To support your medical weight loss goals, having a kitchen full of healthy foods is essential. If you surround yourself with fresh produce and whole foods at home, you’re much less likely to eat junk foods that don’t support your weight loss goals. Thus, healthy grocery shopping is necessary if you want to lose weight.
Here are 4 tips to help you fill your home with healthy foods:
- Plan Ahead – Going to the grocery store with a shopping list makes it easier for you to choose foods by design, instead of by old habits. Replace old shopping patterns with new ones. Make a meal plan for the week, complete with a grocery list, before heading to the store to help avoid temptation and stay on track with your medical weight loss goals.
- Make Meats Count – Meat, poultry and fish contain essential proteins, but consider buying smaller portions and choosing low-fat varieties when possible. Going skinless on poultry is a good move, and when you prepare meats, season them with herbs and avoid preparing them in cream-based sauces.
- Make Frozen Foods Your Friends – Frozen foods, especially frozen fruits and vegetables, offer great convenience as they have longer shelf life than fresh produce. Frozen fruits go well in breakfast smoothies, and frozen vegetables make easy add-ins to pasta and rice dishes. If you buy frozen pizza, add side salads or extra veggies on top, and if you reach for frozen desserts, try fruit sorbets or low-fat dairy ice creams.
- Avoid artificial ingredients – In the Processed Food Era, reading food labels can seem more like a chemistry assignment than an exercise in understanding what’s in your food. If a food label contains a string of words you can’t pronounce, put it back on the shelf. In general, aim for foods that contain five ingredients or less on the label. Items containing high fructose corn syrup and monosodium glutamate (msg) should be avoided.
At checkout, you have time to evaluate the choices you made during shopping. If you notice anything in your cart that seems out of place when you think of your long-term medical weight loss goals, it’s not too late to ask the clerk to leave it out. Remember, even if you are purchasing items for another member of your household, you’ll often eat a portion of whatever you buy, so make sure the choices you make fit with your weight loss goals.
