Fast Food Nation

This past Sunday evening I promised myself that I wouldn't eat any fast food this week. I classify "fast food" as any establishment with a drive-thru. My biggest vices? Starbucks, Taco Bell and McDonald's. It is Thursday morning, and so far this week I have had pizza from Little Ceaser's, a double cheeseburger Mighty Kid's Meal from McDonald's, and a triple grande non-fat Caramel Macchiato from Starbucks. So much for no fast food this week!

However, I think the reason I craved these things so badly this particular week is because of the simple fact that I told myself I couldn't have them. As you can see, I fold pretty easily.

In his best-selling book "Fast Food Nation," author Erich Schlosser writes that “the whole experience of buying fast food,” he writes, “has become so routine, so thoroughly unexceptional and mundane, that it is now taken for granted, like brushing your teeth or stopping for a red light.” This is where the danger lies for me and Chad. It is so...easy. It is mindless. After being at work all day, neither of us want to make any more decisions. We just want to eat. We've gotten a lot better about making more attempts to cook throughout the week - but it is just so much easier (and surprisingly less expensive for us) for us to pick up sandwiches from Subway or order Chinese food.

I feel like a key part of my upcoming half-marathon and marathon training will lie in modifying my diet. I've always tried to eat a balanced diet with fruit and vegetables, grains and proteins. But I don't think I consume enough of the "right" grains and proteins, etc. I am going to attempt to keep a food log - not so much so that I can be a strict calorie counter, but so that I might be able to give myself a wake-up call and realize what kind of foods, and how much food, I am taking in each day, and how Chad and I can both add more "superfoods" into our diet.