Well hello there.
My name’s Kara, a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist. With SO much nutrition information out there right now, it’s hard to determine what advice to follow and what’s completely bogus. That’s where I come in. As a nutrition expert, I am here to spread my knowledge and passion regarding everything food, nutrition, quick and easy meals, recipes, fitness, and, overall, how you can live a healthy and happy lifestyle. Let’s start with how my journey began, because that’s the most important part of how this blog came to be.
I started college at Penn State University, a scared and lonely freshman who had no idea what to expect. It is important to say that, although I knew I wanted to major in nutrition, I had absolutely no knowledge whatsoever about anything remotely nutrition-related. At the time, I don’t even think I knew what a carb was. I just knew that I liked to read my mom’s South Beach Diet meal plan book when I was a kid and make my Barbies eat the meals I had created using plastic toy hamburgers and vegetables. So pretty much I had NO IDEA what I was getting myself into.
FLASH FORWARD to senior year and I was living by myself, working 30 hours a week at my job at the dining hall, and trying to balance all this with my school work and social life. I had essentially gained 20 lb since high school. I had always been small, but I have ALWAYS been the kind of girl where I could eat whatever I wanted and not gain a single pound. That certainly caught up to me in college. I guess that will happen when you straight up don’t exercise, stay up all hours of the night to party and hang out with friends, and eat primarily dining hall food because you get free meal cards with every shift you work. My diet at the time consisted of something like this: Breakfast – a granola bar and coffee with cream and sugar; Lunch – A GIANT quesadilla from the dining hall; Dinner: A bacon cheeseburger and fries from the same dining hall. And then I would typically stay up until 2-3 am hanging out with friends while we “studied” or would go out to the college bars and consume even more calories drinking sugar-laden gallon pitchers for $10. The point is: I was not living the healthiest lifestyle.
FLASH FORWARD three years to now: I’m twenty-five, living in Denver, Colorado, and just finished my dietetic internship after a long hiatus and quarter-life crisis of having no idea what I wanted to do with my life (a story for another time). I’ve managed to (sort of) get my life together, eat the right things, develop a fitness routine, and love the life I’m living.
The bottom line of this long, potentially pointless rant is that it IS possible to grow up eating fast food, soda, and sugary snacks, absolutely LOVE these foods, and still develop a healthy lifestyle. You don’t have to eat ONLY salads and raw fruits and vegetables to be healthy. That’s what Nutrition Beetdown is going to explore–that it is possible to train yourself to love healthy foods, but still indulge every now and then. It is possible to DESPISE exercise with every fiber of your being, but still find a fitness routine that works for you. And it is possible to love yourself and have a healthy relationship with food, despite what the media may tell you.