Up for a New Challenge!

In my years of dieting and trying to lose weight, being part of different weight loss groups or different organization, I have learned many things. But one piece of advice that I once received from a Weight Watcher lecturer about 4 years ago had to do with your method of shopping in the supermarket. I think in this day and age, many of us are aware of the more process, pre-packaged foods that are out there on the market. Although these foods are intended to make meal prep a little easier for the busy person, and allows us to eat "healthier" lower fat and calorie foods on the good and without having to spend a lot of time or putting a lot of thought into it, in the long run, these pre-packaged foods actually aren't all that healthy. Yes, they may be lower calorie, lower fat and they do allow us to make meals faster and may prevent us from a worse act of eating fast food or eating out. But as my Scottish Uncle Jim use to say, "Everything in Moderation."

I will not sit here and say that from time to time I do not eat a smart on or a lean cuisine or some other pre-packaged "diet" food. I do from time to time, but in the past 3 or 4 years, I have eaten a lot less of those food.
So, back to the advice from my lecturer about shopping. He suggestion was to only shop the perimeter of the Supermarket because that is where you can get all your fresh and less processed foods. Now, of course there are exceptions to every rule and that is, of course not EVERYTHING that you can buy shopping the perimeter is healthy and fresh and it's not completely realistic to think that you will never need to go down an isle to get something. And, there are good things down some isles like dried beans and legumes.

But as a general rule, I try to buy only fresh food items. This has worked pretty good for me. I have to say that I do see a difference in how I feel and in my weight loss when I am not eating foods that are packed with all those "chemicals" they call preservatives and whatever else they put in pre-processed foods.

But I do have to say, I haven't paid a huge amount of attention to certain ingredients in certain foods, like boxed cereal. Although I thought I was eating healthy buy sticking with cereals like shredded wheat and bran and certain types of Kashi. But I learned, even those aren't the most healthy things to be eating either, and I am not talking about just for weight loss, I am talking about truly eating healthy.

A friend of Maggie's are work was talking about her 5 ingredients or less rule. She said how she is on a mission to truly eat healthy and will only eat foods with 5 (healthy) ingredients or less. I realized then that I never really spent time looking at food labels for ingredients. But from now on, that is my mission too.

So, on Saturday mornings, I like to make myself an omelet with light cheese. I normally buy the weight watchers shredded cheese, thinking it is so healthy. Well, I looked at a bag of shredded cheddar cheese and it had 6 ingredients. Not that 1 extra is a big deal, but the extra ingredient in shredded cheese Maggie told me is a anti-cake ingredient and it's function is preventing the shreds of cheese from clumping together in the bag...Basically it keeps the shredded cheese shredded. And all I thought was, can that really be good to eat? It's natural for cheese to cake together, and so they add something to prevent this, making it now unnatural. I think in the future, I would rather buy cheese that is "natural" and shred it myself. It really doesn't take that long. I could shred it as I need it.

Then I looked at my "healthy" cereal and was really surprised to see all the ingredients in them, which was between 15-20. The only cereal in my cabinet that was really healthy, was my Quaker Oates. It had one ingredient which was 100% natural whole grain oats. That was the only ingredient.

So, I think this is going to be a slight challenge in some areas, but in many areas I am already eating all fresh foods. I am up for the challenge though of taking out the few foods I am eating that contain 6 ingredients or more. 5 or less is my goal!

I know I am Up for this Challenge!!!!!!!