‎#GuidingStarsCA Follow-Up & My Meeting with a Registered Dietitian ‬

 

A  few weeks I wrote a post outlining my goal to eat healthier. In the post I talked about my discovery of the Guiding Stars® Program at Loblaws® stores and how I am in LOVE with not only the Guiding Stars® Program itself, but also my ability to track my Guiding Stars Personal Profile.

If you wish, you can read my post,  Follow My Journey with the Loblaws #‎GuidingStarsCA‬ #‎PCStars‬ Program, for all the details, but here is a very brief synopsis:

• Guiding Stars Program – Shopping for healthy foods is usually very time-consuming. Who has time to look at the nutrition table on every single item before you put it in your cart? Not me and I bet not you either. The program, Guiding Stars® is an impartial nutrition navigation program that uses stars on store shelves to highlight, at a glance, nutritious food choices. The Guiding Stars® Program does all the work for you. Think of this program as a little cheat sheet of healthier choices.
• The Guiding Stars Personal Profile – is a tool that tracks the amount of Guiding Stars® rated products in your grocery shop and assigns a level from 1 to 5. The greater the number of starred products in your cart, the higher your level will be. It can even show you how your basket rates compares to the rest of Canada, your province, and your local grocery store.

In my original post, I told you about my disappointment when I discovered I was only at Level 3 out of 5. I thought we were fairly healthy eaters, but I guess I was wrong. Although not a horrible score, it was lower than I wanted.

I was a little shocked to find my shopping basket was only rated as a Level 3 out of 5 Levels.

This mediocre scored only fueled my desire to eat a healthier diet! I pledged to work on getting my Guiding Stars Personal Profile up to at least a level 4, and hopefully, armed with knowledge and determination, to make it to Level 5.

Much of my increased knowledge came as a result of my meeting with Registered Dietitian, Vanessa Yurchesyn, at my local Atlantic Superstore. I am telling you, she knows both the Guiding Stars® Program and the Guiding Stars Personal Profile program inside and out and was a wealth of information.

She walked me through the store aisles and departments, asking about my usual choices and making simple suggestions on how to tweak my choices to increase the nutritional level of my food selections.

For example, as illustrated in the photo above, the Stone Milled 100% Whole Wheat bread, has 2 stars while the Prairie Bran has 3 stars. I can tell you without a doubt, there is not one person in my family that would be able to tell a difference between these two breads. So it only makes sense to choose the most nutritional bread.

Another of Vanessa’s suggestions was to switch from our current choice of 2% milk to skim milk. That may be a little more difficult to sell to the family, however, the difference in nutritional value between the two is staggering and well worth the shift.

Here is another easy switch. Large Omega-3 eggs have 3 stars while the large size eggs I normally purchase have only 2 stars. While the Omega-3 eggs cost sixty cents more a carton, that breaks down to only an additional 5 cents per egg, well worth making the change.

{PS…don’t laugh, I am a city girl and I had to ask Vanessa this question. Why aren’t all eggs equal? How do these eggs have Omega-3 and my brand doesn’t? She very kindly and professionally explained, the hens that lay these eggs have Omega-3 added to their feed.}

Ultimately, I was pleased to hear from Vanessa that I was on the right track. What I needed most was to be more vigilant. Even though the Guiding Stars are simple to follow, I had become a little slack. I have no excuse, it’s as easy as looking at the shelves and consciously choosing 1 star over 0 stars; 2 stars over 1 star; or 3 stars over 2 stars.

I just looked  at my Personal Profile and I am happy to report that I have been at Level 4 for the past two weeks.

I am determined, that armed with the encouragement and information shared with me by Vanessa, I will soon be at my goal of Level 5.

Vanessa taught me that whether it’s eating more whole grains or adding more vegetables to your diet, small changes can make a big difference!

If it works for me, it will work for you too!

Also, don’t forget to sign up for your PC Plus™ card, it’s free and sign up is a snap. In addition to the ability to access your personalized profile, the PC Plus™ rewards program lets you earn points toward dollars off your grocery bill.  (If you look closely at the top right hand side of the above photo, you will see that I have $120.00 in free groceries sitting in my PC Plus™ account!)

Just visit Loblaws.ca for all the details.

I want to send out a big thank you to Registered Dietitian, Vanessa Yurchesyn. She is extremely knowledgeable, super friendly and took the time to answer all of my questions.

Vanessa told me that “Guiding Stars is not influenced by price, brand or manufacturer”.  I think that perfectly sums up the honesty behind the program.

Book an appointment or keep a lookout for your Loblaws store dietitian, she/he would be happy to answer your questions or address any concerns.

When grocery shopping, do you look for the Guiding Stars?

Check your Guiding Stars Personal Profile and then come back and tell me what your level is.

Have you ever met with your stores Registered Dietitian?