Ah the start of a week and for once I am actually going to start with everything planned out so that I get through all the veg in a timely manner without the need to throw anything out. This seems to be the biggest issue of cooking so much fruit and veg – I need to plan food out a lot better or find that it quickly goes off and then has to be chucked.
I am glad that throughout this challenge that I’ve limited wastage of fruit and veg drastically, often finding lefts over useful to experiment or add an additional portion for the day.
With the promise of takeaway though I promised BF to plan out food for the whole week, working out when I needed to buy what to ensure it was all in date.
Shopping while doing 5 a day is heavy; with £20 worth of food I was struggling to get the basket all around Waitrose having to add more and more heavy fruit or veg to my basket. I’ve found that I now plan shopping better as trying to attempt this sort of heavy shop then having to walk home for 10 minutes with thin plastic bags ripping into your fingers is not fun. Now I’m always grabbing my nice soft long handled shopping bags and a mini backpack to ensure that I make it home not in agony. It seems that having a 5 a day diet also helps the environment!
The contents of my shop is so different too – 90% of it is fruit or veg. I hardly touch the other aisles at the moment; no sweets filled my basket but little packs of berries and smoothies made up my sweet tooth aspect. I think the drastic change is a mix of two things – the carefully planned out meals and ingredients to a clear change in taste.
Even at home I’m finding a difference with me raiding cook books for more fruity filled cakes and desserts (well it can’t take away my love of cakes). I want to try out carrot cakes and courgette cupcakes that I have come across or whip up some scones with some jam. I still have a sweet tooth but there is a definite change in wanting a fruity edge to it.
I didn’t even go down the sweet aisle and while I had a look at the bakery my heart didn’t drop when there were no yum yums left – I instead wondered if i’d have time to make carrot muffins.
Now by 4pm I had finished my target portions of the day with the help of an Innocent smoothie and a mushroom pie planned for the evening. It seems that as normal with planning out food that BF will suddenly want something else. While I’m ok to provide delicious bread rolls and the ability to get rid of some old cheddar it does mess with the rest of the week. Life as normal throws up its hurdles and yet all I want to do it make strawberry pancakes – I think I am addicted to juiced and heated strawberry.
So shopping has been successful – my fridge is full of so many different fruits and vegetables I just have to hope that I don’t get knocked off my meal plan for the rest of the week now! With only 4 more days of food left to cook and eat I’m really excited about the food I’m going to try – it is full of things like pancakes, mushroom pie and salad so that I sail through these final few days with ease.
Since the start of it all shopping has gotten so much easier but it does mean that I can’t rely on the wonderful thing that is online shopping now – they always will give you fruit and veg with the shortest best before dates known to man that we have received stuff that ran out on the day it was delivered quite a few times now…
It is weird though – I’m excited about the end of this challenge but also scared; what if I don’t keep up all this hard work and fall back to my old ways of easy food? Will I keep the motivation and passion after this week? I am hoping that the outreach and support from everyone doesn’t stop but it will – the challenge will be over.
I just need to keep it up, not lose this momentum and changed interest in this sort of food. That is why the end of the week is filled with some of my favourite recipes from the month. I will probably have Sunday off though – it will be nice not to have to worry about how counting things for once, or carefully weighing it out to ensure that it counts as a portion.
Have you found that your shopping habits change when on a diet? I’d love to hear from you so leave a comment below!
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