expatriate Archives - Balancing It All

Even though I moved abroad to Dublin, Ireland and completely changed my life, I find comfort in familiarity. I enjoy eating the same things every day (like my egg white oats and protein yogurt bowl) and I enjoy my workout routine. But being in a new country means being around different selections of produce and foods. Therefore, the way I eat has changed slightly. So, here’s 3 ways my food choices changed since moving abroad.

3 Ways My Food Choices Changed Since Moving Abroad

No longer shopping at high-end supermarkets

Gone are the days where I can shop at Whole Foods, Trader Joes, or my favorite place, Erewhon. Sad times but actually, it’s much better for my wallet.

Supermarkets in Dublin are much different than in Los Angeles. The regular grocery stores I’ve been to here are smaller than the stores in LA and don’t carry as big of a selection of items, based on my experience. Items like kale and egg whites have been a bit more difficult to find. But that could also be due to me being new and not knowing where to buy everything yet.

Shopping here has also been less expensive than shopping in LA. I’m surprised by how much less I spend when I do (almost) a whole week’s worth of groceries. That being said, there are more expensive stores like Marks & Spencers which are always fun to go through and see what pricey items they have.

One cool thing about shops like Lidl and Aldi have this middle section where they sell random items. They can range from very practical things like clothes and baking dishes to out-of-place items like…chainsaws or battery chargers. It’s exciting going through it because you never know what you’ll find.

Lidl's middle section of their store where they sell the most random products ranging from clothes to workout equipment to chainsaws. — Lidl’s middle section where they’re currently selling muffin tins, fire pits, twine, and a battery charger.

Shopping multiple times a week

In my LA life, I got by with one grocery shop a week because I had a car to lug everything around and the size of them items I got would usually last me the week or more.

Now that I’m in Dublin, I don’t have a car so I have to carry everything by hand. It doesn’t make sense to do massive shops because there’s no way I can carry everything home myself unless I want my arms to feel like they’re falling off.

Also, all the food here is in smaller packages (or maybe the US just sells things in larger than normal packages…) so I go through things more quickly. For example, I got a 500mL container of Greek yogurt the other day and I’ve already finished it.

Maybe I have a big appetite. Maybe the sizes are smaller. Or maybe it’s both.

Buying more calorie-dense foods because of less storage space

When I lived with roommates and my parents in LA, I had lots of fridge and pantry space to store my food. My meals would mainly be A LOT of lower-calorie foods. I enjoyed volume-eating because I ate a little bit of everything but still stayed within my macro and calorie limits. My dinners would basically be HUGE bowls of veggies. I’d eat them out of mixing bowls.

However, in Dublin flat, my fridge and pantry space is considerably smaller so I have to shop a bit differently. Instead of buying bags on bags of different veggies that would take over the whole fridge, I try to include more calorie-dense foods (foods which contain more calories relative to their weight). I still meet my macro and calorie goals while taking up less space in the fridge and pantry.

Currently, that looks like using grains (rice cakes, bread) and starchy veggies (sweet potatoes, peas, etc) to hit my carb goals versus using lots of low calorie veggies (courgette/zucchini, celery, etc).

I try to keep my stuff to one shelf and one drawer so I don't take over the whole space. — I try to keep my stuff to one shelf and one drawer so I don’t take over the whole space.

How My Food Choices Make Me Feel Since Moving Abroad

Overall, I feel really good diet-wise since moving abroad. I’m slowly adapting to the food options I have here and discovering new places to find ingredients I was used to in LA. While things are different here, I don’t feel I’ve had to make many sacrifices to the way I eat. I think it helps Dublin is a major city so it’s pretty accommodating to different eating styles.

I also understand and am ok with not replicating my LA diet. I’m in a new country with access to different foods. I’m trying to adapt to my surroundings rather than wishing my surroundings adapted to my wants. That’s a pretty narrow-minded way to live, in my opinion.

But I digress. I’m having fun being more relaxed about my eating habits and changing them up a bit.

Do you know of any meatless versions of Irish dishes, foods, snacks, and/or drinks I should try? Send me a DM on my Instagram @balancingitall. I want to try them all!

For those who didn’t know, I just made the move to Dublin, Ireland! It’s been almost 3 weeks at the time I’m writing this and it’s been quite the rollercoaster of events but I’m embracing all the obstacles, the good, the bad, the expected, and the unexpected.

I wrote about why I wanted to move abroad in the first place and in this post, I’ll explain why I moved to Ireland.

Why I Moved to Ireland

To vaguely recap, I’ve wanted to move abroad since about 2016 when I went to London to visit family.

Fastforward about three to four years later, I started to put my plan of moving abroad into motion. It was a very slow and long process. There were so many times where it felt like I wasn’t making any progress at all. Anytime I told someone I was making this move, I felt like I was lying because I didn’t have anything to show for it.

I eventually got my Polish passport which gives me the right to live and work freely in the European Union. That alone would open more doors for me without needing a visa to live in the EU. It also took a couple years to get. It’s not government work if it doesn’t take a long time, right?

(Side note: if you want to make a move like this and you have family abroad, read up on dual citizenship laws. Maybe you can do something similar! You may have to do some digging in your family tree but it’s definitely worth it.)

By the time I got my Polish passport, Brexit happened and England left the EU. This sucked because I got my Polish passport to make it easier to live in London and now that possibility seemed even further away.

Around that same time, I visited Ireland on my first solo trip. Usually, I’d be traveling with my cousin but this time, I went on my own.

I knew I would have a great time but I was surprised by how much I loved it. It was so easy to get around, everything was GREEN, the people were friendly, the food and drinks were excellent, and I had a blast even though I was mostly on my own. Staying in an Airbnb in town and getting around myself allowed me to briefly feel like a local. All these things influenced my decision to pick Ireland.

Granted, all those experiences happened as a tourist but I knew that the real deal would still be a lot of fun.

I toyed with the idea of going to another EU country but I decided to stick with Ireland. The thought of moving abroad to foreign country was overwhelming enough; I didn’t want the added pressure of not knowing the language or translating my CV when applying for jobs. I knew if I moved to Ireland, I would have an amazing experience and the transition would be a bit more seamless.

Now that I made my decision, I just had to execute it.

Want to Know More?

So, I’ve established why I wanted to move abroad and why I chose Ireland. The last part will go over why I decided to move to a foreign country in 2022. Make sure you subscribed so you’re the first to read it when it’s out!