So I made some New Year’s resolutions this year. Some are lofty goals (”Start writing a book”, “Finish at least 16 credits of college classes”), some are less so (”Ped Egg my feet more often so my scratchy heels don’t snag on the bedsheets”).

A bunch of my resolutions are health/fitness related, which I am sure is totally blowing your mind because that is such an unusual nonstandard sort of resolution category and clearly I am a special creative person with many—okay fine. Baaaaaaaaaaa. ANYWAY, I’ve got 3 main goals, dietwise, that I want to achieve in 2010:

• Eat more whole foods from local sources
• Keep a food journal for more than a week at a time
• Make more of our staple foods from scratch

These are mostly about personal choices and, you know, seeing things through, but since this is a blog that mainly talks about fun stuff to buy, here are some of the tools I think will help me:

A good notebook and pen. I know, it sounds ridiculous, but don’t you find that the right sort of pen makes you want to write things down? And a decent notebook feels that much cooler than a cruddy spiral-bound memo pad from the grocery store? If I’m going to be successful at keeping a food journal, I should probably have a special place for that information to go, otherwise after a week of scribbling on the back of receipts I’ll surely give up the whole endeavor.

A digital solution. I know from personal experience it’s easier for me to go analog when it comes to jotting down my eating habits, but for those inevitable times when I need to get rid of some excess pounds, this app is the best. It’s very simple: you document your food and exercise, it adds up your calories in/calories out info and tells you if you’re on track or not. It’s not something I would do year-round, but when I’m working towards a weightloss goal Lose It is a great tool. Many of my coworkers lost quite a bit of weight in 2009 using Lose It, which is how I heard about it in the first place.

Buying local, eating well. I just watched Food, Inc. so this topic is definitely fresh on my mind. In 2010 I’d like to greatly reduce the number of mass-produced, overly processed foods we consume, and stop buying factory-farmed meats. I plan to shop more local farms, join a CSA during the growing season, and generally be much more aware of the issues with our industrialized food system. Oh, and I’d like my kids to live off something other than frozen waffles and Spaghettios, but, you know, one miracle at a time.

Getting my cook on. I’m excited to create more fresh, good foods in our own kitchen this year, instead of relying on so much prepackaged crap from the store. The things I really need in order to do this are time, a better grocery shopping strategy, and motivation, but I feel like there might be a good excuse here to finally get a KitchenAid mixer. I mean, I made two loaves of (delicious!) wheat bread last week and about broke my arm working the dough, clearly I NEED an adorable bright red mixer in order to improve the health of my family. Right?

How about you, did you make any health resolutions this year? What things do you think will help you achieve those goals?

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