A Grocery Haul

Today, I’m sharing my grocery haul and what I wore for the day. I visited Fresh Market for produce and a few other necessities in the morning. Later, I shopped at my local health food store called Natural Foods Market.

I wore straight leg jeans (here) and a pink oxford cloth shirt (here) with a sweater (here) draped over my shoulders. The loafers are old by Sam Edelman (similar here). The no-show socks are here. The Dooney & Bourke bag is old. A similar bag is here. The watch is here. The bracelet is old, but here is a similar one. (Use the code SAS10 for $10 off any one item at Beauty in Stone Jewelry.)

I’m only wearing a little eye shadow and mascara, but I did use all of my excellent skincare before getting dressed. There was a time not so long ago that I wouldn’t leave my house without a full face of makeup. I’ve been using Beautycounter since 2017, and I credit the skincare line and the way I eat for giving me the best skin of my life. So I wrote about the products I use here.

I look for things to eat for breakfast or lunch—for example, sweet potatoes. I bake them in the oven and then add a little butter, pecans, and cinnamon for a warm, delicious breakfast. Later, I slice them and add them cold from the fridge to my salad at lunchtime.

After putting the groceries away, I made this salad for my afternoon meal. I began with a bed of washed and spin-dried butter lettuce and chopped romaine. I also added sliced carrots, dried cranberries, tiny sweet gherkin pickles, slices of cucumber, and cherry tomatoes. The dressing is aged balsamic vinegar (here) and extra virgin olive oil (here). Top with salt, pepper, and fresh herbs for even more flavor.

I also added some leftover pasta with beans and baby peas that I made yesterday. Do you also invent dishes using whatever remains in the pantry and the freezer? After lunch, I walked around the neighborhood for two miles.

Later, I ran some errands for my parents and stopped to pick up a few things at the health food store. I add seeds and nuts to my oatmeal and also to my salads. I occasionally use a small amount of coconut oil to sautee onions, mushrooms, and other vegetables. (It’s also great for dry, chapped hands!) Nutritional Yeast also gets added to most dishes for a nutty, cheesy flavor. It provides B vitamins, fiber, and protein.

Hemp seeds are rich in protein, fiber, and healthful fatty acids, including omega-3s and omega-6s. In addition, they have antioxidant effects and may reduce symptoms of numerous ailments, improving the health of the heart, skin, and joints.

Flax seeds may provide health benefits, such as improved digestion and reduced heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer. Incorporating them into your diet by grinding them is the best way to make the most of their health benefits. I use a small coffee grinder reserved for seeds.

There are many benefits to drinking apple cider vinegar. So I add two tablespoons to one of the many glasses of water I drink each day. Read more about those benefits here.

Many have asked me about my daily routine and eating habits. I start each day with thirty minutes or more of yoga, Pilates, and weights. I move as much as possible every day and drink about a gallon of filtered water daily. During the week, I rarely turn on my stove for anything more than oatmeal. Most of my afternoon meals consist of a large salad made with various textures and colors of fresh vegetables. Here is the full recipe for my oatmeal, but the ingredients vary according to what I have on hand. Here and here are other posts I shared about my weight loss journey.

79 Comments
  1. Good Morning Susan,
    I have to start with saying I admire your early bird habits. It truly is a great part of the day. Have been enjoying your writing and also catching up on older postings. Love your common sense and practical advise. Your site is one of my favorite reads and I read a lot!
    You’ve inspired me to follow a healthier lifestyle as well. Plus looking at that closet and wardrobe in a new light!
    Hope that you and Mr. Mickey enjoy continuing adventures – and sharing them with us. 🙂
    Have a great rest of the week.

  2. Susan, I always enjoy reading your posts before I head out for activities and errands. Thank you for sharing your grocery haul. I love seeing your food choices. We have Whole Foods and a Mom’s Market nearby, but we no longer can find any smaller health foods stores. I do miss the food co-ops of the 1970s, where a college student (me at the time) could find healthy, inexpensive food choices. Our city runs several farmer’s markets, and we find good produce there.

    I had to stop buying nuts because they were just too irresistible to my husband. He said he was worse than the birds at our bird-feeder! I do add sunflower seeds to our salads.
    By the way, your parents are lucky to have such a caring daughter living nearby.

  3. Great look, very nice!
    Isn’t healthy eating wonderful?!
    Have you tried roasting radishes? They make an excellent potato substitute (taste & mouth-feel of potatoes, without the carbs!).

  4. I do know about your weight loss journey and eating healthy. It is something I struggle with but have been reading the Eat to Live book again because of health issues.
    You are a great example of following a healthy lifestyle.
    One question thought is about supplements. Do you take anything? I ask because it seems you get everything you need through your diet.
    Also I ordered the travel package of the Beautycounter skincare to give it a try. I will be traveling so this will let me see what I like.

    1. My blood tests show that I have a vitamin D deficiency, so I take a vitamin D3 and B12 supplement on my doctor’s advice. I also have one teaspoon of cod liver oil each day.

  5. Hello Susan,
    Thanks so much for sharing, always such a delight to read your posts, so inspirational!
    Just a quick question – do you skip your afternoon salad meal when you go out for dinner?
    Many thanks
    Margaret ( Perth, Western Australia)

  6. Roasted radishes (faux-tatoes):
    Oven at 450°. I like to put my foil-lined cookie sheet in the oven as it pre-heats.
    Remove tops and clean/dry the radishes.
    Toss halved or quartered radishes with oil, garlic & onion powder and dried herbs of choice, until evenly coated.
    Spread over the hot cookie sheet (the immediate fragrance as they hit the hot surface is delightful).
    Baked for about 15-25 minutes. They should be tender and just beginning to caramalize.
    Taste wonderful, very similar to potatoes and make a pretty side dish. The spiciness of the radishes disappears in the roasting process.
    I roast cauliflower the same way!
    1 cup (116 grams) of roasted radishes have less than 4 net grams of carbohydrates (versus 17 grams of carbs in same amount of potatoes).
    We haven’t eaten potatoes since 2016!

  7. I do exactly what you do! I gather up all the odds and ends and make a salad. Sometimes I come up with something really good, and sometimes it’s ordinary. I see several old friends among your groceries. I recognized the date container immediately. Love the multicolored tomatoes, spotted the backbone of all good salads- the three pack of romaine lettuce hearts. Pepinos, sunflower seeds and various nuts are lurking in there along with a Bob’s Red Mill product.

    Native Americans produce olive oil not too far from here. I bought a product from them that sounds similar to what you were describing.

    I really enjoyed studying your groceries. Thank you for sharing. I guess I am so old now that I am easily entertained.

    Today I did my errands in a “Susan approved “ outfit which included my animal print flats. WooHoo fun!

    Thanks for being you and so generously sharing your life with us.

  8. Where do you find the Nutritional Yeast? I can’t figure out where it is at in a store. We do have “health food” stores in our area, would that be the place to look? Dairy has started to bother me and the yeast has been suggested to give me the cheesy flavor that I love. Thank you and thanks for all you do!

  9. I am simply awed by your food choices.
    Not sure I can completely follow your example such as not eating fish and chicken with a meal very often but removing red meats is no problem. Making meals with guests your way will be hard for me to do.
    Sharing your meal plans certainly helps me visualize a tastier menu when you show pictures of your plates you provide. Winters are difficult for me to manage purchasing a lot of fresh foods and finding the right frozen, .canned items can be challenging right now. Many items are not easily found both in stores or food markets. Many shelves are bare of products once that were plentiful.
    Again, thank you for making food look enticing to eat, healthful to the body and enjoyable to consume.
    Clara from Iowa

  10. Great post today! This is exactly how I eat and I’ve found that adding things today from yesterdays leftovers is also a great way to eliminate food waste! I try to have everything eaten by the end of the week so that when I shop on Saturday everything is fresh!

  11. Thank you for your post today. Thanks for linking your oatmeal recipe. I was just going to ask for it. You look wonderful and healthy. Have a good day.

  12. Hi Susan and Your Readers: Have you ever tried oatmeal ‘raw’? (Cooking it, although very good, like everything, probably destroys a lot of the nutrients.) My husband premixes the entire package (Bob’s Red Mill Organic Extra-Thick Rolled Oats (Whole Grain) in the blue package with cinnamon, chopped walnuts, dried cranberries, shredded coconut and raw pumpkin seeds (everything organic as much as possible). We have it most mornings for breakfast…it’s also really good as a snack in the afternoon sometimes when I am hungry or need a pick-me-up. (Warning: You do have to pick your teeth when you’re done, though!!) It really is delicious and chewy. We keep it in an air-tight container.

  13. Thank you for sharing this latest article. This is very interesting information and definitely useful for me as I’ve been tweaking my diet and habits over the last year and doing well but always room for improvement!

  14. Hi Susan, Do you use Beauty Counter mascara, and if so, if there is more than one, which one do you like best? I didn’t see that covered in your older post of products you use, so if I missed it, sorry! And thanks. 🙂

  15. When you changed your eating habits, was it a gradual adjustment and slow weight loss, or all at once? Was it hard for you?

    1. I changed my food choices for improved health, so weight loss wasn’t my focus. But, as I recall, it took about seven months to lose forty-five pounds. As a result, I’ve kept my weight at around 145 pounds for the past eleven years. So after about two weeks of progressively feeling younger, stronger, and significantly less joint pain, it wasn’t difficult to stay away from the food products that were the cause of my poor health.

  16. Hi Susan! I really liked your post regarding summer items to add to your closet. I purchased the Old Navy dress in blue and the chambray wedges. I haven’t received them yet but just noted the shoes have leg ties (not sure what to call them). I feel self conscious of my calf and just wondered how you are planning to wear then laces; up around your leg, wrapped around just the ankle or ?
    Appreciate your postings!

  17. Hi Susan
    What are your thoughts about clothes subscriptions and style services? I’m curious about them but I do feel that I get a lot of good ideas from you.

    1. I hesitate to turn my style decisions over to someone in their twenties or thirties since there are things I’ve learned through aging that no younger person could understand.

  18. I do the same – create salads and quick soups with stuff left over in the fridge. You are even more creative though! Thanks for the tips.
    For the soups, I have frozen as well as fresh vegetables and will cut the meat off of a piece of leftover chicken and add all to organic bone broth I buy at Costco by the case. Sometimes I just have a cup of hot bone broth instead of tea to which I’ve added some spices like turmeric.

  19. Thanks for all the tips Susan. I have one more to add about coconut oil. I have suggested it to friends that are going thru chemo treatments for their scalps. It helps the scalp be moisturized since there is hair loss. I keep a jar in the pantry and a jar in the bathroom for rough hands and feet. I bought a gallon size of Bragg apple cider vinegar as that was the cheapest way to buy it. Amazon ships it safely.
    Have a great week and thank you.
    Patty V

  20. Susan,

    You continue to inspire me. Closing in on 55 I am now pre diabetic with increasing cholesterol. I need to lose 20-30#. The post has inspired me. I have been eating, mainly, Whole Foods but exercise is lacking. I have been working on being more active and will take your suggestions moving forward.

    Thank you again for the inspiration,

    Melissa

  21. I am wondering what you do in the evening. If you have two early meals a day, don’t you feel hungry later in the day? I like your idea but wondering, lol!

    1. If I eat highly nutritious food, I never get hungry in the evening. Three meals a day and snacks have always been way too much food for me. There are numerous benefits to giving your digestive system a rest.

    1. I had a small amount of penne pasta left in my pantry, so I cooked it and combined it with pinto beans and frozen green peas. Then, I added a little butter, olive oil, and various spices and herbs. It was another one of my one-pot-wonders made from whatever is available.

  22. I still eat a recipe I got from you for sweet potatoes topped with molasses and walnuts. Like you I avoid most grains but I do love oatmeal with toppings like pecans, apple and berries. My final meal is at four o’clock which I switched too after reading about how early you ate yours. It’s made a difference.

    Your skin is amazing. I think my skin does better the less I do to it. I just use cleanser, and a light moisturizer for day and a nighttime one. I don’t wear makeup at all but I do wear more color in my tops so that helps. At 79, I don’t really feel the need to wear it.

  23. Susan, our Natural Grocer organic store is about 3/4 mi away where we live in Wyoming. I love it- we were at least 10 mi away round trip in Idaho so this is really helpful to me. I am inspired by your recipes !! We will expand our sq ft garden again this summer- we love salads and veggies we grow. We leave on a road trip in a week, and I want to try some of your salads when we get home toward the end of March. Do you do a small garden at your home for veggies?
    Thank you for your inspiring ideas.

  24. Your article really resonates with me. I enjoy following your blog and the suggestions that you give. your are beautiful and your look is classic and youthful. i am going to incorporate your suggestions on the grocery haul. thank you Susan!

  25. Would you recommend an excellent Nutritional Yeast? I’ve learned that many products advertised as healthful are not due to fillers and substandard quality ingredients. Thank you.

  26. Wonderful post! I LOVE everything about it. I am thinking of changing my skincare to Beautycounter when I finish my present skincare which I loved but unfortunately, the formula changed and I no longer like it. I am also thinking of buying the Big Berkey, if it’s available in Canada. Would you mind sharing your brand of Vit D3 and B12 and cod liver oil? Also how do you take your cod liver oil? Thank you so much for sharing this most informative post!!!

  27. Old Posts. Susan, following your links took me to a post with your dear friend sitting in a chair in his small porch. What a lovely, beautiful, moving post, it says it all. The friendship developed from a kind gesture, and the wonderful world he took you to. I am now reaping the fruits of your story and it has moved me deeply. I had a friend similar to yours and she is today one of my Angels that look after me every day. If you receive and read this post please let me know. It’s comforting too to know that you do read them and of your kindness in many ways. Thank you, Susan.

  28. Dear Susan, I,like many, have been reading your blog, susanafter60, for about a year and enjoyed it immensely. Thought about contacting you many times to express appreciation and encouragement, especially when you wrote about negative feedback. But, as usual, you bounced back and graciously dealt with those comments-the bane of social media. I’ll be 78 next month and so enjoy both new and common thoughts you post. I’ve bought one of your blazer recommendations as well as other things as well. If possible, I’d appreciate it if you could send your newest recipe for your oatmeal that you published recently where you make it ahead and refrigerate it without cooking. Thank you again for all of your lovely photos, advice for fashion and makeup, and sharing adventures to encourage women to embrace advancing age in our world!

  29. Lunch is my fun meal of he day. I start with romaine and check around for what to add. Nuts or raisins in the cabinet. Possible some ind of cheese or a little left over meat or boiled eggs, olives, maybe a pickle or two. Always with Extra virgin olive oil and Bragg’s vinegar. Always and adventure.

  30. I make my husband salad dressing with apple cider vinegar but I am more interested in drinking it. What do you drink it in?

  31. Susan, I could use some advice. I am invited to my dear cousin’s 40th anniversary and vow renewal on a Florida beach in April.
    Just a few of us coming and for pictures, her daughter in law suggested we all have casual white beachy clothes.
    Well my husband can wear a white shirt and shorts or khakis but I tend to like more fitted, tailored clothes and like your styles. I am 5’7” and 185, so fit but curvy. We live in Midwest, so my beachy clothing selection is limited
    I have white jeans but thinking maybe a casual shift dress? Or gauzy, pale top and the white jeans?
    Any advice is welcome.
    Thank you

  32. Thank you so much for sharing your healthy food choices I look forward to adding them to my next grocery list and menus. I have always appreciated your shared elegant fashion, entertainment etc. advice and am now so grateful for you also sharing your healthy lifestyle choices.

  33. I’m really looking forward to trying the roasted Radish recipe posted by Leslie. I’ve tried using cauliflower but don’t care for it to replace potatos.
    Also, I love oatmeal too, but can’t deal with the rather slimy effect of the overnight soaked kind. Not sure if I do something wrong but everytime I try them this happens. I tried cooking them in my Instant Pot pressure cooker however and this is a total game changer. It takes 30 minutes in total during which you can do something else as there is no pot on the stove to watch. I got the smallest 3 qt. Instant Pot Mini, and it’s been a real lifesaver!

  34. Carol (Florida beach wedding attire), consider a lovely salwar kameez ensemble. In cotton, linen or silk, they are incredibly comfortable, simple or elegant and flattering to just about any body type.
    The kameez is a long tunic (fitted, straight or slightly flared). The salwar are the loose pants (straight, legging-like or slightly ballooned), usually with a drawstring waist. An optional dupatta is a long, usually sheer, scarf that can be worn several ways.
    Watch “Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” to see how lovely Judi Dench looks wearing this fashion (she has continued to wear them ever since making that film & its sequel)!
    They are easily available online (even Amazon) and very affordable.
    I have worn different salwar kameez ensembles to four weddings (prior to Covid), one of which was an Indian wedding (at the bride’s request). I have 1 cotton, 1 rayon & 2 in silk. I received wonderful compliments at all of them and felt so comfortable. One wedding was outdoors & it was 105° in the shade. In one of the silk ensembles, I was the only person not using a fan!
    I do recommend keeping the color & design on the simple side, without a lot of overall embroidery or bling. The bride is the focus!

  35. Hello Susan,
    I didn’t have a chance to read through everyone’s comments so I don’t know if my comment will be redundant. In regard to flax seed, you’re correct about grinding it. In fact, it must be freshly ground or it becomes rancid very quickly. I replaced flax with Chia seeds for the same omega benefits. Chia seeds don’t need to be ground to be absorbed and metabolized. I also make Chia pudding for my snacks, breakfast/lunch or desserts. I saw a brand of Chia pudding at a Whole Foods store that was selling for 2 dollars for a single serving cup! It’s so easy to make and it’s wonderful for breakfast. I add blueberries, frozen mango, walnuts, dried cranberries, vanilla or anything else that I would like. I use a touch of maple syrup to sweeten. Here’s a basic recipe from the Cleveland Clinic ( I usually double this and store it for use during the week):

    1/2 cup milk (low-fat, non-fat, soy, almond, coconut, rice, hemp or other unsweetened non-dairy).
    2 tablespoons chia seeds (whole, not ground).

    In a small bowl, combine your chia seeds and milk of choice. Mix well. Set in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours, but it’s best to leave chilling overnight.

    When you’re ready to eat, give a quick stir.

    https://health.clevelandclinic.org/how-to-make-chia-pudding/

  36. Hi Susan, Could you tell us which yoga and Pilates programmes you like? I am keen to start practicing yoga each morning but I’m not sure where to look for good yoga instruction I can do from home. I am a beginner at yoga.
    Thank you.

    1. I started as a beginner on January 1, 2022. I’ve been following Yoga with Adriene, and on the days I feel extra strong, I try to follow Move with Nicole.

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I share tips and inspiration for using what you already have in contemporary ways. Defining words include effortless, classic, refined, discreet, and elegant. My style is chic, minimal, and timeless with a bit of edge.