Bulk shopping
If you're trying to be consistent in your healthy lifestyle, food preparation is KEY. I personally like to do a bunch of food prep on a weekend afternoon to make life a wee bit easier for the following couple of weeks. Doing a bunch of food prep means buying a bunch of food. I get my fresh produce from local markets, but here's a pretty typical supermarket trolley:
Hmm, from what I can see, my shopping list included:
- Veal, kangaroo steaks, steak, white fish, lean beef mince, lean chicken mince
- Soda water (4 for $4! Good for when you crave sugary soft drinks)
- Egg whites
- Macadamias, almonds, walnuts, Brazil nuts and cashews
- Baby spinach
- Asparagus
- Freezer zip-lock bags
- Ooh, I see some organic butter in there, too
I'm not a vegetarian, so much of my food prep involves meat/fish. I portion out my meat and fish and pop each portion into a freezer bag. Usually, I'll freeze about half of it raw and half of it cooked for days where I'm running around like a headless chook under epic time pressure.
With the mince, I normally make a big batch of chilli/patties/other mincey goodness and freeze them in portions.
One thing you can't see in my cart that I get from the markets is a box of organic, free-range eggs. On the weekend, I'll normally make a few hard-boiled eggs and pop them in the fridge for when I'm feeling peckish during the week and my first reaction is to open the fridge and stare at its contents for a while (handy hint: put your healthy snacks at eye level, your [dark] chocolate in the freezer and your Coke in the rubbish bin).
It's so easy during the week to pull all your next day's proteins out of the freezer into the fridge to thaw, whip up some salad or vegies and GO! (handy hint: if you don't mind the same base a couple of days in a row, make two days worth of salad and vegetables to save chopping and cooking every day)