My weekly food shop.

After doing one of my weekly food shops I thought some of you might find it interesting to see what I like to fill my fridge and cupboards with. As I mentioned in one of my earlier blogs I am not on a diet.

The rainbow diet, the cabbage soup diet, paleo, the omni, the 5-2 diet. You name it I’ve done it. These are all fad diets and if you want to slim down for an event then these diets will shift weight off you quickly. However, they are incredibly boring and impossible to stick to. I lost a stone on the omni diet after sticking to it for two weeks. All I was allowed to eat was meat and vegetables. No carbs, no dairy, no sugar and no caffeine! Of course I lost weight quickly I wasn’t eating anything! Two weeks later and I’m a stone lighter. I thought it was great and so introduced all of the carbs, sugar and dairy back in slowly. Big surprise…all of the weight I’d lost went straight back on and with a vengeance. 

This time round I made a decision to not diet. Yes I needed to make a few changes, cut out the takeaways, stop eating so many biscuits and chocolate bars and leave off the full fat cream hot chocolates but I was going to do it my way. 

So after my food shop today I thought I would share with you some of what I bought to give you guys ideas if you’re looking to make a few changes.

To start with, I am a sucker for crisps. They are too easy to snack on and I can quite easily go through a few bags whilst watching TV… So I have swapped them this week for Metcalf’s Skinny Popcorn and at 78 calories a bag I reckon that’s a pretty sweet deal! I’ve also restricted myself to one bag a day if I’m going to have any, either with lunch at work or as a treat in the evening instead of dessert.

It’s well known that I am a grazer which means I like to pick on food throughout the day especially now I’ve quit smoking! So I needed to buy lots of food that I could snack on easily that were healthy so I didn’t pile on the pounds. My first snack is houmous and rice cakes. The rice cakes are low in calories and salt so pretty flavourless, however, work perfectly as substanance when dipped in houmous. They are also very filling.

I also stocked up in plenty of fruit. Grapes are my favorite and I can pick at these whilst watching a film or sat at my desk. Golden delicious are lovely and juicy, great for a lunch time sweet and the bananas are filling so work perfectly as part of my breakfast. If you ever feel a bit low or tired, try eating some fruit and the natural sugars should pick you up and give you the boost of energy you need. 

Sticking with my greens I picked up lots of vegetables. I love my veg, I have always loved my veg and will always love my veg. Sprouts are my favorite and so I buy all of it in bulk because I know I’ll eat it. Unfortunately for people who don’t like vegetables, I don’t have a swap or replacement for you that is just as good. Maybe try different ways of cooking them. For example I fry my leaks in butter, add pepper to my cabbage and sugar to my carrots when boiling them. You can even bake them in sauce instead of boiling them. There really is no other way to get the nutrients you need from vegetables so suck it up and get eating!

Moving on to protein. Steve loves his chicken and so do I so I make sure I but plenty of it. I like to make my own curries and spanish dishes so the chicken gets used frequently. We both also love spaghetti bolognaise and have it at least once a week. I could buy mince that has a less fat percentage but to be honest it’s more expensive and for two people I think this mince does just the job. As for the tuna I like to make my own pasta bake and also just mix it with sweetcorn, a little bit of mayonnaise and eat it with salad and an oven baked jacket potato. Yum!

Now you are probably all looking at this picture going noooooo fizzy drinks are so bad for you! Yes fizzy drinks are not the healthiest but A) they are sugar free and B) I am on an alcoholic ban for the next 9 months so I’m going to keep the fizzy drinks and that will be the end of that!

Glad we got the sorted….

Last but not least I thought I would share with you what I will be taking with me for my lunch at work this week. I like to mix it up and have a mixture of hot and cold food. We do not have a microwave or oven at work so the best thing I have to heat up my food is a kettle hence the mug shots. I actually think these are great because they are less than 1% fat and super tasty! My favorite is the sweet and sour noodles but I’m also quite partial to the Mediterranean pasta. For the cold lunches I like to take ham salad sandwiches. Yes the bread isn’t wholegrain or brown but sod it I’m only eating one sandwich a day so it’s hardly going to make me into a balloon!

I thought I would give these Muller Light Greek Style Yoghurts a try as well. I love Greek yoghurt and these have 0% added sugar and are only 62 calories a pot.

Finally I bought these from the breakfast bar section and I know Nature Valley products are supposed to be quite healthy so was immediately drawn to their new peanut and dark chocolate with almond bars. I love peanuts and I love dark chocolate. These bars are not the healthiest breakfast you could eat but if you are always in a rush like me to get to work they are quick and simple to grab and eat on the go! 

That’s all I have to show you today.  I hope you’ve enjoyed looking through the food with me I bought on my weekly food shop. I’m still learning and finding new foods to swap and try as healthier alternatives so if you guys know of any please leave them in the comments below.

Lots of love

Jess xxx