Body Wise.

Even the best of intentions can be destroyed in a grocery store. Grocery stores are designed to encourage shoppers to buy too much; they offer large quantities of impulsive pick-up foods and high calorie convenience foods. The food displays are designed for maximum appeal, maximum buying and maximum sales.

On the other hand, nutrition starts in the grocery store. By stocking your kitchen with a variety of wholesome foods that are ready and waiting, you are more likely to eat healthy.

If you buy good foods, you will eat good foods. Having problem foods available in the house, office, briefcase, car or purse can be asking for trouble.

If your restraint is tested by fatigue, stress or boredom, a fridge and cupboards stocked with healthy foods can only inflict minor damage.

So grocery shopping is an important key on your quest to become Body Wise; it can make you or break you. By following the tips below, you can make grocery shopping a positive experience: Eat before you go! Purchases of high calorie junk food is markedly increased when shoppers are hungry. After a meal, we buy fewer fattening and fewer impulse items. Everything looks appetising when we are hungry.

Make a list! Supermarkets sell more when they appeal to our impulsiveness, so if you don't have a list your cart will be filled with impulse buys.

Buy healthy to eat healthy Plan your menus for at least several days at a time and make a list of the products needed for those days. Also, make your shopping list when you're not hungry. And even a quick trip to buy a few essentials can become an eating excursion without a list. So write it down.

Plan. Before you walk into the store, commit yourself to your fundamental purpose -- to replenish the fridge. Ignore special displays and sales on junk food. Stick to your list, and to avoid backtracking past the tempting junk food, try writing your list in the same order as you walk through the store.

All this planning can help prevent impulsive purchases.

Purchase unprepared foods instead of processed meals. By preparing fresh foods, you have a better chance of excluding the extra fat and salt, and can enhance the taste more easily with herbs and spices and bring the fun back to cooking.

If you can, leave the kids at home. You will save time, money and buy less junk food if you can grocery shop alone.

Don't take extra cash. Estimate how much the items on your list will total and take only enough money for those items; this will also help reduce impulse purchases.

Try these grocery shopping tips for yourself, and see which ones work for you.

Certainly the two most important rules of grocery shopping are the first two -- never go to supermarket hungry, and always use a shopping list!