Chocolate.

It’s just around the corner from a New Year and naturally I have been thinking about resolutions. I’m not really feeling the need to embark on a bunch of resolutions for 2011 (say it with me, “twenty eleven”), but I do have some goals in mind to make the remainder of this life experience a little bit better for me.

Years ago I lost a bunch of weight and honestly I could never really tell you how I did it. I don’t remember what my eating habits were, outside of brief flings with being a vegetarian and paying lots of money to Slim Fast, and while I don’t really feel the need to lose a bunch of weight I do want to eat a little healthier and replace some of the bulk with a touch of muscle. Who doesn’t want to do that, right?

I have been eating protein bars and drinking protein shakes on and off for the past decade or so and can I just say that I am really, really tired of the taste of chocolate. Of course, this didn’t prevent Earl and me have from having a threesome with Godiva the other night but the chocolate Muscle Milk and the chocolate “Whey To Go!” bars and the chocolate “Dine-o-Right!” slabs are an exercise in monotony that can only be compared to folding piles of underwear. I mean, feeding people trying to eat healthy their weight in chocolate is suppose to make this whole dieting thing fun, right? Instead, it teaches us that eating chocolate is healthy and therefore it’s okay to take a walk across the Milky Way if we can’t get to that “Dine-O-Right!” bar.

All of this enhanced chocolate, and by enhanced I am referring to the addition of chlorine molecules so it’ll slide right through your pooper without adding any sort of nutritional value or consequence to your attempts at being svelte, has overloaded my taste buds so much that I am already cringing at thought of an Easter Bunny appearance and it’s not even January yet. Breaking up this monotony with a vanilla flavored bar or, Gods forbid a strawberry concoction that’s designed to make me giddy, is equal to getting dark underwear in that pile of whites that you’re folding.

I have decided to shun the chocolate fake-health bar, pass on the promises of powdered sugary health food and skip the protein with a nougat. I did a little research this morning and found that many of these things are no more than glorified chocolate bars (shocker!) so instead I just spent half of my lunch hour walking through the healthier choices of the local market and picked up some nuts, fruits, vegetables and a suggestion of turkey for when I want to walk on the wild side. Doing a little research and making sensible choices, instead of being force-fed (ha!) promises of sweet nothings and other empty promises has to work out (ha!) better for me in the long run, right?

Now it’s time to hit the bike. Or maybe snowshoe.