Modern medicine and technology have given us the ability to live longer, healthier and more vigorous lives than ever before. So why don’t we all look and feel our best? It is certainly not a lack of knowledge. I believe the obstacle is the habits of our society that pull us in the other direction. Modern conveniences make life easier, but our work is often intense and extremely time consuming. We choose our foods based on convenience and ease, and often, speed, rather than on nutritional value.
Face it: busy people often make poor choices about maintaining their health because good choices have more friction.
I created the FitMenu program and fitmenu.net to lower the friction to healthy eating by being a counter-balance to the health challenges of eating in restaurants.
My 20-something years in personal fitness, fitness management, and now, fitness software, have shown me that results come when the path to health and fitness is made easier. Since restaurants are where most people have the hardest time making good nutrition choices that is where I focused.
The FitMenu program works because it makes it easy for you to eat healthy while dining out. It is a streamlined path to healthy dining choices. If you pick a FitMenu meal, you know it’s healthy. If you have special needs, such as a high fiber or low sugar diet, you can use the online database to find meals that meet your own special criteria.
So far, the restaurants’ response has been extremely positive, with many of the chefs happily creating new dishes to meet the criteria of our FitMenu plan. Stephan Ollard, owner and executive chef, Coco’s Café in Mount Pleasant, says “Participating in the FitMenu program is a great way to showcase the healthy menu options we have at Coco’s Café. My philosophy is to create delicious and authentic French dishes, but with a healthy twist. By showcasing Coco’s through FitMenu, we’re able to reach diners who want good food without feeling guilty because they consumed too much fat or calories. I’m excited to work with FitMenu and our sponsor to attract more customers to all our businesses while supporting a program that promotes a healthy lifestyle.”
The feedback from the diners has been similarly encouraging. They now feel they can eat out frequently and still maintain a balance between eating for enjoyment and eating for health.
With the benefits of sponsorship now available to similarly aligned businesses and health practices throughout the United States, the program is also easy for restaurants to get involved in. The restaurant gets the benefit of the exposure to health-minded diners and the sponsor gets the exposure to the restaurant’s customers. Everybody wins. I aim for FitMenu to rapidly be available everywhere.

Chris McNeil
Chris McNeil’s Pensarc Software was recognized as an “Innovator 2008” by the Charleston Regional Business Journal for developing www.fitmenu.net . Chris has also won two national awards for innovation for web-based fitness software. Follow fitmenu on twitter at www.twitter.com/fitmenu You can reach Chris at chris@pensarc.com.