Who's up for a challenge?

This one's not quite as daunting as a half marathon or the Mud Run, but it's a challenge nevertheless.

I signed up for Everyday Food Radio's Fruit & Veggie Challenge. It's actually quite simple: you try and challenge yourself to eat five servings of fruits/vegetables each day. Log your foods for the week and then e-mail them on Thursday nights. You get some recipes in exchange as well as possible mention on the Friday show of Everyday Food.

What the heck is Everyday Food? I guess I should start there. Everyday Food is my newest interest. It's a daily two-hour show that's all about food. It's part of Martha Stewart Radio on Sirius Satellite Radio, channel 112 for you subscribers who may never have checked it out. The show is very informative and enjoyable as the topics vary from day to day. For instance, today the show was partly about soups and stews, freezing foods and the like. On Wednesday's part of the show is dedicated to "Use it Up," a segment where callers call and tell the host something they have a lot of in their kitchen and the host offers suggestions on how to use it up. If I had to ask about some tips, for instance, I'd ask about how to use up some parsley since I picked some up for some unknown reason and now it's going to get all wilted in a day or three.

Anyway, today the show was also focusing on obesity and the potential problems that will cause not only for the population of the United States at large but also for the economy, as billions of dollars will be spent over the next couple of decades to treat problems directly related to obesity. The host asked for callers to chime in on their respective ideas on how best to curb obesity and I felt it was my duty to call in. So I got on and talked to the host, Betsy Karetnick. I told her that I felt the best thing to curb obesity was for people to inform themselves of what they put in their bodies. She asked me about my own past and I told her that I had gone from 308 to 180 or so in about 20 months and that I've kept the weight off for good.

Then she asked me "How'd you do it?" to which I replied "I gave up a lot of the bad stuff like sodas and fast food, stopped eating out five times a week..." and so on.

Anyway, she told me about the Everyday Food Radio Fruit & Veggie challenge. Sounds good, I said, so I looked into it and I like what I saw. It's basically a challenge against yourself. Just challenge yourself to see if you can get to five servings of fruits/vegetables each and every day. One serving equals 1/2 cup so it shouldn't be completely overwhelming.

So I'm trying it out. I figure I'm close to five every day anyway so I might as well commit to try and getting five.

If you're up for the challenge, let's go on this thing together!