3 Tips to Simplify Grocery Shopping for Diabetes
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
The COVID 19 pandemic has inspired people to eat at home more often - not great news for restaurants, but always a good idea for people with diabetes. It is just extremely hard to find a "healthy" meal at most restaurants. If you find yourself eating at home more often, or wanting to, let me offer some tips to make grocery shopping easier.
Table of contents
Kudos to You
More than half of us are now choosing to eat at home regularly. Kudos to you because when we are eating at home we are in control of what gets put on the table. But that also means we need to get our grocery shopping done to have foods to prepare.
Journey to Living a Healthy Life - My Tips and Tricks
I’m always looking for tips and tricks to make living a healthy life easier. And I’m going to share 3 simple tips to ease the task of grocery shopping. I promise they are simple.
Step 1
Plan out your breakfasts, lunches, and dinners for a week of meals. You can do this either by writing them on a notepad, your computer, tablet, via Siri or Alexa, or in the notes section of your cell phone. I finally moved into the 21st century by using our Amazon Echo device to add items to our grocery list. Wow, it’s been a game-changer to get the items on my list.
Step 2
Plan just one or two variations for breakfasts and lunches for the week so you aren’t needing to buy a lot of grocery items. I typically eat the same breakfast for a full week and the same lunch but just vary the protein and fruit that I include in my lunch. For dinners, plan two to three entrees, and depending on how many eaters you have at your house, you may need to double a recipe. But if there are only two people, prepare one recipe which should serve two of you for two dinners. Rotate the meals each night. This will make meal prep easier by having leftovers.
Be Sure to Check Out - Diabetes-friendly Lunch Ideas
Step 3
Shop from your list. I know you know this, but it must be said as a reminder. Having a list is very important. This grocery list will keep you on track not only with the food you need to prep meals but also will keep you from aimlessly wandering around the grocery store. Impulsive shopping leads to impulsive eating.
Be Sure to Check Out - 10 Best Foods for Diabetes - Pantry Edition
If you follow these three tips: Plan out your meals for the week; plan just two to three variations for dinner to get you through a whole week, and stick with the grocery list; you will be in and out of the grocery store quickly and have all the healthy food options for a week of meals.
Until next time, cheers to your health.
Don't forget to take a look at our most frequently asked questions.
You May Also Enjoy