It’s Okay To Eat Out And Not Grocery Shop

Life’s been crazy lately. In a really, really good way, but of course some things naturally fall to the wayside to make room for others. That’s just life and lately I’ve been trying really hard to just focus on things that matter. Grocery shopping doesn’t matter right now. But spending time with friends, talking to my momma + brothers consistently, finishing up school, and investing in community does matter.

During other seasons of life, I have more of a plan for what the week will look like in terms of food. I will go to the grocery store with a lovely list of what I want to pack for lunches and eat for dinners. I have time for bookmarking a few recipes and thinking about what foods sound good that I can cook up on a Sunday and store away in the fridge for the week ahead.

WIAW breakfast: Vega One French Vanilla, ½ frozen naner, frozen spinach, almond milk, ice cubes + oatmeal made with chia seeds and apples in an almost empty PB jar

Now that doesn’t mean that I’m a legitimate meal-planner or prepper (more like, here’s my attempt at organizing my life really, I’d rather be doing other things when I DO have extra time) but I’ll often do some cooking and baking on the weekend and then freeze extras to have on hand for later on.

As of recently, other than picking up a couple things here and there, I haven’t seen the inside of the grocery store for more than 15 minutes in weeks. My fridge consists of 7 eggs, a ½ bag of carrots, a lemon and a carton of almond milk. And my freezer was emptied of its stock of leftovers quite a while back. But proudly, the dark chocolate and PB stash is holding strong. My eats have been more like grab-what-I-got, super simple, and eaten out most of the time. Actually, I realized last night after dinner that I haven’t eaten dinner at home in over a week. Thank God for the New York food scene. There really hasn’t been time for grocery shopping + planning, but actually, it just hasn’t mattered to me lately.

Lunch at Whole Foods hot bar in between Nutshell clients 

There was a time when I would have had a harder time just rolling with this season of life. When I first started out as an RD, I felt sort of guilty in the back of my mind when I had these sorts of fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants weeks. If my fridge wasn’t bursting with produce and I didn’t have a pretty good idea of what I had on hand, I felt off balance- like I wasn’t holding up my persona of that kale loving, fridge stocked dietitian.

Especially since a lot of times when you’re busy and eating without a plan, you also are eating without a timeline. In other words, sometimes lunch is at three because that’s when I have a break or dinner isn’t until 9 because that’s when I’m meeting friends for dinner.

Snacks // Iced Americano with soy milk + morning glory muffin at a coffee friend date and dark chocolate + PB

Eating without anything even resembling a plan lately has been a reminder that the body is pretty darn smart. I’m totally winging it and yet somehow, I’m doing just fine. Other than my wallet being kind of sad, I feel good and I’m finding a balance that works for me right now. Grocery shopping + cooking sounds stressful, eating out isn’t stressful. And we know stress is bad. ‘Healthy’eating is going to change depending on what our lives look like, and right now- this is what it’s looking like.

Dinner // Hummus and Pita Co. veg plate with all kinds of goodness [I don’t even remember what all was in this but I remember it was really good]

Some days I’m starving, some days not so much. Our appetites and hunger don’t follow a consistent rhythm or routine. The beauty of the human body is that it waxes and wanes depending on so many factors – it’s not an exact science in the least. So the best thing we can do for ourselves is go with the rhythm of life.

Some days I want all the carbs and other days, I am adding avocado and peanut butter to everything and eating nearly an entire bar of dark chocolate as a snack, really though. And these days, I’m just grabbing what I can, trying to fill my plate half the way with veg and the other half with some protein and carbs and fats depending on what I’m feeling.

Eating without a plan has definitely meant that some weeks I’m eating out a lot more than I typically would, or I’m eating things that I could care less about since I scraped them together while running out the door. But that’s okay. Because when life slows back down, there will always be time to get back in the kitchen, stock the fridge and cook at home again.

Until then, I’m giving myself lots and lots of grace. And then doing what matters. Because for me, when time is short and life is busy, that doesn’t mean grocery shopping and cooking.