My Healthy Grocery Staples
Another little quirk about me is that I love grocery shopping. I love making grocery lists, walking up and down the isles, and then coming home and unpacking my bags. I may be a 40 year old soccer mom trapped inside of a 19 year old college student's body, but it's really fine.Because of this love for grocery shopping, I have been tagging along with my Mom for many years. Since I started on this whole "health journey," I began buying groceries for myself. Especially after my first year in college, I found what I like and what I don't like as well as things that I always need to have stocked versus what I like to treat myself with.
Before We Start
Most of these items are whole, plant-based foods. I try to stay away from the processed, artificial stuff (I do love Haagen Daaz new non-dairy ice-cream) just to keep my diet fairly clean and free of anything unnecessary. I have eaten a mostly plant-based diet for the past two years but I am transitioning (read: I eat fish but still cannot get over the mental roadblock of eating other meats) into eating more clean meats and less processed soy/vegan alternatives. With that being said, I still want vegetables and fruits to make up the majority of my diet!A little tip to remember: This is what works for me. These are examples of foods that my body likes and craves. Don't like brussel sprouts? Swap for another veggies. Do you need more snacks during the day? Listen to your body and try and hear what it wants (staying fairly clean, of course).If you aren't used to eating a primarily plant-based, clean diet then this might be a shock to your body. My biggest piece of advice is not to quit everything "bad" (I'm not the biggest fan of labeling food as "good" or "bad") at once but rather, switch out a few things for healthier substitutes at first then keep doing that until you are used to eating more whole foods.
This Isn't A Diet, It's A Lifestyle
Keep in mind that it is okay to allow things that aren't so healthy in your diet. The biggest reason why "diets" don't work is because they promote this mindset that it is okay and good to restrict all of the foods you like/crave. Restricting something is only going to lead you to crave it more and eventually binge and feel like sh*t about yourself. This whole "good" and "bad" categorization for food is what leads us to these disordered thinking patterns. I am guilty of it–and working on it. A lifestyle in which you eat brown rice, plain steamed broccoli, and poached chicken is not sustainable (...unless you actually do like those foods). A lifestyle where you nourish your body with vegetables, proteins, fats, and all the good carbs is one that you can maintain for the rest of your life.No one person looks a like. No one person craves the exact same foods all the time. Fall is here and that means everyone and their mother is making oats for breakfast but tbh, I'm just not in the mood yet. And that is okay–I will continue to make my fried egg with Trader Joe's Everything But the Bagel seasoning until I get tired of it.
Ready for my healthy grocery staples list?
Just one more thing...sign up for my email list to get a PDF check-list of these goodies. You can sign up at the top of this webpage or in the box below. Already signed up? Email me to let me know and I will send the PDF your way!