Heather Averett, Senior Editor at Oxmoor House, finds it hard to stay motivated to exercise. She's a lover of the outdoors and is dedicated to weekend runs, but finding time during the week is her main challenge.

Margaret Barnhart is a Sales Manager for Cooking Light based out of Atlanta. In her sales job, she eats a third of her meals out thanks to a hectic travel schedule. Her Healthy Habits challenge will be to figure out how to work in more fruits and veggies while she's always eating out.

Robin Bashinsky is a Test Kitchen professional at Cooking Light. He grew up in Alabama and got bit by the culinary bug while living in Berkeley, CA. He attended Tante Marie's Cooking School in San Francisco and spent time in various restaurants in the Bay Area before coming back home to Birmingham to raise a family. His greatest “Healthy Habits” challenge is getting his whole family to eat their veggies. The ultimate goal: Having a dinnertime truce with his green-veggie-avoiding kids and never having to cook two meals again.

Fernande Bondarenko is Art Director at Cooking Light and is admittedly "an all-or-nothing eater." Some nights for dinner she'll assemble a huge salad, and other nights it's a handful of cashews and an avocado. Her Healthy Habits challenge: adding more solid fruits and vegetable variety to her diet.

Mary Creel, MS, RD, has worked with Cooking Light since its inception in 1986. Today she’s Special Publication Editor, creating beautiful "Best of" and special all-recipe editions, as well as the “Reader Recipe” column in the monthly magazine. On top of being a nutrition expert, Mary is an athlete of extraordinary dedication—the self-effacing, next-door-neighbor kind of athlete who rises at 4 a.m. most days to make time for the thing she loves. She's logged countless miles, endured hundreds of training sessions, and crossed the finish line of an astounding 50 marathons.

Allison Fishman, 38, is a contributor to Cooking Light. In 2009, she was the co-host of Lifetime's Cook Yourself Thin, where she helped women cook more healthfully for themselves and their families. From 2006 to 2008, she was the co-host TLC's Home Made Simple, where she traveled across the United States to teach families basic cooking techniques. In 2005, Fishman founded The Wooden Spoon Cooking School in Brooklyn, New York. She helps her students gain kitchen confidence by giving them the skills to cook healthy meals at home. She is the author of You Can Trust A Skinny Cook, which comes out in April 2011.

Sidney Fry is a registered dietitian and nutrition editor for Cooking Light magazine. With background in an array of adventures from catering to corporate wellness, Sidney is finding that her love for food and nutrition is best expressed in writing. As she continues to eat and write her way through the culinary world… she hopes to help change our overall approach to food one healthy bite at a time.

Cooking Light Account Manager, Denis Gallagher, is looking to the 12 Healthy Habits challenge as a means to add structure (as well as a balanced diet, nutrition, and fitness) to his very busy life. He commutes 2 hours to and from work each day (he clearly loves his job). By day, he works in sales for the greatest magazine on the planet (shameless plug). As a sales guy, his days aren’t as structured as most people’s are. He can’t predict how each day will unfold, so it’s tough to plan. By night, he focuses his time and energy towards his four-year-old and helping his wife. He usually doesn’t sit down until after 9pm to eat, drink, and be married. In all this chaos, he usually grabs a quick meal on the go whenever I can. He’s hoping the Healthy Habits will put a little order in his very hectic life.

Holley Johnson Grainger is a registered dietitian, nutrition editor for MyRecipes and CookingLight.com, and host of Dinner Tonight and Real-Life Nutrition video series. Prior to her role at MyRecipes.com, Holley was Associate Food Editor at Southern Living magazine where she wrote the Healthy Food column, the Healthy Living special section, and other feature stories.

Julie Grimes is senior food editor at Cooking Light. She grew up in the Lone Star State, so she believes Tex-Mex counts as a food group. As a youngster, she spent summers working on her family's farms. When not out in the fields, she spent hours in the kitchen with her grandmother.

Kristi Hart is the Human Resources Director for Cooking Light. As a working mom with two young children, she's always rushing, and many times her own meals are an afterthought. The Healthy Habits program will put Kristi back on her priority list.

Cindy Hatcher is Associate Editor of Healthy Living at CookingLight. This means she works mainly on non-recipe stories, covering topics like travel, dining, beauty, and the magazine’s annual Taste Test Awards. She is married to a constantly traveling comedian, which means she often faces the challenge of cooking for one (or what feels like ten when her very tall, hungry husband is home).

Janet Helm is a writer and registered dietitian whose passion is translating nutrition science for a mass audience. She wears multiple hats — as a public relations executive, blogger, nutrition journalist, and mother of twins. Janet is the author of the popular blog Nutrition Unplugged and the founder of Nutrition Blog Network, a site that features blogs written by registered dietitians. She has appeared on Today, Good Morning American and CNN and is a regular contributor to the Chicago Tribune, msnbc.com and CookingLight magazine. Janet is the author of the forthcoming Healthy Habits Cookbook, due out in January 2012.

Carol “C.J.” Johnson is the Administrative Coordinator for Cooking Light magazine. For the last year, C.J. has been time crunched and energy depleted. After a long day’s work, she attended to her ailing mom. When mealtime came, “It was just way too easy to go through somebody’s drive-through,” she says. She’s focused on the Get Cooking Healthy Habits goal to get her back in the kitchen.

Allison Lowery is the editor for CookingLight.com. Before jumping to the web, she’s been working in cookbook publishing for 10 years. Her love of eating translated into a love of cooking while studying in Italy during college. These days, her culinary adventures revolve around cooking with her husband and their two beautiful daughters.

Jo-Ann Martin is a typical time-pressed professional. Her busy role as Account Manager for Cooking Light plus a 3-1/2 hour commute to and from her Manhattan office means exercise usually gets bumped to the bottom of her priority list. She's challenging herself to "Get Moving."

Scott Mowbray is the editor of Cooking Light. He's been writing about food, health, travel, and science for longer than he will admit.

Fitness expert Myatt Murphy, CSCS, is the author of the best-selling books, The Body You Want in the Time You Have, Ultimate Dumbbell Guide and co-author of The Men's Health Gym Bible, among other ghost-written projects for many of today's top celebrity trainers.

Ann Taylor Pittman is Executive Editor at Cooking Light. She grew up in Mississippi with an American father and South Korean mother, so for her culinary traditions are as much about kimchi as pimento cheese—or maybe even kimchi-flecked pimento cheese. Ann enjoys spending time with her husband, twin boys, and (whenever possible) a glass of bourbon.

Phillip Rhodes is deputy editor at Cooking Light. Being a native Southerner, he is unfailingly polite (for the most part) and knows how to entertain properly—something he does frequently. His first job, at age 13, was in a restaurant. Since then, he has written for Men's Health, Women's Health, Natural Health, and Runner's World.

Susan Roberts is Assistant Copy Chief for Cooking Light.

Even though she's a spring chicken, Assistant Editor Phoebe Wu's exercise goals are thwarted by ankle aches and pains that come from a lifetime of athletics (soccer and field hockey). Her Healthy Habits challenge: Find an exercise routine that doesn't hurt.