I Know Why America is Fat.

Let me begin by stating my distaste for New Years resolutions and diets. I do not like the resolutions because it seems like a stupid system. Pick an arbitrary day and decide to make a radical change to your life. And diets seem like a temporary solution. I'm going to starve myself for X amount of time or until I weigh Y. I'm not saying that people should not try to evolve, I just think people should take a more gradual approach and not limit their efforts to the beginning of the year.

When I went home for Deer Camp a couple weeks ago, both my mom and an uncle commented on how much weight I had gained since the last time they saw me. Now, I do not think my weight fluctuates much, but it did make me think about how long it had been since I had been to the gym. So I started getting back into an exercises routine.

I had also been eating pretty poorly for a few weeks, with burritos being the main culprit. I decided that while I was in a good workout routine, I should try eating better and see if that has an impact on how I feel. I poked around Men's Health magazine's website for a while and picked up some nutrition tips and today I went to the grocery store.

Normally, I'll spend about $30 a week on food. I eat cereal for breakfast most days, sandwiches for lunch, and something with a short prep time for dinner (or fast food if I'm going to second job). Today I dropped $70. Yikes.

I did buy quite a bit of food, and hopefully it lasts until I fly home on the 18th. The things Men's Health suggested: nuts, berries, fish, spinach, pomegranate juice and milk. I walked out with three huge salmon fillets ($10, easily 6, maybe 9 meals), blueberries ($5), almonds ($5), salad ($2), two bags of spinach ($6), mushrooms ($2.50) and pomegranate juice ($10). That's $40 that added up in a hurry.

I do not feel like I went crazy, but that was more than I wanted to spend. For the same $40 difference, I could eat almost 20 times off the dollar menu at McDonalds and not have to do any work. It's so cheap and easy to eat really bad stuff. I can see why people get into bad habits.