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Okay. A bit of backstory: For this past six week challenge (currently in week 5) I have been participating in a program run in a gym not quite near me, but close enough to get to on public transport (I don't have a car.) The program is designed for people to be able to lose 9 kilograms (almost 20 pounds) in 6 weeks, and it coincidentally lined up with the six week challenge here on Nerd Fitness. I've been doing really well on the challenge. I've been following the prescribed nutrition plan and going to the required five fitness classes per week. I've even been going more than required because I want to get as much as I can out of the program and I know I may not be financially able to stay on at the gym after the program finishes. I'm really enjoying the classes and working out, but more than that is the community aspect. There is a facebook page for the gym that's limited to people who still go there and it's really active. It's really easy to strike up conversations with people because so many of them are on the same journey, and the nutrition plan is pretty easy to follow because there is so much support, meal prepping advice and ideas for what to eat up on the website and the facebook page. So with all of this support, why wouldn't I continue with this awesome gym and these awesome people? The number one reason is finances. I'm a student and I'm struggling a little at the moment. I'm trying to save to go overseas next year, because I feel stuck in my hometown and I want adventure and to see a whole new world. (Part of that plan also includes going to Camp Nerd Fitness!) Rent is going up in December and although I have a job, and I'm contracted to certain hours which means I do have enough to pay rent and bills and eat and go to the gym, I would have to rearrange some things to continue on with this gym. I would probably only continue on for six months, as there's a program in place for post 9in6 program goers and this includes a kind of discount, and I think I could afford it for that amount of time. The only other thing is with my boyfriend. With this intense course, uni and my job, it's been really hard to find time for us to hang out. I really want for us to have a healthy relationship, but this is eating into it and I don't know how much more it will bite into my time. I want to take care of my health and fitness, but I also love my boyfriend. He's been super supportive of me so far, but he's definitely interested in having more time for us to hang out and spend time together. I know that once uni's over I'll have a bit more time on my hands, but Christmas is coming up too and I'm just not quite sure what to do. Any advice people can give would be super helpful. Even writing it all out like this really helped. Cheers.

I don't know if any of you watch It's Always Sunny in Philidelphia, but it's one of my favorite shows. On one particular episode the gang was going on a road trip and made a stop at a street market. There was a group of vendors selling fruits and vegetables, and it came up in discussion that the character Charlie had never eaten a pear. I don't recall the dialogue in its entirity, but it came to surface that there are a lot of fruits and vegetables that he had not once eaten in his entire life as a 30-something year old adult American. I thought this was hilarious. Well I came to find out that my friend that had been living in my basement is exactly the same way. We were discussing cooking and diet, and he let it slip that he had never eaten a peach. I was taken aback, because how does someone living in America never, not even once, eat something as common place as a peach? The conversation continued and I found out that not only had he never eaten a peach, but he had never so much as tried to eat a brussels sprout, asparagus, pears, blueberries, and a whole host of other extremely common fruits and vegetables. I called bullshit on the blueberries, because I remember my mother-in-law making a cake full of blueberries and that he had eaten it. He revealed then that he had meticulously picked out all of the blueberries and thrown them in the garbage. Now I don't think that episode is funny any more. I'm mortified. What is going on in this country where we have food in abundance and yet people making unimaginably bad dietary choices, not only for themselves but for their children? Are there a lot of people like this? It still blows my mind when I think about it. Please tell me he is in the minority. Most people make their kids eat fruits and vegetables, right? Please?