Have you ever stopped to think about how much your senses and your wallet are under assault when you go out shopping - grocery shopping in particular?
There is literally a campaign being waged, with military precision and intensity, to influence you to buy stuff from the moment you walk through those automatic glass doors. Strategically arranged displays for donuts, sugary breakfast cereals and other highly processed “food” beckon you to place them in your cart every few feet.
That's why if you want to eat right, and to enjoy all the benefits that come with it, like feeling and looking great, you'll have to harden your defenses and raise your awareness.
One of the best ways to do that is to not allow crappy, non-nutritious foods into your home in the first place. If it's not there, you can't eat it!
With this in mind, remember the following tips next time you hit the supermarket for your weekly supply run:
- Stick to the perimeter. For the most part, the ring around the store contains the staples you need for optimum performance - this is also where most of the freshest food lies: Your fruits, your vegetables, your fresh meats and dairy.
- Exercise extreme caution when venturing into the interior. It's easy to get Ambushed in the Aisles. This is where displays are set up to play more on your emotions rather than your sense of logic or actual need. Here you will find cookies, sugar-laden cereals and other items that make you put on unwanted pounds. You will find items with long shelf lives because they're packed with unhealthy preservatives and possibly the deadly trans fats. Avoid and Ignore.
- Check-out counter = Choke point. Here's the last-ditch assault made by assorted hard candy, chocolate bars and other impulse items. It's become quite in vogue to station soft drink coolers in this location, and soft drinks are a known indicator of excessive weight gain. So be especially on guard here.
- If there seems to be an offer you can't refuse, like a two-for-one special on snack chips (I used to have a soft spot for Doritos, any flavor), take a moment to consciously consider what those preservative-laden, carbs and fat-packing, nutrient-depleted chips are doing to your body; and to your childrens' bodies.
- Remember too that the food conglomerates have poured countless research dollars into finding the taste formulas that appeal to the widest swath of consumers, at the lowest possible material cost. They then engineer slick marketing strategies to push your brain buttons to buy these cornmeal and sugar-based products. Do you think the spinach and lettuce lobby has a similar measure of marketing and marketplace clout? Don't let yourself be a stooge.
Load up on the good stuff, like leafy green material for several salads, plenty of snacking fruit, oatmeal, nuts, yogurt and if you happen to be a meat eater, plenty of fresh and lean cuts. If you're a decent cook, then you are truly blessed, since the range of absolutely mouth-watering, healthy recipes is almost limitless.
Minimize the stuff that you know is no good: The soft drinks, those so-called “juice” drinks that are 90-percent corn syrup (sugar), any breakfast cereal with a cartoon character on the box and so-forth.
Into the gray area, we'll toss breads and pastas. While they're OK in small amounts, the science says their high Glycemic Index scores contribute to fat gain in most people.
And now for the “BUT.”
But, as with most things in life, the key is moderation. The occasional indulgence in a bowl of Rocky Road is not only acceptable, but advisable. By allowing yourself a “cheat day” once a week, or more informally grabbing an unhealthy bite from time to time, you keep your body's metabolism off balance. This kind of non-linear eating is thought to aid fat loss.
It also allows you to not feel deprived of things that are sweet and creamy and all those other mouth-watering taste characteristics that make you fat. But eating them infrequently should not harm you.
This may sound all sound a bit overwhelming at first, maybe even a bit draconian. But take it from a former junk food junkie, once you establish a pattern of healthy eating and feel how much better your body works, you won't want to go back to being a junk food slave!
