Grocery Trips

Somewhere in my journey, I went from being a grocery shopper to a grocery hunter. I gave up trips to Wal-Mart or Target in favor of Tom Thumb and Kroger. And then, as I started to become more mindful of what I was putting in my body, I shifted again. Although I had always heard that stores like Central Market and Whole Foods were overpriced and impractical, I ventured into the unknown, and I’ve never really looked back.

I usually stop a couple times a week on my way home from work to wander the isles of these grocers. I find myself in the fortunate position of only having myself to shop for, so I can be highly selective, and I can take all the time in the world I want. In fact, grocery hunting has actually become a sort of treat for me. I rarely go in with a list, and I always walk every square inch of the store just because I enjoy seeing, smelling, and sampling as much as possible. I’ve gotten pretty fast at whipping out my phone to Google “how to pick a fresh _____” when I want to try a new fruit or vegetable with which I’m not familiar.

I stick mainly to produce, and I oftentimes stop and talk to the butchers and seafood employees. I ask them for recommendations and take the time to listen when they tell me about something new to try. Yesterday, the man behind the seafood counter talked me into purchasing a crab cake. It looked delicious, and it cost me around $3. He told me how to cook it, he put it on ice, and he told me to come back and tell him how it tasted.

I feel like I almost don’t have the right words to explain it, but I guess what I’m trying to say is that my food experience has changed in such a rewarding way. The goal is no longer to buy food for the purpose of eating it all in secret or use it in unhealthy ways. And there’s something very liberating about that. About shopping honestly, with real honest food in your basket, and knowing that you look like someone who really eats that kind of food. It was a little different when I was heavier, because even though I was proud of the nutritious food I was carting through the store, I felt like people were seeing those groceries and thinking “yeah right, chubbers. We know that’s not how you really eat.” And now, I don’t think they think about it at all. Maybe they never did, and it was all just in my head. But the fact is, there’s a lot of freedom in knowing that to the rest of the world, your food appears to be in congruence with your figure.

Maybe what I really love is the overall newness of shopping without any sense of  urgency or guilt or mental bargaining. 

“I want to buy those cookies.”

“I’ll just get this small bag of chips and eat it on the way home because I’m definitely going to work out tonight.”

“I should get a box of cereal or some mac ‘n’ cheese, just in case I have one of those busy nights when I can’t cook.”

“Ice cream is ON SALE!!”

I don’t have those kinds of thoughts anymore. And I don’t miss them. I don’t miss being haunted by my choices and struggling so hard with each and every decision related to food. I don’t miss trying to convince myself that a granola bar somehow has the same nutritional value of a fresh piece of fruit. I just don’t.

It’s strange how, in the short span of a year, your priorities and your struggles can shift so dramatically. In a way, I guess it’s one of the more subtle changes that occur during weight loss. I went along for months pretending to be someone who eats healthy and makes mostly good decisions about what I eat. And then one day, I just was that person. Not perfect, and certainly not yet at my goal. But also not the girl secretly buying and stashing junk food in my car or my apartment. And that, for me, is a pretty significant non-scale victory.

You can follow me on Twitter @LDunkster