Let’s start off with a some background info: my husband works for SparkPeople.com. If you’re not familiar with SparkPeople, it is the largest online diet and healthy living community (and it’s free!). In the spirit of “practice what you preach,” SparkPeople employees are encouraged to participate in an annual challenge that includes fitness and nutrition goals. Participants are also asked to create some personal goals to work towards throughout the year. They don’t have to be fitness or nutrition-related; these goals can be anything. I thought writing these out and sending them into the ether of the Interwebs might help with accountability and responsibility and all those other abilities.

I put “resolutions” in quotes because that word makes me shudder a little bit, and conjures up almost immediate expectations of failure. So maybe something like resolutions will have a more positive effect on my mental outlook for the year to come, especially since after reading through these, I may be asking for a lot of myself at once!

Here goes nothing!…

1.) Work on my diet/food prep. There are a lot of different components to this, but here’s what I’ve got in mind – I already eat a fair amount of organic fruits and veggies, but I want to make an even stronger effort at eating only organic, as well as looking for organic/local/grass-fed sources to buy meats (anyone have any recos?). I’m considering giving the Paleo diet a shot, as I feel it would really benefit me to cut out as much dairy and grains as possible. I’d also like to make an effort this year to make more basics from scratch, at home. For instance, spices and seasonings, chicken or veggie stock, etc, instead of buying from the store. I also want to plan at least 2 meals a week, so we don’t get sucked into the “let’s pick something up because I forgot to defrost the chicken” habit. Make sure those meals include plenty of veggies and fish!]

>> I’ve already started with meal planning: Sunday we had Black Bean Burgers and tonight, Mexican Quinoa is on the menu! Yum! I found both recipes on Annie’s Eats: Black Bean Burgers / Mexican Quinoa

2.) Find a form of exercise that doesn’t feel like a chore. I’m really looking forward to daily dog walks once the weather improves a bit, but I really need help motivating myself (indoors or out!) when the weather’s so cold and dreary.

3.) Start writing again. My novel is never going to write itself! I don’t know what I’ll write, but I think a personal project, beyond this blog, will be good for me 🙂

What are your “resolutions” for the year? If you have any tips that could help with mine, I’d love to hear them! Let’s help keep each other on track and motivated!

{I already listed out some of the house projects I want to complete in 2013. You can view those here.}