Welcome to Walking the Walk, a feature that takes a deeper look at commonly shared diet and fitness advice. Every other week, I'll choose one piece of advice and practice it for seven days. Then I'll report back on what I discovered about making it work in real life and how it affected my own personal fitness -- and how it ultimately can affect your own efforts.

My healthy habits took a slide this summer. Maybe more like a nosedive. Maybe even more like a quick, slippery dunk into the deep end of the junk-food pool. There's something about long days spent at the beach that makes me think more potato chips and chocolate cookies than fresh, green salads. This fall, I'm working hard to reclaim those healthy ways, one step at a time.

Though fruits and vegetables are always part of our daily diet at my house, I've caught myself frequently grabbing a simple bowl of cereal for breakfast or throwing together a sandwich for lunch, rather than slicing and chopping to add those delicious, nutritious fruits and veggies to my meals. Standard nutritional advice says that we should all be eating a minimum of five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables a day, a goal that can be difficult to reach unless you incorporate these nutritional powerhouses into every single meal and snack. This week, that's exactly what I'll do.

To prepare for the week, I made a quick run to the store today. I loaded up on some favorites -- cucumbers, colored peppers, watermelon, and fresh cantaloupe. In a couple of days, our CSA crate will arrive, full to the brim with tomatoes, kale, corn, salad greens, more cucumbers, green peppers, summer squash, and green beans. And a few days after that is our weekly trip to the farmer's market, where I can load up on more favorites like leeks, and those tiny little gold tomatoes we love so much. If there is ever a season to reacquaint yourself with fruits and vegetables, this is it.