Things I Don’t Buy in the Grocery Store Anymore

Grocery shopping was one of my favorite things for a long time. I loved going to my favorite store and exploring all the new items and things I wanted to try. I ate a lot of processed foods and had a fistful of coupons to save money on them. The advice that most “lose weight” articles give is to stay in the perimeter of the grocery story: the produce section, dairy, meat and seafood and avoid the middle of the store. The middle of the store is where all these processed, not-so-good-for-you “foods” are found.

I’ve mentioned many, many times that I don’t deny myself things I want now, I just eat them in moderation. I call this my 90/10 Rule. I splurge, I eat treats, I drink beer and go out for pizza. But instead of gorging myself on massive amounts, I do so in moderation. 2 pieces of pizza and 1 beer are the perfect amount of food for a dinner out. I don’t feel deprived, I don’t feel like I’m denying myself “Bad Foods” and I enjoy myself. This works for me and has worked well for 4 years now.

While I do not “deny” myself food or label foods as good or bad, there are a lot of things that I just don’t eat anymore. Part of that is because I know how many calories are in things now. It’s honestly difficult to enjoy something knowing that it has like 700 calories in it and it’s double the calories I’d normally eat for a meal.

One of the big things I avoid in the grocery store now is the candy/cookie/treat isle. Don’t get me wrong–I still eat candy and cookies and treats but I eat different kinds now. Instead of getting an entire box of Oreos and eating them all in one weekend, I get the take-n-bake type cookies and only bake a serving at a time. Just last night I made Michael and I some chocolate chip cookies: I baked 6 total and we enjoyed our little serving of cookies for dessert without the temptation to eat 5 more.

The other big one is the juice isle–frozen and bottled. I used to LOVE juice. Lemonade, guava juice, orange juice–I always had my freezer stocked with a few options because I usually had some kind of juice with breakfast every day. I’ve told you before that I had a bit of a “drinking problem.” Now? I rarely have that stuff on hand. When I get sick I usually buy a small single serving container of orange juice and every once in awhile I will make lemonade in the summertime. Usually the only thing I have in the house is the unsweetened iced tea I made.

Finally, the bakery. It’s almost always skipped in the grocery store. In the old days, I used to get the single serving slices of cake or cheesecake a few times a week. I told myself I was doing “good” because it was only one piece. Until I started buying several at a time and eating two slices of cheesecake from the bakery instead of one.

One thing I don’t avoid anymore (but did while I was trying to lose 100 pounds) was the ice cream isle. For 2 years I couldn’t eat ice cream because it was a trigger food–if it was in my house I’d eat all of it and probably in one sitting. After I maintained my weight loss for awhile I realized I was able to eat ice cream in moderation. I COULD have it in my house and eat a little bit here and there and NOT the entire thing!

Of course, now I eat the lower calorie ice creams and not the crazy treats that are high in calories. And my trip the ice cream isle does not happen every time I got to the grocery store! Once a month is about the average now.

You can do so well in the grocery store and make your way to the checkout with lots of fruits and veggies and seafood and other healthy options. And then be faced with this:

The last minute, impulse buy crap! Dang it! Too bad the grocery checkout lines don’t look more like this:

Oranges, apples, and other healthier options. Oh well, in a perfect world I guess. I do pretty well with resisting the impulse buy candy section.

QUESTION: What things in the grocery store do you avoid now?