Good morning and happy Thursday to you!!
Hooray!! Celebrate!
For some reason this morning, I feel like someone needed to hear this… and who knows, maybe it’s me! Sometimes I feel like we need to take a step back from all the busy-ness of life and take a minute to celebrate who we are and how far we’ve come! Celebrate the now and celebrate the process 
This morning I had a pretty tough 8 mile training run. Mid week runs always seem the roughest – it’s not like because I ran this morning I get a big pat on the back – NOPE – I just get to hurry around and make sure I don’t forget to put my shoes on before scurrying out the door. I realize this does not support my earlier decision about slowing down and celebrating. Hey, I’m working on it too!
Good morning!!
I did however have enough time to play around in Picstitch – A cool little app where you can do the above!! They even have cool “stickers” you can use; like stupid hats and eye patches!! I didn’t have quite enough patience or time to make the eye patch fit :/ Next time…. p-)
Okay, now onto the goods — Grocery Shopping Tips!!
Post #2 in the Grocery Shopping Success Series is plain and simple tips for – you guessed it – Grocery Shopping!! See my first post in the series here on Nutrition Label Reading 101. Just for the record, these are basic tips. A place to start or improve upon – Even though grocery shopping is one of my favorite pass-times in the world – I know that I can still improve in many ways. #4 sneaks up on me more often than I’d like to admit. I am going to split the tips into 2 parts – 5 tips today and 5 tomorrow. Here we go!
Abby’s Top 5 Grocery Tips – Part 1 of 2:
1) Freshest is healthiest: The best place to start and/or end is in the produce aisle! Fruits and vegetables are my favorite because they are PROVEN healthy and you don’t have to even worry about reading the nutrition label because they don’t have one!! Goal: Try to fill 1/2 (HALF) with fruits and vegetables!
Fill half your basket or cart with F & V :)
2) Shop the perimeter: The perimeter has the GOODS – Produce, Fresh foods, dairy, meat and poultry – YUM! Leave the middle of the grocery store for specialty items and condiments.
The perimeter ROCKS!
3.) Keep it short and sweet: Choose packaged foods with simple and short ingredients. Try to keep the ingredients to under 15 (try for 10 or less) and make sure that they are ingredients you can read and don’t have to use “Hooked on Phonics” to pronounce. This goes along with #5 on the Nutrition Label Reading tips
Short and sweet:)
4.) DO NOT go hungry: This is one of those times when you don’t want your stomach taking over for your brain – BAD decisions can result. Try to time it right so that you have a snack or meal BEFORE you shop. Keep some type of snackie in your car – a snack bar or trail mix or simply an apple
This:
Snackie
Can be the difference between this:
HANGRY Shopper – EEK!
And this:
Cool, calm and collected shopper :)
Don’t. Go. Hungry.
5.) Make a plan and stick to it: Check coupons, store circulars and see what is on sale. Make a grocery list that incorporates items that are on sale. The list ALWAYS helps me. Also, a good thing to have is a list of “family favorites” – tried and true meals that your family loves – so when you are having trouble deciding what to buy, have that be your guide. I’ll say it one more time… Have a list!!
I hope these tips help you at the grocery store!! Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post on 5 more tips for grocery store success!!
Questions:
What are your top grocery tips?
Do you shop from a list?
Where do you usually start? Produce? Deli? Some other cool spot I don’t know about??
<3 Abigail