New Year "Resolutions"

Happy New Year Everyone!

 

Now, I realize that this is a couple days late, but I wanted to publish a post with New Years resolutions, and decided to think things over a few days. I don't often make resolutions at the beginning of each new year, but I've decided to start doing it, so that I have something specific to work on for the year and have a specific amount of time to complete goals in. New Years resolutions always seem to center around things like losing weight or getting rid of debt, and while I do have goals like this, they are on going and I'm not going to make resolutions like that. Sure, this year I definitely want to make sure that I stay healthy and definitely get rid of any debt I have (and more importantly not incur more), but these won't be my resolutions for the new year, they're ongoing.

 

Nope. This year, I am making goals that include skills to become more self-sufficient, knowledgable, and just to improve my overall quality of life. Some of them may seem small compared to others, but I find them all equally important, and I'm sure I'll end up adding more as I think of them, but here's a starting list:

 

Improve my sewing, knitting, and crocheting skills

Learn to use power tools (besides just a drill)

 

Expand my vegan cooking abilities

 

WRITE MORE

Learn to can

Expand my gardening knowledge

Build or buy a dehydrator

Grow and preserve as much of our food needs as possible for the year, and especially next winter

Shop local as much as possible

...and that's it so far...

Do any of you have resolutions for the new year that you'd like to share?
 

Challenge #1:Cut Out Fast Food

For my first month's challenge I plan on completely removing fast food from my diet. These last few months I have been eating out way too much for convenience sake, but I'm done. All of the extra calories have caused me to gain weight and I'm beginning to really feel sluggish and just plain unhealthy. Because of this, I've decided to stop eating fast food, and make more of an effort to eat at home and prepare all of my own meals. This will not only cut all of those extra calories out of my diet, but I'll be able to know everything that goes into my food.

It really is sad how Americans in general have become so out of touch with what goes into the food they consume. The amount of crap that goes into our processed food is crazy and so totally unnecessary, but it makes the food cheaper. This may be appealing to those who have to tighten their purse strings due to the economy, but as a result they may end up having to spend all of the money that they save on food (and more) on medical bills, caused by the fillers in those cheap foods. I would rather just spend a little bit more time and money now on good, healthy food, so that I can hopefully avoid future health problems for myself and my family.

I'm not just worried about being healthier in the future though. I have noticed that since I have started eating fast food on a regular basis, my stomach has started to bother me more, my skin has started breaking out, and I've been feeling tired and sluggish a lot, and I really don't enjoy this. I am hoping that by cutting fast food out of my diet, I'll be able to lose the weight that I've put on and just begin to feel healthier. I also feel that I'll be helping the environment that much more with every burger I choose to not eat and every wrapper that I'm able to keep out of the landfill.

(Late) Update 1/31/2012
I was able to keep away from fast food for the month of December, and I did try eating some a couple of weeks ago, but I started to feel sick (probably from the high sugar content). So, although I may have some McDonald's french fries every now and then, overall I'm not really interested anymore in eating fast food when I'm out, and I plan on avoiding it as much as possible.