the day?  It is very easy to out eat any fitness plan.  Make sure your trip to the grocery store is just as planned and structured as your trip to the gym.  Your grocery trip can make or break your fitness goals.