Feeling like a veg-head

One of my favorite reasons for having a blog is to allow other people see my own health struggles or lack of perfection. (Many of you already know these things, and don't need me to tell you!) I find that so often members at work only see me in the role as group fitness instructor or personal trainer, or they catch me as I'm snacking on some carrots, and therefore think that all exercise is easy for me and I eat a flawless diet. FALSE! While I do work hard at both fitness and nutrition, I have my weaknesses--avoiding the Stairmaster step mill because it gets me out of breath in 5 minutes, or having a major sweet tooth to name a couple!

With March being National Nutrition Month, we've been trying to heighten our members' awareness of healthy diet basics and getting in 5 servings of fruits and vegetables every day. I decided to keep my own fruit/veggie log for the month to see exactly how short I was falling. After 23 days so far of sprinkling cranberries in my oatmeal, stuffing spinach leaves on my sandwich, eating cranberries on top of spinach leaves, I realize it's hard!! Week days for the most part have been ok, hitting 4-6 servings of fruits and veggies. Weekends are another story...unless you count tomato sauce on pizza. I don't even realize until Monday morning that I only had around 2 servings of fruit or vegetables over the entire weekend!

I've learned to pack as many servings into one meal as possible, just in case my meal plan changes throughout the day. One really good recipe that I made for my weekly girls night this week is Rachael Ray's "Chili for Veg Heads." Everything you put in the pot is a vegetable (well, except for the cup of beer that cooks out anyway) including tons of fresh chopped peppers, onions and tomatoes and 3 kinds of beans--which count as veggies and protein too! Bonus! So a big bowl of chili almost meets your daily veggie requirements in one fell swoop.

So while my diet will never be perfect, and I certainly don't believe in eliminating any kind of food altogether, I can make a point to add in as many nutritious, whole foods as I can throughout the day. That should make up for the margaritas and chips and salsa, right?!