Have You Thought About New Year Eco Friendly Resolutions?
Planning to lose weight and give up smoking – 2 perfect eco friendly resolutions!
Every New Year there are thousands of people vowing to give up smoking and lose weight for the new year – so why not do it for real this time rather than just putting in a little bit of effort in front of the friends!
We know the reason we manage to eat a bit healthier in January is because we have eaten so much junk over the winter that we would rather not face another strawberry trifle or fried leftovers!
And the symbolic start of the new year makes us decide that it’s a good time to be a bit healthier – but when you go back to work and the month end bills start to come through after the longest month of the year – it virtually always has 5 Fridays – you are stressed enough to just keep on smoking!
So why not make these 2 count seriously towards your new eco friendly lifestyle for 2010.
Losing Weight:
This has 2 sides to it’s eco benefit; eating less and exercising more, so lets look at these in detail.
Eating Less – we all know that we buy, cook and eat much more food than we need – and much of the food isn’t nutritious enough to make a difference. So by restricting your meal size and number of meals, you can reduce the pressure on farmers and local stores to grow so much in the first place.
The food has to be grown and transported to the stores too which uses valuable energy and petrol or gas as well. In a larger scale example the advantages become clear: if the average person buys 20 sprouts from the store, and a lorry from the farm can only fit in 1000 sprouts in it’s hopper - that means one journey feeds 50 families.
But what if each of your 3 dinner guests only really eats 5 sprouts each and you throw the leftover 5 away? That means that that lorry carried 250 sprouts for nothing. And if people only brought what they actually ate – that original lorry could have fed nearly 67 families (17 more than before).
And who says we should be eating until we are stuffed anyway? Buy less, eat less, waste less.
Exercising More- Clearly, if you are exercising more then you may well be walking or cycling a lot more than before – both of which have massive eco benefits.
By spending more time out of your car, you are saving on fuel and emissions – but you are also making your local area richer. If you visit local parks and other amenities you are making them worth keeping and maintaining – and you could become involved in local projects.
And by taking a bit longer to get somewhere or exploring somewhere in closer detail you could become a bit more knowledgeable of local species and habitats – and even see places, buildings or wildlife that you haven’t seen before (as you fly at 50 mph down the link road!).
Also, more exercise will make you a healthier person, delaying the signs of aging and reducing your need for routine medications and treatments – all saving you and the community money and energy. Which leads us on to the other resolution….
Stop Smoking:
Not only is smoking bad for your health on it’s own, it is also bad for your health in terms of the reduction in exercise your may well be having due to being so out of breath. It has been scientifically proved that smoking causes lung damage – and your lungs are what helps you to be active and exercise more.
However, buying you cigarettes is a never-ending job. Unless you are a very light smoker or stretch out your roll-ups beyond the meanest student – you will be having to visit a store several times a week. Smokers never seem to buy them in bulk, they go back and forth all the time, just buying another 20. and I bet the don’t always walk there?
The packaging, the transport, the ingredients – all bad for the environment and your body. So make an appointment with a hypnotist and get over it!
There are many other ways to help improve your eco friendly lifestyle – so maybe instead of New Year resolutions – have New Month resolutions where you can improve your lifestyle throughout the year!
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