5-a-day

With my new food awareness, I've been thinking about the 5-a-day of fruits and vegetables recommendation. Sometimes I count up my fruits and vegetables and realize, damn, it's really hard to meet 5 servings a day. For instance, yesterday I ate 4 servings, and it was a pretty good day in that respect. I had a banana after my workout, tomatoes and onions in my lunch sandwich, a plum with my lunch, and broccoli with my dinner. Today I've had a nectarine after workout, carrot sticks with lunch, I have a plum for a snack later, and I'll probably have a tomato and onion salsa with dinner. Again, only 4.

Most of the time it's more like 3 - a fruit before or after my exercise, a fruit for a snack or with lunch, and a vegetable with lunch or dinner. I could try to always have vegetables with lunch AND dinner, like I did these past 2 days, but it still only makes 4. Then I could try to have fruit with breakfast, but... I don't like to eat that much for breakfast, sometimes my post-workout fruit is with breakfast anyway, and I can't just sub in the fruit for something else because then it wouldn't be substantial enough. Eat fruits or veggies for another snack? Then I'm eating a lot of snacks, and at any rate, by the afternoon they just don't cut it - I need starch or protein or I'll just be hungry again in an hour.

And y'know what? I don't eat enough servings of most anything else either. They say you can eat the minimum servings for a 1600 calorie diet but that's gotta be bullshit. Yesterday I ate 2 vegetables, 2 fruits, 4-5 grains, 3 dairy, no meat/nut/beans, 1645 calories, and the only thing I ate that doesn't satisfy these categories is the chocolate. WTF, mate.