The Best (and Worst) Times to Grocery Shop

We’ve all done it …. gone grocery shopping when we’re starving or super stressed and we make really bad food choices. We buy way too much of the foods we’re trying to eat less of and too few of the foods that are good for us.

Once we get home, all of the not so great food is in our house and we’re going to eat it. We can’t be wasteful! Needless to say, shopping super hungry or when stressed is the worst time to grocery shop

I wrote this post on the first full day of vacation and part of our routine is to grocery shop to ensure we include healthy meals into our diet while also exploring local restaurants and sometimes eating a bit less healthy.

Due to a variety of circumstances (flight cancelled, 12 hour drive eating really bad food, scallop bacon grilled cheese for “breakfast”) I felt terrible when we entered the grocery store. It was one of the best vacation shops ever!

I had absolutely no interest in buying any of the usual vacation “treats” and instead ended up buying tons of vegetables, fruits and some lean proteins. We picked up some eggs, steel cut oats and maple syrup for breakfasts and Carey is making a cherry-pecan cake as I write this (lucky me).

We made a beautiful spinach and arugula salad with grilled chicken for dinner and are looking forward to cooking up some marinated salmon, asparagus and wild rice tomorrow. There are several other meals along those lines planned as well. They’re easy to make, easy to clean up, super healthy and taste really good.

Of course we’ll go out to eat as well and we’ll stray from our healthy meals, but for now there are no unhealthy foods in our vacation space and we still have lots of great foods we’re excited about. If a snack food isn’t available, you can’t eat it. That is of course unless you go out and get it after the fact, and if you want it that badly, enjoy it guilt-free!

Final Note:

We can’t always control the timing of our grocery shop and I definitely do not want to encourage you to eat lots of unhealthy foods to have a healthy shopping trip.

Instead, think about your hunger level before you shop and eat first when you can.

Also, consider the foods you’re trying to eat less of. If you can replace these foods with a healthier alternative and/or don’t have the unhealthy options available, you’re inevitably going to eat better, which is going to make you feel better.