Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

 The first line of Michael Pollan's book  In defense of food: an eater's manifesto is Eat food. Not too much.Mostly plants.THAT'S IT! That is the secret of good nutrition, but if it is that simple why is there a 35.7% obesity rate in America. I believe it comes down to two things, time and money. The two thing that Americans are in short supply of these days. The average American works between 8-12 hours a day and the last thing they want to do is come home and spend another hour making a healthy home cooked meal. So, what do they do? What so many of us have done, they hit up the local fast food joint. Jack-n-the box. McDonald's. In-n-Out. We've all been there, you're exhausted. you're starving. You don't want to cook, so you hit up the drive thru on your way home from work. Now lets consider the price of the meals, A healthy home cooked meal will run you anywhere from 20-40 dollars but with the convenience of fast food dollar menus you can get a burger for the change in your pocket. I know. I know it sounds like we are doomed to eat cheap, fatty, processed food forever, but there are ways to save time and money when making home cooked meals. The first step is to plan plan plan your meals. I can not stress enough how important it is to plan your meals. It will save you tons of time and reduce the "what do you want to eat? I don't know, what you want" arguments. Another great tool to save time is a George Forman grill, it will grill up a chicken breast in less than ten minutes with the added bonus of excess grease draining off. The biggest way to save money is to get into the habit of cooking at home, when you do this you'll have pantry staples to draw from that will bring down the overall cost of the meal. To save on those expensive vegetables try growing your own. I'm not suggesting that you go out and take up farmers 101 but maybe start a small patio or container garden. That way you will always have fresh, organic and FREE vegetables on hand. I'll soon post about my own attempts at starting a container garden. The bottom line is that there is ways for us to eat healthy without spending all our time and money on it.

30 by 30

  I wanted to take a minute to talk about my own personal weight loss goals. I started a weight loss challenge that i like to call 30 by 30. My goal is to lose 30 pounds by my 30th birthday. That gives me a little bit over 3 months to make it happen. My current weight is 169lbs( YIKES! did i just right that :/) but id like to get down to the low 130s. I've started the couch to 5k program, this program is great because it is designed to help turn non runners like myself into runners. It starts off alternating between walking and running small distances and slowly builds up until after 9 weeks you should be able to run a 5k without stopping. Exercise is important but is only about 20% of a weight loss journey the other 80% is nutrition. Nutrition can make or break weight loss goals. Take for example that running a 5k only burns 300-400 calories and you can defeat the purpose of your work out by drinking one of Starbucks grande pumpkin spice latte, that yummy seasonal drink is 380 calories. It is really easy for calories to add up if your not paying attention. This is why one of my biggest nutritional tools is planning out my meals. It is good to have a plan because if you're already hungry and you're looking for food you're going to make bad decisions. Another great tool is the myfitnesspal app on your phone. This is a great place to log in your exercise and calorie intake. The last thing i like to keep with me is The Calorie King booklet. This little book list the calorie count of just about any food you can think of, plus it has the nutritional information of about 200 fast-food chains and restaurants. I have my goals and plans set, now all i need to do is follow through, which everyone knows is the hardest part. Wish me luck!