Fruits and Vegetables

Lately my body and mind have been dragging a lot. I have riding lessons on Sunday and Monday -- my major exercise for the week -- and by Wednesday I'm still not just sore but exhausted, dragging myself up the stairs on my way to class. My brain doesn't seem to be working quite right, either. Since "graduate student" is my main occupation right now, this is kind of a problem.

There are a lot of things I need to do to fix this: get more sleep, eat better, work more effectively, relax better. Right now I'm thinking about eating better. My eating habits right now are sort of bipolar. My meals are really pretty healthy -- whole grains, plenty of milk, and so on. On the other hand, I'm not always eating enough at meal time, and my snacks are not especially nutritious. I also don't eat nearly enough fruits and vegetables. The obvious solution would be to eat healthier snacks. The obstacle: at snack time I want sugar! And chocolate! There's nothing wrong with chocolate, but it's not a great nutritional stand-in for fruit. Peanut-butter toast often satisfies me when I think I want a donut or cookies, but I'm already having it for breakfast nearly every morning, and my diet's lacking in variety even more than it's lacking in veggies.

Finally, I've tried, but my warped tastebuds refuse to accept good, plain fruit as a complete snack. What's a girl to do?

Here are some ideas to remind myself:

• Salad at dinner
• Fruit salad for lunch or snacks
• More expensive fruit (peaches, berries...) might be worth it if it gets me eating fruit
• Frozen veggies to microwave with dinner
• Carrot sticks and something not too overwhelming to dip them in
• A supply of plastic cutlery for my office!

I'm starting to feel a little bit like I'm feeding a stubborn toddler.

Got any other good ideas?