Wellness Hustle

Wellness Hustle (00:44)
Welcome back to Wellness Hustle. I'm Sasha here with Brit and we are thrilled to have you guys back. Today we came up with an idea about grocery shopping.

And how did you come up with this idea, Brit? I think that, you know, a lot of it has to do with overwhelm, right? What happened to me recently was I was walking through the grocery store. have about 20 years of experience in retail sales and marketing, and I was walking through the grocery store and I've been coming across this issue for myself personally that since I moved to Carson City, And I've been here for a year and a half. I've had such a struggle with grocery shopping. How do I do it?

Why did it become so complicated for me all of a sudden? And I realized that prior I was living in Reno and then before that I was living in Austin. And before that I was living in Huntington Beach, California, which meant that I had a Whole Foods or a farmer's market within 15 seconds of me. And that's a dramatic, but like within 10 minutes of me always. And now that I'm in Carson city, I don't have that. And I was walking through, we have a Raley's here. I was walking through Raley's and I was like, this is wild because

this layout of this grocery store is quite frankly designed to make me not successful at grocery shopping. An epiphany occurred where I was like this grocery store from, have so much experience in like retail merchandising from a merchandising perspective is designed for me to fail. Or buy things that not necessarily very healthy.

fail by my standards, actually succeed by the grocery stores now that we have the podcast, I think about these things and I'm like, we should share that with people. Because my experience in retail merchandising allows me to see things a little bit differently. And then your experience with nutrition and everything, like was having a hard time finding just fruits and vegetables that are on a normal list for me.

And it's because that the way that the buying of that grocery store is, doesn't prioritize fresh fruit because the turnover isn't as quick as some of the, they're looking for longer shelf life things, which doesn't align with my diet. Exactly. And for me, I constantly teach my clients how to grocery shop. We have a plan. I teach them what to look for. So that kind of you

know, was easy for us. Yeah, I think it's an episode. I think we should definitely talk about it to a broader, you know, range of people, because we think it's really needed. Yeah. And we would love for you guys as you're listening, if you think of something that you're like, Yeah, I want to know the answer to this. Feel free to shoot us a DM and just ask us because that's kind of how we're approaching our lives within fitness and nutrition. Like I go workout and I'm like, I gotta ask Sasha about this. Let's turn it into a podcast episode. So yeah.

And we're kind of gathering, me personally from my clients, when I work with them and see what kind of questions they have, what kind of problems they're having with nutrition or fitness. And that's how we create topics for our podcast. Yeah. But today we're just going to dive into grocery shopping. And we're going to talk about why it's so overwhelming, how to manage grocery shopping on the budget.

and how to deal with picky eaters and also, you know, how to maybe grocery shop for different people in a household because somebody like my husband, likes snacks and I don't snack. So that's kind of a challenge for us. So we can talk about that. So we got you covered with the actionable tips. Yeah. I feel like I might be like your husband. I'm a snacker. I'm a snacker. Me and my potato chips.

I think we need to start with the actual retail layout of a grocery store in order for you guys to understand why it can be so overwhelming. I think there are so many pieces of the grocery store that can be overwhelming. But when you have education on

the layout of a grocery store. It has helped me so much. Even just since realizing it's like, okay, I have to figure out a different plan. But I just want to kind of walk you through situation, Sasha. So when you think of Whole Foods and you're walking into a Whole Foods, the Whole Foods, like, what is the first thing you see when you walk in the door? Oh, I can tell you exactly because I'm there every day. There's two ends that you can walk into.

The first one on the left, you walk into produce. So right away you're seeing vegetables and fruit and greens and herbs, all of that. From the other side, when you go to the grocery store, that's where they're kind of like a restaurant ready to go meals are. And that's where you see like the soups prepared. That's where you see the pizza bar. That's where you see all your cold cuts that you can get.

So yeah, and then there's little coffee shop on the side. Yeah. Like fresh ish on both sides. Fully fresh and then fresh ish. And then as you go around the back, you've got the meat section, the butcher. The butcher, that's everything is fresh. So it's right caught in front of you. You see them prepping the meat. Yeah. Beautifully same with the fisherman. You see them prepping the fish. It's all on ice, fresh. The dairy. The dairy is in the refrigerator in the back.

The center of the store is all refrigeration and freezers. And on each side there's aisles. And also there is a pharmacy-ish place. I don't know what they call it. Supplements. all of that kind of stuff. Yep. Okay, so that is what the traditional layout of a grocery store is. My mom, when I was growing up, would always say, should walk, you should always shop the outside edges of the grocery store first.

So when I was in the Raley's by my house here in Carson, I walked in and when you walk in, there's like a little bit of produce. Yeah. And then you kind of are, you run face first into the alcohol aisle. Oh nice. Yeah. And then it's like the deli, but it's like a lot of breads. Yeah. And then you're kind of in the cheese and then you're in like the butcher and I'm doing air quotes if you can't see me. And the butcher is really just like,

pre-cut, it's already out. There's no butcher there actually like working with the meat or anything like that. There's nothing super fresh. It's pre-wrapped. Around the back is dairy. And mind you, there's great brands at this Raley's Like I can get my Nancy's Greek yogurt. I can get my Primal Kitchen, all of those, the Siete, all that. But what I noticed was that the produce is in the center of the grocery store and towards the back. How interesting. And it's smaller than any one that I've ever experienced before. And I was thinking about demographics.

So if you are in an area that doesn't prioritize health, which I would consider, Carson is one of those areas where it can be like rural country. once you get into the country areas of it, those guys, they're eating their own meat. they have a friend who's a rancher. you know, they have access to those things. And then once you get closer into the town, more rural area of it, a lot of the health habits have kind of like died down.

I think anyway. so and that's not that's a very big generalization. But yes, we're just now getting a sprouts here next year. So we'll hopefully Carson I know I'm so excited. But when I walked in, I was like, okay, this grocery store is all produce all in the center. They're also sold out of a lot of the produce produce because the customer is not buying the produce. They don't invest their buy dollars and buying dollars are just like

when a store has to buy a certain amount of inventory, what are they picking? They can only allocate so many dollars to certain areas. So they're reallocating their dollars from the produce section to all the rest of their, I call them like aisles, like aisle food. All of that aisle food is prepackaged shit. Like there's so much. And just to give you guys an idea, in order for me to get to the produce, I have to walk past cookies.

I have to walk past chips. which by the way, that is my downfall. I have to walk past like a knickknack section that changes seasonally. So like little things that you think that you need that you definitely don't need. I have to walk through, or I can walk through the baked goods aisle or the alcohol aisle. all of the good things or like the sugary drinks aisle, like sodas and stuff like that in order for me to get to fresh produce. Isn't that incredible? That's designed for me to fail. Right.

So when you think about a grocery store, you have to think about where you're shopping. And I think that we'll talk about some of the other overwhelming factors, but it's important for you to understand that sometimes you should look at the layout of your grocery store and ask yourself, what am I having to face before I get to the things that I need? And just understand that like, it might be set like end caps are set up to get you to purchase what is either not selling what is brand new.

Okay. Or what is a high profit item for that store? Interesting. I didn't know what they were for, but I've noticed there's they change them, the end caps, they change them and they get you sometimes with the advertisement and you know, and enticing to buy it. Yes. You know, all of that, you know, when you're walking through the grocery store and they have literally like a palette of sodas stacked up or like chips stacked up that is designed to get you

sprouts is another really good example. Sprouts, could keep a little basket of fresh baked chocolate chip cookies right on the conveyor belt as you check out. wow. Last second decision. I love sprouts, but after having decision fatigue all around the grocery store, you get to the checkout and you see those chocolate chip cookies. You're buying them. You're probably going to buy them. Probably, especially if you're hungry.

Right, which brings us into some of the other topics.

So aside from the retail layout, there are a lot of other concerns and roadblocks when it comes to grocery shopping. Can you talk to us about why it's so overwhelming? What are your clients talking about? Well, I think it's very confusing the way the wording is on packaging And now,

The industry is getting so smart to get us as we know more, the industry is changing labels and they're not really, you know, checked by anybody. They can say whatever pretty much they want. They can say natural, which means nothing really. They can say now grass fed cows, which they are grass fed, but they're never been outside some of them. So that doesn't mean much either. So for people, it's very overwhelming.

I seriously was just at Sprouts and there were two ladies standing next to the egg refrigerator and they were talking to each other and they're like, why there's so many egg options? What's happening in here? I'm so confused. So you can see confusion in consumer and I couldn't help myself. I was like, hey, I do this for living. Do you guys want me to answer your question? they're.

They were thrilled. So I explained, which I think we should do another podcast about, you know, dairy and eggs and meat and all of that, how it's sourced and what the wording is behind the products. But they were thrilled to learn and understand what the difference is between organic eggs and pasture raised eggs and, you know, all of the others in between. And I think once you have that knowledge, it's really great because

once I learned that knowledge, and again, I wish I would have had a Sasha just like guardian angel in the grocery store. But you know, once you have that knowledge, it's so helpful because then you just know, I can walk in and I'm looking for USDA organic, that is my number one priority.

But I have specific things that I'm looking for that I know now that I will not negotiate away from. If I look at ingredients on a label and one of them on there is grape seed oil or canola oil or vegetable oil, I'm not having it. I'm not buying it. Right. So that's, we're going to talk about the labels in one of the next podcasts. So the labels are confusing. The wording on the package itself is confusing. There's a lot of options.

Also, we don't know should we eat gluten-free, should we eat corn-free, what's going on with all of that. Then we are in a hurry. A lot of people are in a hurry and you have to read all those labels. That's crazy. That's a lot going on. People are confused, but they don't have a plan also to know what to buy. You have to have a plan. You have to know what you're going to cook. What do you need?

Otherwise you're just going to go and buy all kinds of stuff. They don't go together and you're going to waste it. that's what I do. I like to do that. I like to buy a bunch of stuff that I feel like I'm very impulsive. I'm learning about myself recently, but I go in, I just buy whatever I feel like. And then I get home and I'm like, I have a bunch of randomized ingredients. And then next thing I know, I'm making a bunch of meat bowls that I'm hoping for the best with. Well, you know, I think if you have the meat bowl system and a lot of different ingredients can go in.

those, you're okay. But some people don't have that either. Yeah, then they end up with the random stuff. And they don't have a plan and a lot of it goes wasted. mean, the ticket is really getting down to knowing and I think you talked about it at beginning, the overwhelm of the packaged goods and the way that those things are marketed to you. Yeah. You know, down to the eggs is like a very the more you know, the easier it is to shop, it takes the overwhelm out of it. And then again, meal planning.

and preparation. Like the more that you know, the easier it is to go grocery shopping. You're just looking at a list and that right there, my friends, will save you so much money. So much money and so much time. Yeah.

Can you talk to us a little bit about like family preferences, constraints, like

I want to talk about like picky eaters. Picky eaters. How does that create overwhelm for our grocery shoppers? Well, because again, it goes down to the plan. You have to figure out how to sneak things into your picky children or husband meals. then, so maybe you, you know, you cook a soup and you slide some things in there. You know, you make a shake, you slide some things in there like greens.

But you have to think about how you can slide that in, right? Kind of like unnoticeably. So you have to think about the ingredients, but again, it boils down to the recipe, how you're going to do it. So if you think your kid is not going to eat vegetables and you go to the store and you just start buying random vegetables and you bring them home, but then, I don't know, you roast them and you put it on a plate and kids like, I'm not going to eat that. So that was failing on your part, right?

My mom used to put zucchini and carrots inside of our like chocolate chip muffins when I was young. Your mom is smart. She knows what she's doing. My mom was ahead of all the nutrition curves. Like my mom also studied to be a Pilates instructor at one point. Okay. My mom loves, I think that's why I love it so much is like I grew up with it and it's like such a part of my life anyway. We don't need to sidetrack, but. But yeah, I think it's just recognizing.

what your kids or your husband doesn't like to eat and be sneaky about it, but to have a plan and buy those things that you can sneak in.

what comes constantly into our conversation is the planning. You cannot go unprepared to the grocery store. If you have no plan, you're to fail. Even at the grocery store. Something simple as that. I think that having a plan, having a list,

and having an understanding of what's going on in the grocery store. Because again, just as you walk down the cookie aisle, it has helped me. I'm a little bit rebellious, so maybe this is a personal thing. For me to know that they're trying to get me, you know what I mean? Yeah. They're trying to get me to add additional things to my cart. You're not going to get me. Not today. Oh, you know what else they do? Once in a while, they will move the grocery store around. I've noticed that. And it would make me so mad because I know...

Whole Foods inside and out. I can work there and tell people where shit is. And I remember they moved all over around just for us because we got used to it. People like me, we avoid certain things and then over goes, they're like, wait a minute. We're going to switch all the store around. So you guys need to not go around again and look at other things and hopefully we'll make you buy something else. Yep. They're literally forcing you to see things. Yeah.

that you wouldn't have normally seen. That's where the end caps come into play. So when they bring in new lines, those end caps will be there with those products. If it's something seasonal, that's product they have to get in and out within that short period of time. Otherwise they're going to lose money on that. Like for Christmas, the eggnog is everywhere. Everywhere. I'd also like to just point out that

sometimes the packaging of the product itself. So packaging, I have a candle company, the packaging itself costs almost as much as the candle does. that crazy? So, and that's a box that people throw away. Exactly. to give you an idea. Exactly. Now, whether or not my product sells on the shelf is determined by how good my packaging is. 100%. If it catches somebody's eye. Yes.

if I'm very clear about who my demographic is. Yes. They know who you are before you even realize that you've purchased the item and put it in your cart. So for example, you're going through a grocery store aisle and there's things that eye level when you and I just would challenge all of our listeners to pay attention to the coloring of the packaging, the text of the packaging. If you continue to find that you are being

pulled in by certain colors, or if you're noticing like a lot of the same color. And this is shit that I nerd out on personally. But like orange is gonna start coming in to, I just was learning about this today actually. is gonna be a big color this year, which I didn't intentionally do in this to be, okay guys, I didn't do it on purpose, it was an accident. Orange, I bet we will see all over grocery stores. My reasoning for choosing orange for this,

company for Wellness Hustle was because it's very energetic color. And I feel like this year is going to be a lot of energy, like a lot of excitement. And I wanted our consumers to be excited about the product. Now pay attention to pinks, to yellows. Those are going to all be in the same color family. Exactly. And you're going to see them at eye level. You'll also see like green washing, which it'll be a green color and then it'll say it's natural.

Oh yeah, that's what they do. Yeah, and it's not natural. not natural. Literally you can say it's natural and have no natural ingredients in it. So just important. But the other thing is those products, the price of them actually increases. Interesting. So the more intense the packaging is or complex the packaging is, the more expensive the item is. So for example, if your vinegar. Yeah.

has like a textured label on it. Yes. That is a very expensive label. It could cost upwards of like a dollar per label, depending on how many they're purchasing. Okay. So you have to keep in mind that sometimes you bind the package, not the product inside. Sometimes you are. Which brings us to our next point is like, how do you shop without breaking the bank? How do you shop without breaking the bank? So this is what I do. It goes

Some of it goes a little bit to planning. So you have to think about what meals are expensive and what meals are not as expensive to make. So if you want to make a meal that is full in protein and fiber and will last you like for whole family dinner, soups, chilies, stews come to mind because you're not buying filet mignon. I mean, you can if you wanted to, to make a soup or make a chili, but you usually buy like a low cost.

cut, right? And you can buy ground meat to make chili. So that usually is less expensive, right? Then like the full on steak, the strip, New York strip or the filet. You can buy a whole chicken to roast it or make a soup. So think about proteins. I grew up with that. We were really poor in Russia and my mom always made soups. She would buy like either a big bone with a lot of meat on it and make a soup or she'll buy a full chicken. So then

Some of the chicken goes in the soup and some of the chicken goes like as a side dish, whatever. So you can stretch your meat out a little bit. You can go shop at Costco. Things I buy at Costco when it comes to meat, I buy bison at Costco because it doesn't matter where bison comes from. Bison is a really more nutrient dense meat and the bison as an animal is raised differently.

For some reason, there's higher regulations for raising a bison. So the bison is a healthier, happier animal. Have you ever seen a bison? Yeah. Yeah. So my brain always goes, I'm like, how, why is that? I wonder why. And I don't know this to be true, but we're just going to have a little fun here real quick. OK. I wonder if that has something to do with the fact that a bison is harder to manage than a cow. OK. So I spoke with a bison rancher.

Okay. And I'm into horses. I was like, you guys like, you know, on the horses trying to round them up or whatever. She's like, no, bison are so smart. We basically get on one person will get on a tractor and the bison just follow us wherever we go. They're just that smart. I was like, that's I feel bad eating them. I don't but but also I mean, if there's some ranchers and they say I'm wrong, tell me but that's what I heard from a renter.

who they raised bison. That's so interesting. Yeah, because I was just thinking of and that is like by the grace of God, I think, I mean, or whatever you believe in. like, the way that they're designed. They're more muscular than a cow. They're leaner, muscular. Less fat. Yeah, they're more durable, right? Rugged animals. Yeah. And they raise differently in their, in the pasture, they have to be in the pasture. They can't be

kept in a little barn. Maybe they wouldn't let you, I don't know. Maybe they'll just bulldoze through the barn. That's what I'm thinking is like, there would be no chance. Yeah, like, try me. Yeah, I'm out of here. So maybe that's what it is. anyway, I've only seen him in the wild, which is why I asked you that question. Me too. I did not go to the ranch. I met the rancher like accidentally and I just because I chat so I just met this person and she was telling me about it. Anyway. That's awesome.

But so I buy bison at Costco. I buy wild caught salmon at Costco. Those are the things you can buy cheaper. We can talk about, go ahead. Your salmon, is it from the frozen section or is it from the, tell me everything. Okay, so I really don't love when it comes to fish. I don't love fish that much, but I do love when it's smoked. So I buy smoked salmon. From the fresh space.

It's from, it's hard to explain what they call it. It's where the cheeses are. That's where they're like kind of somewhat packaged food. Yes.

You just get to look for wild caught.

So that's what I do. And then you can buy stuff in bulk, like your greens, greens are fabulous there, avocados, things like that. Eggs, they do have good quality eggs, not all of them. We're to teach you about that in the next episode. But yeah, so you can buy that in bulk. And when you buy in bulk, you're saving money.

Wellness Hustle (25:24)
So on the note of buying in bulk to save money, you can also stick to a budget. And that is always a lot easier said than done. Oh my God, I hate that word. Budget is not my friend. I don't like it. I hate a budget. I just want to be able to buy whatever I want, but that's not the reality for most of us. So

when people ask me, how do you eat so healthy and it's so expensive. And I don't, I don't think it has to be. I love to play this game with myself. I don't know how many people do this. My mom said she does it too, but I love math a lot. So I will, as I add things to my cart, I will tally in my head how much it is. And it's a challenge for myself.

I will try to say like, okay, I'm going to stay within $120 for the week of groceries or whatever it is. And then as I'm tallying up, I can kind of know how close I'm getting to that number. And then the other fun half of that is sometimes I get to the counter and I'm like, I must have missed a few things or I double counted something. And so you're also trying to see how on track your math is. I don't know. It's a good little brain game for you.

And also that will keep you away from those end caps and trying things that you shouldn't be buying or trying. And to be honest with you, the packaged food is more expensive than to buy something that you have to cook 100%. 100 % of the time, if you were avoiding those center aisles that we were talking about, those end caps.

Buy in bulk when it's on sale. That's what I do. I always watch for olive oil that I like to go on sale.

I buy a of bottles because I know that's not going to go bad. I know I will always use it. And you can save a lot of money. Coffee the same way. If I buy coffee, organic coffee goes on sale, I buy a bunch. So I that way it's just going to, you know, it's not going to go bad. And I think like when you're counting the amount that you're spending and you're just paying attention to these sorts of things, like you can easily manage your budget a little bit better.

Yeah. Focus on season produce store brands and bulk purchases. Okay. So I would like this just generally this question to be answered for like my whole life. Sasha, how do I stop buying things I don't need?

Well, okay. You already said the store is designed for you to buy things you don't need. So you have to kind of avoid them. We already talked to you about buying things that are on your list only, right? And not buying junk food. Don't do if, okay, so say, okay, I want to buy some snacks. Have the snacks listed on your list, what you want to buy.

and specific snacks. Don't go with the head like, okay, I'm going to buy this to make whatever soup and then I'll look for some snacks. No, don't do that. Have specific snacks in mind that you're going to buy. Like for me, okay, I need epic, you know, meat sticks at Costco. When I went there, okay, I'm going to go, I know where they are. I'm going to go grab them. And I'm not going to look at anything else on that aisle.

That's how you're not buying things you don't need. Yeah. I also, as you were saying that I was thinking back to our budget question, but those impulse buys. So when we talked about buying in bulk,

I will go, buy a lot of chips. I have a chip problem. I will buy the Siete chips because some are in my brain. Siete means safe. I've established that that's a safe brand for me. I know that's not true. No, I mean, it's a processed food, but it's got all the good ingredients in there. Right. So if you choosing a processed food, that's, that's the brand you should probably buy. Right.

So when I do allow myself to buy chips, what I have noticed, and as you were saying this, I'm like, this is so true. So it'll be like buy two for $7 of these chips. $7 could get me 12 eggs. Yes, or even more so if you know what you're buying. And like broccoli on the little, like when you buy it on the stock, even when you buy it in the bag, it's like $4.99. Yep. And it'll fill me up more than chippies will fill me up.

Right. Because I eat a bag of chippies, which we'll get into that on another serving size. I think that, goes into, you know, emotional triggers. like I said, chippies are my safe space. Chippies bring me comfort. Yes. And they bring me joy. Right. And they're crunchy and delightful. Right. So I mean, if you're choosing the better chippies, it's okay. Just.

If it's your whole dinner, just chippies, we have a problem. know. But to your point earlier, if I want to not buy chippies, then I need to avoid the chip aisle. Correct. don't bring it home. I need to not go down the chip aisle. Just because it says buy two for $7 doesn't mean that that is actually a cheaper option for me than buying a carton of eggs or a thing of broccoli, because those items will satiate me.

more than the bag of chips will. So then I'm to be hungrier and then I'm going to need to eat more after the chips. And yeah, not much nutritional value in chips, even in Siete. Yeah. And it's going to cost me more in the long run because I'm to need to eat again. Yeah. So not to be, you know, debbie downer, but you don't want to go hungry to the grocery store. No, no, that's like a lesson you want to do because then you're going to start buying things you don't need.

And I've never seen anybody buying on the impulse, like a chicken, whole chicken, you're going to buy on the impulse like chips and cookies and right. You're not going to go buy on the impulse, like more eggs. That's just not going to happen. So usually our impulse buying is processed food. So don't go hungry. So we talked about a roadie, make a roadie before a grocery shopping or grab a meat stick, right? Or even drink ton of water before you go, but don't go hungry.

You're gonna buy all of the things that look good at the time, but not gonna serve you later.

I think that having a protein shake available to yourself, even if you keep a single serve in a bag and just have a water bottle available, I used to do that when I'd be on the road, I would get protein shake. Yes, I did that too. I would put them in baggies and have them like separated out. And then when I was on the road, I would stop and grab a water bottle, like a 36 ounce water bottle and just dump my protein shake in there. Yeah, I've done it before. Yeah, when we lived in the big city before.

all right. Well, I think that's all of it for it. So I guess your first step is planning meals and make lists. You definitely want to go prepared to the grocery store. Make sure you're not hungry. Yes. So you're not impulse buying. You want to shop smart by focusing on in season produce store brands. So that's the generic brands and bulk buys to save money and then avoid impulse purchases by eating beforehand and staying focused when you're in the grocery store. bringing a list.

have your protein roadie, have a protein bar, meat stick, whatever it is. And I think just knowledge is power when you're going into a retail location and just the more that you know, the more that you can be aware and make the decisions for yourself. Correct. And we're going to have an episode for you on labels. So that's going to empower you even more. Yeah. How to look for things in the label and what to choose and what to leave. Yes. And if this episode was helpful to you guys, share it with your friend.

know, as always, we're so grateful for you to tuning in and listening Wellness Hustle podcast.

And be sure to download and subscribe so you don't miss next week's episode where we're going be talking about bio-individuality, what it is, and how it can help you make the best decisions for you. Until then, we hope you squeeze the most out of this one sweet life you have. See you next time. See you guys.