Healthy Fridge How-To!

At our house, we’ve found that having lots of healthy options on hand for easy recipes or improvised meals is what helps us to stay on track the most. When we get home from work feeling hungry and tired and find there’s nothing in the refrigerator, we’re the most vulnerable and likely to take the easy way out and go grab food from a restaurant - not the most goal- or wallet-friendly option for us!

Try as we might, even the “healthy” offerings at most restaurants are unreliable at best, difficult to track (in terms of macros), and often filled with things we hadn’t planned to include in our diet that day. Definitely not ideal.

So what we try to do is keep our fridge stocked with lots of healthy options so that we aren’t so temped to grab takeout. When there are healthy things within reach at all times, it makes the idea of cooking at home a lot more feasible and attractive!

I thought it might be helpful to show you one of my shopping lists that I always keep handy in the notes on my phone, so that you could get some ideas about how to stock a healthy fridge! Having this list really helps me to stay organized while I’m shopping and to remember all the things we need and use most frequently… I don’t know about you, but when I’m tired, frazzled, or in a hurry, I ALWAYS forget stuff if I don’t have a list!

Consistently having these things available to me in my fridge has made sticking to my healthy lifestyle SO much easier, and I hope it will for you too!

SHOPPING LIST:

Lean proteins (chicken, lean beef, pork tenderloin, shrimp, etc.)

Lean deli meat (turkey, roast beef, etc.)

Whole eggs and egg white cartons

Low-fat or nonfat Greek Yogurt

Lowfat cheese (string cheeses are a great snack!)

Green veggies (broccoli, kale, spinach, zucchini, lettuce, bagged mixed greens, etc.)

Colorful veggies (red cabbage, orange bell peppers, tomatoes, rainbow carrots, purple cauliflower, etc. - even a pre-cut veggie plate for snacking, just use one of your low-cal salad dressings as a dip instead of what comes with it)

Fresh herbs (basil, parsley, cilantro, etc.)

Fresh berries (blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries)

Small apples

Small seasonal fruit (apricots, peaches, plums, etc.)

Sweet potatoes

Hard squashes (acorn, butternut, delicata, etc. - precut is also great!)

Avocados or pre-made guacamole (I like the mini cups)

Nut butters (almond, cashew, sunflower seed butter)

Low-calorie salad dressings (Bolthouse farms makes great ones)

Mustard

Salsa

Sugar-free barbecue sauce

Sriracha

Soy sauce

Vinegars (balsamic, rice vinegar, etc.)

Pre-pureed squeeze tubes of garlic, ginger, and herbs

Obviously you're more than welcome to include or exclude things based on personal preference, needs, or dietary restrictions - this is just a list that I like to use, so I wanted to share it with you :)

The hardest parts of healthy eating for a lot of people are knowing where to start in terms of choosing foods, and always keeping things on hand that are easy, fast, and versatile.

But remember, meals don’t have to be fancy or complicated. Healthy, delicious food is way easier to make than you might think! A big salad with lots of crunchy vegetables and grilled chicken, egg and veggie scramble with sweet potato hash “breakfast for dinner,” vegetable stir fry with lean beef, zucchini “noodles” with ground turkey and fresh tomato/basil sauce…

These are just a few examples of healthy meals you can put together from the list of ingredients above - most of these things are pretty easy to make, and don’t take very long. The main thing is just having a bunch of ingredients around so that you can throw something together. As far as I’m concerned, meals don’t even really have to have a theme or make sense - as long as they contain the nutritional components you want and need!

When Chris and I are exhausted after a long day and don’t feel like cooking, we season some meat and chuck it on the grill, cut up a couple of kinds of veggies and throw them in the oven to roast or make a simple salad… 20 minutes or so later, dinner is served! We each pick a condiment to drizzle over our meat and/or dip our veggies in, and we call it good.

It may not always be overly glamorous, but it keeps us from sabotaging our nutrition goals by eating less healthy food at a restaurant. And since we stick to our plan 90% of the time, we feel great about the 10% of the time when we do choose to indulge!

I hope these ideas can help you to stock your kitchen with healthy options and make your life easier - isn’t that what we all want? For things to be easier? Intentionally removing as many roadblocks as possible is one of the keys to maintaining a balanced, healthy lifestyle in the long run!

What do you like to keep in your fridge that helps you stay true to your health and fitness plan?

Please feel free to comment, upvote or resteem if you’d like! :)