Happy New Year! 2014 Here We Come!
I find the beginning of the New Year to be an exciting time (once I get over the fact that another year has passed). I love the idea of intentions and yearly themes. Certainly not as a way to promise something and then feel like a failure in the end (like so many years of promising weight loss or to exercise more or to eat right, etc. only to fail once again and blame myself for it).
However, as a way to create a desire for my own personal growth and empowerment into the year to come, intentions are awesome. This year, I took the time to look back at the previous year and acknowledge my successes, accomplishments, and growth. That was really cool too!
I think this is what the New Year is really about!
Yet, it seems, our culture is still so stuck in seeing the New Year as a time to sell weight loss! I rarely watch television so I’m cut off from the burden of diet commercials. However, on New Year’s Day, a television was on, blaring in the background all…day…long while commercial after commercial of this diet and that weight loss program stole the airwaves; each one selling some brand of feel-good-about-yourself-by-selling-your-soul-to-the-diet-industry!
Too harsh? I don’t think so.
In addition to feeling dread and even disgust at these commercials, I felt sadness and concern for all of you watching them!
I remember how hard it was to ignore these messages when I hated my body and thought I couldn’t be fat and loved and desired. I remember how enticing it was to join in when everyone around me was resolving to eat right or lose weight or get thin. I know how hard it can be to stand out from the crowd and declare that dieting isn’t for me!
So for you, I write this article to help remind you that you have nothing to lose and everything to gain from ending the cycle of dieting! Because you are giving up dieting not giving up on you!
What giving up dieting means:
- No longer feeling ashamed for eating tasty food
- No longer wanting something to eat but depriving yourself of it
- No longer feeling a hunger that leads straight to binging
- No longer being crabby from denying yourself food you love
- No longer saying no to the cake at the party only to binge on one later
- No longer being in a cycle of losing weight and then gaining it back again
- No longer fearing weight gain
- No longer fearing your desire to eat
- Learning new ways to deal with your feelings rather than emotional eating
- No more salads unless you really want one
- Knowing you will want a salad eventually and even soon
- No longer listening to what someone else says you should eat
- No more thinking about food all the time
- No more thinking you can control your body’s weight only to find out once again that your body always wins
- No more gaining back all the weight and maybe even more
- No more worrying about what will happen when the diet ends or when you lose control once again
- No more hating your body
- No more feeling like a failure
Just a few of the things you will gain (and the reason this is not about giving up at all!):
- Trusting yourself again
- Eating a variety of foods and feeling completely satisfied
- Having a meal last the length of a meal, rather than an on-going torment of dissatisfaction
- Enjoying veggies, cooked just the way you like them
- Eating at a variety of restaurants with your friends and family without thinking about the menu first
- Closer relationships with those you care about
- Exercising because you enjoy it and love yourself enough to do it regularly
- Resting because you don’t feel like exercising that day and feeling perfectly okay with this
- Learning to not care what your family members or friends say to you about your weight/health
- Taking responsibility for your health in a way that truly feels healthy
- Learning to like, accept and even love your body because you see more what it can do rather than what it doesn’t look like
- Living your life rather than thinking about food and your body all the time
And so much more! In fact, write below in the comments section what you have gained by giving up dieting. Even if you have just started thinking about giving up dieting, you have gained from it! Tell us about it. Help inspire yourself and others. And remember that even “small” things are a big deal! It’s not easy to be different. This is the place to celebrate it!
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