Goals, Jr. (is prefereable to "Goals, II")

Attention: I am a dork.

Moving on.

First, an all-important The Fifteen Pound Goal update:

I went to the gym yesterday, and ellipticized for approximately 45 minutes while watching Wolf Blitzer and Glen Beck on side-by-side televisions. My gym is hilarious.

(Sidebar: Is "ellipticized" a word? Because it should be. What other verb could possibly explain what one does on an elliptical machine? Like its cousin, "Jazzercize", sometimes words must be created in order to improve the descriptive qualities of our beloved English, no? Now I've forgotten my point... oh, the gym. Right.)

The elliptical machine told me that I burned 423 calories! Really?!? I mean, I was sweaty and tired after, so maybe it's possible that I burned an entire dinner's worth of calories. Clearly, it's been a while since I've been to the gym.

Then I went home and ate a bowl of cereal. This is what happens when D is out of town.

Which brings me to Goals, Jr - i.e. other goals I forgot to mention yesterday.

Eating more healthfully/organically/sustainably, being one.

Cinnamon Toast Crunch falls into none of these categories.

My bestie and I have this running joke that there is a fine line between being a foodie and being a fatty, and I've been thinking that I want to be on the right side of that line. Because, see, I love me some food. All food. I'm not in the business of discrimination.

In fact, I can really break it down for you. Besides D, my greatest loves in life are as follows:

1)Cheese
2)Dark Chocolate
3)Butter
4)Bacon

(All proper nouns, by the way.)

Without these four delectable slices of life, I just don't know how I'd get by. They have sustained me for 29 years and I can't just turn my back on them. That would be rude. Feelings would be hurt. And I've never been good at breaking up. That's why I stayed in some relationships for months (even years!) after they went the way of the toilet. But, I digress.

So I have to find a way to incorporate my loves into a healthier lifestyle, although I have yet to find a healthy recipe that uses butter...or bacon.

Moderation, man. It's the wave of my future.

Besides finding a way to reconcile my love of unhealthy foods (except for Dark Chocolate. Word on the street is it rides the fence.), I am making a move towards a more organic/all-natural diet.

Hello, grass-fed beef and free-range chicken (peace-loving pork and free-love fish?)! We don't eat a lot of meat as it is, so I think this will be the easiest progression. I just need to buy the stuff and cook it (sans butter. Sniffle.).

I'm also going to start shopping for produce locally, supporting my community farmers and whatnot. It seems like the right thing to do. Plus, the other day, I bought some Chilean strawberries and they were pure crap.

Seriously bad.

Then, coincidentally I read an article about how off-season fruit shipped in from other countries is sometimes weeks (weeks!) old by the time it reaches my local supermarket. Super yuck, y'all!

That article prompted me to look up farmers' markets in my 'hood. There are a few that are really close, and am excited to check them out this spring.

Plus, when I really thought about it, I decided that buying produce from local farmers is a great way for us to achieve a more sustainable, planet-friendly lifestyle since we won't be paying for as many foods to be shipped via uber-polluting planes, trains and ships.

Wee!

(And, yes, I realize that even the local farmers have to transport their wares somehow, but at least they travel a shorter distance. It's call reconciliation, people.)

Did I mention that I want to start eating at least two servings of (locally and hopefully organically grown) vegetables with every dinner? I'll address that one at a later date.

As for now, I'm tired of typing.