Grocery Shopping

   This is one of the toughest things I've had to deal with since I've had my surgery. And to be quite honest, it's something I didn't even think about. I had spent so much time preparing for the first 2 weeks of surgery that I never really thought about anything past the mushy foods stage. The gravity of what I just did to myself and husband hit me as soon as I walked into Trader Joe's. I was so proud of myself because I had planned out a menu for 2 weeks and made a separate itemized grocery list of everything we needed to execute said menu. 

   What I didn't realize was that for every item on my list there were 4-5 options to choose from, all with different amounts of calories  and proteins. The days of walking into a grocery store and choosing what's cheapest are over! On average (before surgery) I could go to Trader Joe's, VONS and Fresh & Easy and get all the groceries I needed, at all 3 locations, within 1 hour. It used to be very easy! But this week I took my husband, because I needed help lifting things, and thought things would be even easier because I had an extra set of eyes and hands. I was sooooooo wrong! We spent 2.5 hours at Trader Joe's and VONS alone....2.5 HOURS! I could have made things easy on myself and just grabbed any item, but getting the most bang for your buck when it comes to protein has become a real priority. I was so unbelievably overwhelmed that I shut down and almost broke down trying to pick "the right" Greek yogurt. Seriously...I almost cried because putting the right Greek yogurt in my shopping cart was such an overwhelming experience.

   Luckily I went home, called my mom, vented and was able to go finishing my grocery shopping the next day with a lot more ease because I knew what to expect! Just knowing what to expect made a HUGE difference! I even made some really great discoveries of some items that I get to start eating on Wednesday when I move on to STAGE #4.