It's Sunday again and time to re-stock the fridge with all
the nutritional foods your body needs to attain the goal
you have set for yourself. Today, like many days before
it, it is time once again to shop for groceries at the
local market. As a bodybuilder, grocery shopping can
be the most difficult part of contest preparation. Why?
There are many reasons: 1) grocery shopping is filled with the many
temptations that could spell diet disaster, 2) it can be an
extremely stressful experience due to the great amount of detail
that is required when selecting the proper foods for your
diet program, and 3) it may seem that it is much more expensive!
The reality is that the experience can be very exciting and fun
with a well planned attack. In this article, I will talk about
my grocery shopping experience and what I do to make it enjoyable.
Eat Before You Go
First of all, I have found it easier to always eat before heading
to the grocery store. Sound strange? Well, when on a low-calorie diet
and hungry, the last thing you want to do is expose yourself to the many,
many varieties of less than optimal foods! The craving that you feel is
greatly magnified when running low on fuel. To me, it's like resistance
training on an empty stomach. It's hard to "resist" when all you can
think
about is eating. Get my point? Shopping while your hungry makes you
notice
all those less than nutritional items that you would normally walk past
without a blink of the eye. With your body continually signaling to your
brain that it is in dire need of something and it could care-less what
that
something is.
Research Nutritional Contents
Finding out the nutritional facts of all foods that I plan to buy
is essential. In order for me to know exactly what I'm taking in
and its content provides invaluable knowledge. It will provide a
road map to success when a goal is achieved and provide me the
exact diet that helped me get there. It will also provide a chance
to decide on alternatives when dieting. I will easily know what
foods I may substitute for others when I just need a change. Most
of all, it allows me to know the optimal foods to buy versus the
ones that are marketed as optimal foods. For instance, foods
advertised as "low-fat" are not always a good buy! If you look
at the number of grams of carbohydrates, particularly the grams
of sugar, it can be astronomical. Likewise, some so-called "sugar-free"
foods are high in saturated fat or use sugar alcohol! I many
times visit the USDA nutritional fact web site to help me decide
whether a food is sufficient or not. The address is the following:
http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/cgi-bin/nut_search.pl. The information
I get from here I use to build mutiple diet plans that vary the
types of foods I eat per meal.
Eating 6-7 meals a day requires
a little creativity. I have built for myself a master list of all
the foods I like and are acceptable for attaining my dietary goals.
As I discover more about food, I continually add to my master list.
Each food that I list includes its calorie count, fat (saturated,
polyunsaturated, monounsaturated) grams, carbohydrate (dietary
fiber, sugar), protein grams, sodium grams, and potassium grams.
The counts are based on serving size which is very important
information to pay attention to. As an example, a particular
snack food I love is popcorn! Some nutritional labels will detail
the facts per serving. Problem is that a single bag of popcorn
may consist of multiple servings! Be careful! Servings do matter
in relation to nutritional value based on serving size!
One other
thing I have discovered is how to break down the carbohydrate facts
into something more meaningful. An example of a carbohydrate
breakdown may list Total Carbohydrates grams as 48 grams (Dietary
Fiber 16 grams and 10 Sugar grams). Question is, "That only adds up
to 26 grams. Where's the rest"? The answer is, Complex Carbohydrates
are the missing count! Active carbohydrates (simple and complex) are
the ones most important to bodybuilders and can be determined by the
following equation: Total Carbohydrates - Dietary Fiber = Active
Carbohydrates. So in the example above my total active carbohydrates
will be 48 - 16 = 32 of which 10 are simple making 22 complex! It
seems like a very tedious and time-consuming process to document
all the nutritional facts for all the foods that I include in my
dietary plan. However, doing so is well worth the investment and
you will realize great benefits when grocery shopping.
Prepare a Shopping List
Preparing a shopping list before heading to the grocery store is just
as important as eating a small meal and even more, I think. The shopping
list I build will contain several types of meats, poultry, fish,
vegetables,
and dairy products that I will need. When building the list, I take
advantage of the master list I have created that includes the nutritional
contents of all my possible selections. The benefit I realize is that my
master list has taken the guess-work out of your shopping experience
which translates into lower stress! Although I usually won't purchase
everything that makes it on the shopping list, it serves as a guide.
For example, I may list fish as an item and a list of fish sub-items like
salmon, whiting, tuna, orange roughly etc. The sub-items provide a list of
one or many choices of the current item type "fish". Some weeks I may be
in the mood
for salmon and tuna. Other weeks I may have a taste for whiting and orange
roughly.
Some weeks my decision for buying is purely based on my calorie
requirements. The fact that I know the nutritional value of everything on
the
list makes this possible. The sub-item list gives me the flexibility when
buying
and relieves the stress associated with trying to make good nutritional
food
choices.
The importance for building a shopping list goes even further.
When
shopping for groceries, having a list prevents you from wandering around
looking
and trying to decide what to buy. Wandering will put any nutritionally
conscious person
in danger. Wandering around a grocery store exposes a person to the
"Goodie" monster.
The "Goodie" monster is lurking everywhere trying to get your attention.
You can almost
hear it whispering, "Buy me. I taste good. Don't feel guilty. Nobody has
to
know a thing. I won't tell a soul." Next thing you know, the Goodie
monster
is in your shopping cart and on the way home. To make things worse, it
has a
cell-phone and called the other Goodies to give them your address. Next
thing
you know, your shelves are stocked full of Goodies of all types and
flavors!
Seriously though, making a thorough and complete shopping list of the
different foods
required by your diet program, prevents you from wandering aimlessly
through
the store and making you less susceptible to the irresistible Goodie
monster.
Remember, always know and record the nutritional contents of all the food
on the
list. This makes it easier to decide on alternatives when trying something
new or just for a change!
Benefits Gained
As I have mentioned, many rewards can be found with proper grocery
shopping
preparation. First of all, you lower the stress associated with the
indecisiveness that plagues us all while shopping. It enables you to have
a
definitive list of all the things you know you can eat without guilt and
still
have alternatives from which to choose. You learn more about what to look
for on labels and what foods meet your specific goals. You have
documentation
of how you arrived at your goal. Most of all, you save valuable time!
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