A couple small changes made a BIG impact on my health and wallet.

It’s not often that I toot my own horn, but here goes: I made a shift in my personal life and won pretty big.

I had considered myself to be a reasonably healthy eater. I have my splurges, but for the most part I was conscious about making “good” choices most of the time. To some extent, I was right but here’s the thing:

I wasn’t reading labels very closely

I wasn’t planning ahead

I wasn’t putting much thought into my grocery budget

So I made some changes…

To start, I took a hard look at the labels on seemingly innocent things I was using all the time–seasoning blends, condiments, canned and frozen items, for example. Turns out, there is sugar lurking EVERYWHERE. Why does taco seasoning or canned green beans have sugar??? It was pretty easy to make small changes to different brands / forms that didn’t add sugar and coloring where it wasn’t needed.

Next, I tackled some meal planning and prep. Making enough chicken for 5 meals is about the same amount of work as making chicken for one, as it turns out. Once I knew I had food already prepared and I only had to heat it up, it was much easier to avoid mindless snacking while searching for “something to eat” and MUCH easier to avoid the temptation to eat out.

Last…the grocery budget. I began to keep an eye out for the price on my most expensive and most purchased items (hard to save when you don’t really know what a “good” price is, you know?). Instead of throwing away the grocery flier every week, I actually looked to see where the sales were and stock up when prices were good. I DIDN'T go nuts driving all over town to a million places, but just took advantage of the really exceptional deals.

Want to know the big payoff here? Well, hold on to your shorts, because I have concrete evidence of my success. By planning ahead, watching my budget, and making the choice to prepare more real food and less packaged and processed stuff:

I sleep better

My skin looks better

I lost FIFTEEN POUNDS

And shaved 20% off my monthly grocery bill

Not bad, right? I am pretty proud of myself, and I hope you feel inspired to make some positive changes in your own kitchen!

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