New Year, New Diet
You indulged during the holidays. You ate turkey, potatoes, gravy, entrees, desserts and you drank lots of alcohol. You feel guilty for eating past fullness and for eating high calorie foods — lots of it.
You decide to go on a diet. You need to lose the weight you gained and you need to feel better about your body. If you’re honest, you kind of feel like shit.
This new year is going to be your year. You’re going to lose the weight you’ve always wanted to lose. You’re going to finally feel comfortable in your body and you’re finally going to be happy. Oh how you just want to feel confident in how you look. That’s when you’ll finally be who you want to be.
So you went on a diet at the beginning of the year and things went well at first. You started eating ‘healthier’, you went to the gym a couple times a week and you started drinking more water. But then life got busy. Work got more demanding, the school year got more intense, you had to bring the kids to soccer practice and the list goes on.
You haven’t been able to keep up with the healthy habits you implemented at the beginning of the year and you feel like a failure. You failed the diet. You’re a failure.
For the rest of the year, you hop on and off of diets but never stick to them very long. You do the same with exercise. You constantly feel like you’re never doing enough.
The holidays arrive once again (time goes by so quickly!). You indulge and you feel guilty about it. New year hits and you vow that this year will be the year.
Let’s rewind and imagine this scenario a little differently.
You indulged during the holidays. You ate turkey, potatoes, gravy, entrees, desserts and you drank lots of alcohol. You excepted to eat past fullness and you’re ok with it. You ate what you felt like and what would satisfy you in the quantities that you wanted.
You knew that you could have these foods whenever you wanted them and that you didn’t have to eat as much as you could before going on your diet in January because you weren’t going on a diet this year. You weren’t going to “watch what you eat”.
You decide to start doing things out of self-care this year. It doesn’t matter how much you weigh. You just want to do things that will make you feel good.
This year is going to be your year, you’re going to finally work on being comfortable with your body as it is. You’re going to learn to be more self-compassionate with yourself and treat yourself and your body with respect. You’ll be happier because your thoughts won’t be so focused on how many calories you need to burn and the foods you need to avoid.
So you started the year off by eating in a way that felt good for you without restriction. You ate what you wanted, explored new foods, tried new recipes and you didn’t feel so hungry all the time. You moved your body in enjoyable ways most of the time and you also took some time to rest and recharge.
A few months have passed and you got busy but it was OK because you played around with your self-care routine and your habits so that they could work with your schedule instead of against it.
Sometimes you exercised more and sometimes less. Sometimes you ate out more and sometimes you cooked more meals at home. You did whatever worked best for you in the moment and you’re happy that you honored that most of the time.
You didn’t fall off the wagon because you didn’t hop on a wagon. You listened to your body and practiced self-compassion when things didn’t go your way. You feel like this is something you can do for the rest of your life.
The holidays arrive once again (time goes by so quickly!). You indulge and you enjoy time with family. New year hits and you’re excited to try new ways to take care of yourself.
What scenario would you prefer?
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