Menu Planning

Before I went grocery shopping I sat down with my Eat Clean cookbook, laptop, and notebook to try to get a grip on what dinner will look like at our house this week.  I basically looked through and picked out the recipes that looked the best to me and ones I thought my husband would enjoy.  I figure we have a better chance of staying on track if we're eating well! 

 Here's what our dinner menu looks like this week:

• Sweet Potato Patties & Cucumber Salad
• Chicken, Apple, & Onion Sandwiches with Kale Chips
• Shrimp in Saffron Sauce with grilled Asparagus (Looks like I'm going to have to rethink the sauce for the shrimp because it turns out saffron threads are ridiculously expensive!)
• Vegetable Lasagna
• Lettuce Wraps
• Clean Eat Pizza

Other things I plan to make:

• Clean Chocolate Walnut Brownies
• Yogurt Bread (similar to banana bread)
• Citrus Spread
• Clean Tortilla Chips (The one thing my husband has really been missing is this tortilla chips for his salsa.)

Here's a link to my grocery list.

I actually had a lot of fun while grocery shopping.  I spent most of my time in the produce section and the natural food section.  Even though this is my third trip to the grocery since I started cleaning up my diet, this is my first all out meals planned-list made- shopping trip.  I was so proud to fill up my cart with clean food and I didn't spend much more than I usually do, probably because I saved a lot of money by skipping out on chips, frozen pizzas, cereals, etc.. 

Here's my cart on the way to the check out lane (I swear, I didn't touch that Valentine's candy in the background!)

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Grocery Shopping

I am feeling much better today as I sit down to write this post.  I spent awhile this afternoon reading through the Tosca Reno book, Eat Clean Diet Recharged and finished feeling like this was a lot more doable.  There was no big detox and no major changes that must be done now! I like that I was given an option to ease into clean eating, which is much more my style. She even had great meal plans and grocery lists to get me started. I took the list and headed to the store...again.

 I did not do all out shopping since my husband is still in shock from the Whole Foods grocery bill from last week.  I just grabbed a few things that I wanted to have on hand to cook with during the week.  Sadly the natural part of the regular grocery store was tiny. There were not many choices and of course the prices were much higher.  It was amazing how many items I walked by and never even thought to pick up after having just finished reading up on eating clean.  In fact, I passed by several complete aisles I knew had nothing for me.  It actually felt nice and made shopping a little easier in a way.  My choices were limited, but I felt better about what I was spending my money on.

With all of this on my mind, one thing in particular caught my attention.  I passed by a family of 3 whose cart was toppling over with food.  I glanced inside and saw several cases of pop (okay, "soda" if you're not a midwesterner like me), potato chips, tv dinners, and they were currently discussing which frozen pizzas to buy.  I couldn't help but notice that all three of them were very overweight, including the young boy.  Now I don't know these people and I'm not trying to pass judgement.  But it did make me realize that I don't ever want to lead my own family down that path and now is the best time to make these good changes since my family is so young. My son is just now starting to eat table food and I want to make sure it's everything he deserves.

So here's what I came away from the store with today:

• Stevia sweetener
• bananas
• Agave nectar
• garbanzo beans
• frozen fruit
• herbal tea
• almond milk
• oats
• low fat cottage cheese
• Ezekial bread
• quinoa
• brown rice flour

Tonight I made a large batch of oatmeal and put it into single serve dishes for my husband's and my breakfast this week.  I put the frozen fruit in the fridge so we can add it to the oatmeal.

I would say today was much more successful than our previous two days of "detox". I'm looking forward to making these healthy changes, one step at a time.

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