food Portland

Barcode Blues

Lisa Eirene

About Lisa Eirene Lisa lost 110 pounds through calorie counting and exercise. She swims, bikes, runs, hikes and is enjoying life in Portland, Oregon. Her weight loss story has been featured in First Magazine, Yahoo Health, Woman's Day and Glamour.com.

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  1. Tricia

    I’m working on taking processed foods out of my diet. Its tough!

  2. Beth

    I looooove Trader Joe’s. I try to mostly eat whole foods and not much processed stuff but its easier said than done. I’d say about 80% of what I eat is whole and 20% processed.

  3. Kellie

    I do this. I try to eat mostly whole foods, but allow myself one processed item per meal (doesn’t always happen). So if I want a waffle, then I have greek yogurt instead of SF syrup on top. It’s really hard to stop eating processed food. It is so convenient.

  4. Cheryl

    I do my best to avoid processed foods but its hard. I always have a little bit – a little carton of soup and some brown rice cakes for those days where I need quick food fast…. but really try to buy all of my ingredients raw and make my own stuff. I also don’t eat bread and I’m not a pasta or any type of sauce fan, so that makes things easier too!

    1. hundredtenpounds

      “Easy food” is a hard thing to give up!

  5. Jess

    Hi, I’ve never commented before, but wanted to throw my 2 cents in here. First of all, your shopping bill was tiny compared to mine. I live in a very high cost country, your bill would have been closer to $60 here. Which is why, for about 2 months (during uni break, when I had time) we went about 90% barcode free. What we purchased with a barcode was staples like flour, meat and milk. Everything else was fruit and veg, eggs etc, purchased from the fruit and veg shop. I made everything myself, because un barcoded food doesn’t come premade! It was hard work, but well worth it. We got our shopping bill down to $50 a week (its currently around $65), which is unheard of here. So it can be done, but it takes time and commitment to make it work. The hardest thing for me was not having convenience foods, which is why we stopped our plan when I went back to university. I simply didn’t have enough time to dedicate to cooking everything from scratch.

    1. hundredtenpounds

      I should have clarified that the Trader Joe’s bill was just for a “few things”. It wasn’t my regular grocery shopping items. And the BF had spent about $100 at Costco the day before on more staples.

  6. Alan

    Hadn’t heard the term “barcode free”. Got me to click on this in my reader. Makes sense. I’m on a plan where I’m trying 16 eating plans and I already can see that cutting way back on processed foods (along with limiting calories) will be up at the top.

    1. hundredtenpounds

      I’m glad it caught your interest. I ate a lot of processed food when I first started losing weight because it was a controlled amount of food. I needed to learn proper serving sizes. But I now feel like I want to eat real, healthy food instead.

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