My Grocery Shopping Rules

For anyone who might be wondering, I thought I would put in writing my rules for the grocery store.  I hope they can help someone else when they are making that oh so very frustrating trip to the grocery store.

1.  Stay on the outside walls of the store.  Your freshest, healthiest foods are mostly going to be along the edges of the store.  When you walk in, start in the produce section, then work you way around the store...dairy, meat, freezer, bread.  Rarely should you have to go into the aisles.

2.  Buy as much organic as you can afford.  If you need some help on this, refer to the dirty dozen (the list of the most contaminated foods that you need to buy organic)

3.  NO HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP!! That's all there is to it, don't buy it!

4.  Check the ingredients.  Don't buy anything without reading the ingredient list first, you may be very surprised at what you see!  You should know what the majority of the ingredients are.  And what you don't know, look it up.  These are things you are feeding your body.  Would you take a pill if you didn't know what it was or what it did?  That is basically what you are doing when you put a bunch of chemical and artificial ingredient filled foods into your body.

5.  Make a menu for the week and a list.  And stick to it! If you have a game plan before you step into the store, you are less likely to walk around aimlessly picking up whatever sounds good.  It can be very dangerous, expensive and wasteful buying a bunch of food that you don't know exactly what you are going to do with.  And you are more likely to buy junk.  Have a list and a plan!

6.  No cokes.  If you are going to drink some coke every once in a while, then get a single coke while you are out to dinner, or buy a single coke for a special occasion.  If you have it in the house, you will drink it.

7.  Stay as whole and natural as you can.  Keep your food real.  Would you rather eat food, or chemicals?   I prefer food.

8.  Buy yourself one treat.  It's unrealistic to think you are going to eat healthy all week long without any type of treat.  Just make that a natural one.  Like all natural ice cream, or a small dark chocolate bar.  Reward yourself for sticking to your plan at the end of the week.

9.  Balance your carbs, protein and fat.  Your body needs all three to process all of your food correctly and get the most out of each food.  The new plan we are going with right now is about 1 gram of protein per lb of body weight per day, 1.5 g of carbs per pound of body weight per day, and 1 g of healthy fats per 4 lbs of body weight per day.  We'll see how that works, it may change soon.  But the point is to keep your meals balanced.

Good luck!