I’M LOOKING FORWARD TO A NEW YEAR WITH THE SAME BODY
A new year is a time for many to make New Year’s resolutions — resolutions that are frequently related to losing weight, diving into a new, rigid exercise routine, cutting out certain food groups, etc. You get the picture. Unfortunately, our wacky diet culture is often front and center in the excitement of a new year. Diet culture, though, does not deserve to even be on the podium.
The new year should be focused on celebrating the past year and looking forward to all the excitement, change and challenges that may face us going forward. We have all changed over time — physically, mentally, emotionally. It would be silly for mature adults to try to return to the same emotional intelligence they had in high school or college. Life has happened! You have learned things, experienced things, felt things that have allowed your emotional intelligence and depth to grow and change. So why do we often try to achieve physical changes that are just as silly?
This last year has been difficult for many — dare I say most — of us. Many of us have dealt with health issues related to the pandemic, changes in career paths, job uncertainty and stark political differences. Some of us have lost old friends and family members and gained new ones in new relationships. These changes may have contributed to changes to our physical bodies, but that’s only because our bodies were working to adapt and take care of us in all different ways!
If you are reading this, your amazing body has gotten you through all of those various circumstances, and you are alive and able to take part in the new year and all that comes with it.
I spent a good chunk of my life enveloped in an eating disorder, and it all began with a desire to “lose 10 pounds.” It quickly spiraled into losing a lot more than that — losing the ability to sleep at night, losing focus, losing friends and becoming out of touch with things that truly mattered. All I cared about for those years was eating as little as possible and working out as much as I could. I am grateful to have found an excellent team and have been in recovery for quite some time now. That little diet culture demon does sneak up
frequently, though, just to try to remind me that I am not worthy if I am not a certain size or if I eat a certain food.
I still work to remind myself — and I’d like to remind anyone who is reading this — that you are worthy of everything — just as you are now. You do not need to “lose the baby weight” or “fit into” a certain pair of jeans in your closet from a few years ago. You do not need to suddenly start going to the gym seven days a week or cut out bread from all your meals.
Don’t get me wrong — eating nourishing foods that make you feel great and staying active is definitely important, but the desire to do so in drastic ways to meet a certain goal weight or size is not necessary. In fact, I would suggest that it will hurt you more than it will help you.
If you have fallen victim to diet culture in the past, I hope you can leave that little nasty gremlin in 2021. This new year, I hope you can, and I challenge you to, focus on the following: What brought you joy in 2021? What challenges did you overcome in 2021 and how did they make you stronger? What goals or intentions (not resolutions) do you have for yourself in 2022?
Maybe you want to explore a new career that brings you joy and lights your passion on fire. Maybe you want to get your own place. Maybe you want to become more in tune with your religion and what you believe. The possibilities are endless (as long as they don’t include weight loss).
Focus on your joy and appreciate all the amazing things your body can do for you — as it is now — and share that appreciation with others around you. I know there are many folks out there who are already doing so, and, for them, I’m grateful!
Diet culture sucks, but you don’t! I am looking forward to a new year, same body.
Happy 2022!
Focus on your joy and appreciate all the amazing things your body can do for you — as it is now.
Murphy