why am I at the grocery store twice a week now that I'm dieting?

Hi everyone,

So I'm 23 years old and just started this whole calorie counting thing a few weeks ago as well as home-made cooking for once!.. so far its great, last week I made a delicious Creamy Basil Chicken with Whole wheat pasta meal. The recipe was for 6 servings so I pretty much had it for lunch/dinner for 5 days.  I tried estimating the portions but still feel I did something wrong and found myself picking at it most of the time.

Anyway, I feel like ever since I started on this diet I've been making trips to the grocery store every week and spending sooo much money. I'm getting anxiety just thinking that my food is gonna go bad before I even get to eat any of it. I know I should really make a weekly diet plan but I dont know how. All I know is that I feel most comfortable making a big meal at the begining of the week and just eating that for dinner for the rest of the week. Is that a bad method? And, does anyone know any good meals that will last me all week? I feel like I'm doing something bad because most of my recipes have been with pasta, or fat free half and half cream, etc. I still put veggies and meat in there but I dont know.. I'm freaking out over this. If anyone knows any good tips/recipes it'd be great.. Thank you!

Do you have access to a freezer?  Some people can eat the same thing every day, others get tired of a repetitive diet.  You can make a large meal and freeze portions of it for eating later.  Also keeping a stock of frozen veggies in the freezer can help keep costs down and make it easy for quick sides.

You can make a pot of rice (brown rice or whole grain) at the beginning of the week.  Also beans if you cook them yourself are great and mix with the rice for quick and easy meals.  I find that both of these keep well, are inexpensive, and can easily be mixed and matched with a bit of salsa or veggies for stir fries.

Sounds like you need a weekly plan like I do.  The way I do it is to base my meals on the food pyramid.  I take a sheet of paper and divide it into 7 columns for the days of the week, then start listing the food groups and what I plan to eat for each day.  For instance, for the grain group, I might write in my breakfast cereal, any whole grain bread I plan to eat each day, and servings brown rice and whole wheat pasta for dinners. 

Then I'd move to the vegetable group and make sure I have my five 1/2 cup servings a day. 

I base my weekly shopping on this chart and make sure I have all the ingredients in the house. 

You could also start with a recipe for your casserole of the week and figure how much protein, vegetables and fats that would give you on each of the days you eat it. 

I don't know if this makes sense to you, but if you try you'll come up with your own system.  The important thing is to know in advance what you'll be eating.  Then you can stop thinking about it.  Your grocery bill should go down two because you'll only be shopping once a week, with a good list.

Here are my meal planning resources:

List of the World's Healthiest Foods

Using a Food Pyramid

The Mediterannean Diet

A Simple Diet Plan

What Healthy Eating Looks Like

I know it's a lot of reading, but I promise you that if you educate yourself about your diet, it will pay off for the rest of your life.

Cooking for one often means you get lots of leftovers and also can make it more of a challenge to get inspired to cook for yourself.

Freezing meals for those nights where you just don't feel like cooking anything or to grab on the run for a lunch are lifesavers. So any night you are inspired to cook - do it! And then those busy weeks won't result in you crashing on your healthy eating because you'll have a stash of homemade goodness in the freezer!

If you are just starting to cook for yourself you will notice the grocery bills will be larger at first - new recipes = new ingredients that you likely didn't have on hand before. This initial higher cost will likely level out over time.

If you are worried about things going bad - try more frozen veggies or bags of the frozen fruit so you can get out one serving at a time. Frozen usually means higher nutritional values anyways because they are frozen very quickly after being harvested and lose less nutritional value that way.  I will often buy meat in the "Club Packs" and then when I get home divide them up into meal sizes and freeze them seperately. It works out cheaper to buy in bulk and handier to have the meat frozen in meal portions (1-2 chicken breasts, 1lb of ground beef, slice up a big salmon etc). Also buy things on sale and find recipes to suit what you found on sale!

One of my favourite things to make for one is a big pot of chili. High fibre beans, cooked tomatoes, some extra peppers and mushrooms and you've got yourself a warm hug of a meal! I dish out single portions into containers for freezing and its my favourite go to freezer meal!

Soups can be really easy and yummy too.

Try the recipe searcher on here for some great ideas to suit your meal moods. One of my other favourite recipe search websites is myrecipes.com.

If you're worried about the portions the best thing to do is get yourself a food scale. You can find a decent one for under $30 and it is fun to see how close your estimating is to the real deal.

Good luck and I hope you stick to it!

It's kind of funny - I noticed the same thing. Now that I eat healthier, I find myself at the grocery store like all the time. But I like grocery shopping! I think I'm there often because I eat spinach salads with dinner mostly every night, and it's not like I can really stock up on bags of baby spinach. They don't stay good that long. I also like seeing what produce is fresh and in season. I've been trying new things like spaghetti squash. I can understand though, if you have a really tight budget, how it could be a problem. I do tend to go for what's on sale; last night Kashi frozen entrees were like $2 off. Yes, please!

I think people's suggestions about making a big batch of something and then freezing it would work for you, if you have a freezer big enough. I sometimes make a huge pan of stirfry and eat it for days. It's pretty cheap too... You can also get frozen veggies for pretty cheap and cook 'em up quickly with some spices. Spices are kind of expensive but once you get them they tend to last a while, and make a huge difference in taste.

Anyway, good luck! Hopefully the food industry gets a grip and starts making healthy food more available and affordable.

One dish that I make to cut costs and to make dinners easier is ratatouille. It's like a thick soup/stew made completely of vegetables, which makes it an inexpensive and easy way to fit in your veggies each day. You can find lots of very simple recipes online. I make a batch at the beginning of the week, and mine keeps in the fridge all week long -- no freezing necessary. Then I match it with a protein and a side dish for dinner, or sometimes I'll add a protein like chicken directly to the dish (which would make dinners even easier for you). It's very filling, and you can make lots of small alterations to change the flavor, consistency, etc.

I go to trader joes.  This is my best solution!  They sell great diet friendly things.  Here are a few of my staples:

1. their salad bags.  they have great mix ins, everythings on the side, and I usually bring salad to work and a bag last three days.  I also buy a pack of honey turkey and slice up a piece for protein.

2. I also buy their quarts of soup (my fav is the tomato roast red pepper).  I bring that to work too, its 100 cal for and four servings.  a cup of soup and a salad is a great lunch.

3. on days I don't feel like that I put the turkey on bread with some tomato slices (which I also add to bulk up my salad, some brie (they have low-fat brie!) spinach, and whatever else I feel like. 

4. buy a nice loaf of bread with as few ingredients as possible.  I like the crusty wheat french loaf.  Its 120 cal/slice but the slice is so big that its like the size of two slices of wonderbread so I cut in 1/2.  If you don't use all your bread in one week freeze it!

5. PASTA.  but try to stay away from the cream sauces!  Like adagonese said about the ratatoille, just buy a bunch of veg you <3, and roast time with a little olive oil and garlic.  I do that, then add it pasta, or spread on toast, or chill and put on salad.  I use all my produce now!

6. frozen turkey meatballs.  I throw these babies into almost any pasta I make for protein and to make it more filling (bc I stick to the real serving size of pasta which isn't that big!)

7. greek yogurts + bulk granola = great b-fast or snack.

8. clementines are cheap and a great snacky item, and also to add onto b-fast or lunch if your still hungry!

9. TJs also sells fab veggie burgers.  When your too lazy to cook pan fry one, add some of those veggies and toast a slice of that bread. viola!

10. their frozen (premade) brown rice can make anytime awesome!  veggies + sauce = stirfry.  fajita kit + rice = no shell burrito.  yada yada.

I hope this helps you, I am 24 and I went through the SAME issue when I shopped at regular stores. but now I spend about $40 a week at TJs and it gets me all that plus a few random purchases I always end up with :)

Original Post by adagonese:

One dish that I make to cut costs and to make dinners easier is ratatouille. It's like a thick soup/stew made completely of vegetables, which makes it an inexpensive and easy way to fit in your veggies each day. You can find lots of very simple recipes online. I make a batch at the beginning of the week, and mine keeps in the fridge all week long -- no freezing necessary. Then I match it with a protein and a side dish for dinner, or sometimes I'll add a protein like chicken directly to the dish (which would make dinners even easier for you). It's very filling, and you can make lots of small alterations to change the flavor, consistency, etc.

This is a good one, I do it when I have access to good veggies for it.  Do you have a slow cooker sweetascanb?  When I overdo it in a grocery store, I just toss it all in the slow cooker (well, in reasonable combinations) and let it cook down, then I freeze.

Sweet ideas, dplatzer. I looove TJ's; I've been eating their Greek style yogurt for breakfast lately. So much cheaper than Fage, and 2g more protein!

They also have these little bran muffins that are 80 cals with like, 14g fiber. It's nuts.

Thank you everyone for all of your recommendations! There's a Trader Joe's in my town so I'll definitely be making a visit there..as well as finding a food scale! I've been meaning to make some turkey chili but haven't found the right recipe. Any suggestions on any yummy/healthy chili recipes that you've tried?

I go almost every day.  It's because I don't buy processed food, I buy what's for dinner tonight then cook it.

I've been meaning to make some turkey chili but haven't found the right recipe. Any suggestions on any yummy/healthy chili recipes that you've tried?

 

I made this recipe last weekend and it was quite good.  I omitted the sugar and added cumin to the recipe, as well as chopped cilantro for garnish.  I also replaced the shredded cheese for low-fat cheddar.  The carrot & zucchini the recipe calls for really give it a nice flavor base, and add a nice texture difference.  Make sure you brown the turkey well, so that it lends a good "meaty" flavor to the soup. 

Enjoy!