I Said I Wouldn’t Do This . . . January 2, 2008

I’ve only been one for the whole New Year thing when I was young and could hold my liquor a lot better than I do now . . . Mostly, I don’t like the way most people make excuses to drink (why do you need an excuse? Just admit you want to get shit-faced and proceed), but more so, I don’t make resolutions. I feel like it’s a way for people to set ridiculous goals for themselves that they only think they’ll complete because they’re writing a different number at the end of their checks. And then they fail and feel terrible about themselves as a result. I don’t want people to feel terrible. Especially because they’ve wasted all that money on a gym membership that’s now calling their contract, which apparently requires people give Gold’s Gym their firstborn.

Americans have a tendency to over-indulge for any holiday. As Jim Gaffigan puts it “I wouldn’t normally have a burger, a brat, and a steak . . . but, you know, it is July Fourth.” We make excuses to eat too much throughout most of the last three months of the year, then feel bloated and tired as a result. Some people do take off the weight, some manage to restrict their gluttony to a less horrifying amount, but most people, I think, continue to bloat until they finally leave their houses again sometime in late May.

I have noticed, however, that Charlie I tend to come up with a small list of “goals” that starts, coincidentally, right around the beginning of each year. The last two years we didn’t even think of the list as “new year’s resolutions,” but yesterday when we began filling out the new goals sheet, we realized we were doing it on, of all days, January first.

Last year we put a list on the fridge that consisted of trading in the Santa Fe for a more fuel-efficient vehicle, getting my credits transferred and returning to IUPUI, getting tattoos started and/or finished, going to IKEA, taking a trip, seeing at least five movies together. We completed everything except for Charlie’s 20-pound weight loss goal, which he met and then put some of the weight back on.

This year our focus is more on what we eat and how we spend our money. Our list includes weeding out processed foods and replacing them with natural, organic, local, fresh ingredients whenever possible. More specifically, replacing the vitamins and supplements we take every night with the natural vitamins that we’re not getting in our food. We want to cut out eating in restaurants except for special occasions and use that money to buy the higher-priced, but more healthful food. We both get really lazy and end up opting for something like pizza or Indian buffet and having a soda or tea with artificial sweetener. Today I threw out the container of Sweet & Low that’s sat on our kitchen counter for years and put organic raw cane sugar in my iced tea. It was okay. A bit grainy.

We want to give our money to small, independent businesses, so whenever possible we can’t go to Target or buy something online from a large company. We have successfully boycotted Wal-Mart now for almost five years, so buying locally isn’t a problem. It’s sometimes hard when you’re on a fixed budget not to shop at the larger places, but that’s the reasoning behind several other goals – shifting money from one category in to another: we have to buy things second-hand when we can. Cable is being canceled and television can only be watched only during specific times of the week or by downloading shows online.

Of course, the most popular of all goals – we both want to lose some weight. I told Charlie I would utilize his three free visitor’s passes to the gym but I couldn’t promise that I would join. I don’t want to hold him back since he has a different goal than mine and is in competition with one of the guys he works with to lower their body fat percentages. I think changing our eating habits will make a big difference, so I asked him to make one of his goals helping me cook more often. When I don’t feel like making something, he gets discouraged and just suggests getting take-out somewhere. I’d rather he cook with me or on his own a few times a week.

We’ll see how it all goes. I’m committed to eating less processed, fatty foods, and using money we would normally spend on greasy Chinese buffet to utilize more often the great wok my parents got me for Christmas a couple of years ago.