Smart Shopping for Weight Management in Phoenix
Posted: October 7, 2014 in Healthy Eating by Craig Primack MD FACP
If you’re in the process of losing some excess weight with the help of a medical weight loss program, you already have a great head start. With the advantages of nutrition education, behavioral counseling and exercise counseling, you can effectively retool your lifestyle to support continuing weight loss. Once you reach your goal, you can continue to use these new skills to stay at your goal weight and stay healthy for your entire life.
A big part of continuing weight management involves making the right food choices, both at home and while you’re out. However, the fact is that you spend most of your time at home — and home is where the refrigerator is. It’s especially important that you stock your kitchen with the types of food that will allow you to eat well, and the following two places are Phoenix’s leading options for shopping smart.
Sprout’s Farmers Market
Sprout’s may be officially called a farmer’s market, but it’s far beyond the outdoor stalls of fresh produce that those words might bring to mind. Sprout’s features fresh organically grown produce from local farms, natural meats and seafood, and freshly made baked goods. Grains, nuts and healthy sweets are available in bulk, so you can buy whatever quantity suits your needs, and prices are generally lower than you’d expect for this level of specialty premium food.
As part of your new healthy lifestyle and diet when looking for sugar-free, low-sugar, low-carb, gluten-free and vegan products they are all easily found in these stores allowing you to get nearly any food that meets your healthy eating plan. Generally, you can find nearly anything a standard grocery store would carry at Sprout’s, but here it’s likely to be a healthier version.
With around 20 Phoenix-area locations, you’re sure to find one close to you. Some popular local Sprout’s stores include those at East Indian School Road, North 19th Avenue, Bell Road and North Tatum Boulevard.
Whole Foods
While Whole Foods may look similar to your average grocery store from the outside, on the inside it’s a much different experience. When you step into a Whole Foods, you’ll immediately be struck by the extensive organic produce section, the bins of bulk grains and nuts, and the large deli and bakery areas. Whole Foods has everything traditional health food stores do but carries it to another level entirely by offering healthy versions of everything a regular grocery store stocks, as well. What you won’t find is many of the usual processed or sugar-packed diet killers here, so it’s easy to avoid derailing your healthy lifestyle.
Sugar-free, low-sugar, low-carb, gluten-free and vegan items are easy to find, and in fact you can easily accommodate nearly any diet at Whole Foods. The prices are on par with those at Sprout’s — essentially, just a bit higher than your local generic grocery store — but so well worth it for the quality of the food.
Whole Foods has five stores in the greater Phoenix area, including locations on North 20th Street, South Rural Road, North Tatum Boulevard, West Ray Road and East Mayo Boulevard.
Though both Sprout’s and Whole Foods are extremely smart shopping choices for anyone working on weight management plans you can also look at some of the smaller local fresh markets for fresh healthy choices. In stores like these, it’s hard to make truly bad choices.