Eating Healthy is too Expensive

When I weighed 200lbs and was tight on cash because I was a po boy law student, those were the words that came out of my mouth oh so often. Truth is (according to Holly), telling yourself that eating healthy is way too expensive is a cop out excuse and you probably have no desire to really change your eating habits whatsoever. When I first went on Weight Watchers (just a side note...I lost over 50lbs with Weight Watchers. I think it's a phenomenal program to start you off and teach you portion control and monitor what you put in your mouth and how much you eat), but...when I started the program, I was amazed at all the food I could eat. BUT, I quickly became dependent on things like 100 calorie packages of Oreo Crisps and all this other processed crap. But, I didn't care because it was only 2 WW points! Once the lbs came off, I hit a big time plateau with about 10 lbs away from my goal. I then took a look at what I was eating, it was no wonder the scale wasn't budging. I could easily eat 2 meals a day and 2 snacks a day all in bar form and not be bothered by it whatsoever. So, I took a turn with my eating and steered myself in the direction of getting rid of the processed foods and eating more real food.

We still struggle with some things...Mr. Allan won't give us his Fat Free Coffemate Creamer. It's probably purely composed of chemicals, but I'll give him that as I drink my SO Delicious Coconut water based creamer. For the most part, my grocery bill hasn't budged all that much. I do divulge in some trips to Whole Foods and sometimes go a little nuts...but I consistently spend the same I did when my grocery cart was loaded with boxes and packages and not too many fresh foods.

So, you're probably asking yourself, doesn't she think she's the bee knees...how does she do it? I'll admit, sometimes it's a lot of organizing and getting my sh*t together before going grocery shopping...but this is how we do it....

If I have free time at work towards the end of the week, instead of stalking people's profiles on Facebook, I download and look at my 3 grocery stores' flyers online. My 3 stores-- Whole Foods- I buy my meat here and some other products that are somewhat difficult to find. I plan my meals around the meat that's on sale, or I stock up on something that has a great sale. For example...ground turkey was $2.99/lb...that's a fabulous deal in the land of Whole Foods, so me bought 4 lbs to stock up. The meat man was even nice enough to wrap it in individual packages for easy freezing. Dave's Marketplace-- they have really nice produce and lots of good sales. However, if it ain't on sale, Dave's is expensive for grocery items. A box of Kashi cereal is typically more expensive than Stop and Shop, unless its on sale. Their produce excites me...yes I said it. It's always so nice and bountiful and beautiful in there...and the free coffee doesn't hurt either.

Lastly, Stop and Shop. They get their own paragraph because of the immense euphoria I experienced there this morning. I'll give it to Stop and Shop, they're always evolving. Their produce isn't as nice as Dave's but they're introducing more organic stuff. I solely shop the perimeter aisles here. Weight Watcher leaders always told you that's what you should do, then they show you a website for a fat free donut. Even Stop and Shop has put their all natural and "healthy" stuff in the last aisle so you can live by the WW rule.

Here's a trick I like to use at Stop and Shop and yes, you may think I'm psycho and have no life but I'm making my mom proud with this one. Every Saturday morning, I wake up, feed the cats, drink my coffee, then off to Turbokick class I go! After my class at the gym, I grocery shop. Mostly because young children aren't running up and down the aisles at 9am. But, I've also learned that my Stop and Shop puts out a ton of meat on Saturday mornings. They also do a ton of markdowns for meat that has a sell by date of that day. They'll typically put a big $1.50 off Manager's Special coupon. So, I've been hitting up Stop and Shop, and cleaning up on their Nature's Promise hormone and antibiotic free chicken the past couple weeks.

Today, I nearly peed my pants. I saw in this week's flyer that their individually wrapped boneless skinless Nature's Promise chicken breasts were on sale for $3.99....generally a very good deal, and I don't buy the individually wrapped crap, because I'm cheap and it's pricey. As I went to grab some, the meat man was putting the Manager's Special coupons on meat that needed to be sold by today.

If you can see the price...it's marked down to $2.66 a pound..and this package of 1.5 lbs of boneless skinless, antibiotic, hormone free chicken is $4.20....holy steal! BUT...it gets better....the manager stuck a $1.50 off coupon. Yes, I got this package of chicken for $2.70. But, it wasn't only this package, I scooped up 4.

So, why do I want to buy meat that needs to be sold by today? Because I'm not having a chicken party tonight...I pop these babies into the freezer...the date on your meat is generally a use by or, in my mind, a throw in your freezer by date.

Just a very long verbose example of ways to make it work. You need to stop making up every excuse in the book of why you don't think you matter enough to fuel your body with food and nutrients it needs to be healthy.

So, you might think I slightly need to get a life because I get excited over a good sale on chicken...but at least I'm someone who slightly might need a life who's got a healthy BMI, energy, and feels good about what I eat and feed the hubs.

So, here's one little trick on how to stock up on good stuff to make you some healthy meals.