Screw You New Year, And Your Resolutions Too
I’m leaving it all in 2021.
“There are far better things ahead than any we leave behind.” C. S. Lewis
The end of 2021 is fast approaching and you know what that means? Your feeds will soon be filling with hundreds of the obligatory “new year, new me” posts.
You know the ones.
280 characters of optimism about changing diets, habits, spending and even personalities. Posts that in 2021 they did X but in 2022, they are going to do Y. Strive to to be the most positive, best human on the planet no matter what it takes.
I have nothing against these posts, or optimism in general. I just find them exhausting. Personally, I don’t find them very helpful either because every year I did the same thing.
For as long as I can remember, I made the same New Year’s resolution. To lose weight. Every year as I watched the ball drop I’d think, “this is going to be the year that I finally hit that magic number.” Although the number has fluctuated over the years, the resolution has not.
If I start on January 1st, I can be the perfect healthy eater. I can give up everything sweet, everything salty, and everything white. I can track every single calorie that goes into my mouth. I can exercise every single day even if I’m tired or sick.
I can give up soda and eating between meals. I can stop eating out completely and cook every single meal at home. I can be like the fitness bloggers who only eat chicken and vegetables for dinner and I will like it. I can be so strict with my diet and exercise regimen that, of course, my body will fall in line.
If I can have the perfect diet, then I can have the perfect life. The bad days will disappear and everything will be sunshine all the time. Because thin equals perfect and perfect equals happy right?
Spoiler alert, it never worked.
I’ve spent at least 20 years chasing whatever size jeans I thought were acceptable that year. I’m 37 years old, enough is enough. I’m done being controlled by the number I see on the scale. I’m done with the all or nothing approach.
I’ve low carbed, I’ve fasted and I’ve starved myself to the point of disconnect. I’ve binged and then restricted for so many years, it just feels normal now. My brain has fought my body for so low, I doubt I even know what real hunger feels like.
What it feels like to eat until you're satisfied but not stuffed. To eat something because you want it, and not because you think you need it. Not to think about food as either good or bad. To eat something and not feel so much guilt you can’t function.
My brain has been so shaped by my food obsession it can’t even think about food as fuel to keep me alive. It only thinks about it as days when I’m on the diet and days when I’m off the diet. Good days are days on and bad days are days when you’re off, of course.
It’s like a black hole that I can’t drag myself up from. I can see the light at the top but it’s always just above my reach. Food is always in my view, it always takes center stage.
To believe that because you ate a cookie yesterday you can’t eat lunch today. To skip breakfast because you ate too much for dinner last night, even though your stomach is growling so loud you’re sure others can hear it.
Have you ever eaten full cups of ice to stave off your hunger because your approved eating window hasn’t open up? Have you ever had your 9 year old daughter ask you, “mommy how come you haven’t eaten dinner with us all week?”
You tell her you’re just not hungry, but know it’s because you will binge later on something you would never allow your kids to eat late at night. It’s affecting my sleep, my health, my finances and my whole life.
I would never wish this endless cycle on anyone. It’s exhausting to know you’re ruining your health but feel powerless to change it. To feel trapped by an addiction that people say is all your fault, and “why can’t you just stop eating?”
But something has got to give. I can’t keep doing this to myself for another 20 years. I can’t stay trapped in the wave of diet culture for any longer for fear I may drown some day. My head is just above the surface and if I don’t pull myself out now, I never will.
Every woman in my families generations before me has diabetes including my aunt who refuses to regulate her diet or take insulin. If I don’t change my eating patterns, I know what my future looks like.
I need to set a good example for my young daughter by loving my body enough to feed it healthy food. I need to forgive myself for all the years I have tortured it. Chasing this magical goal weight isn’t healthy and it hasn’t made me any happier.
For 2022, instead of making a resolution to lose weight or any resolutions at all, I am going to give myself the space to heal. To change my relationship with food and my body gradually and not drastically. I’m ditching the all or nothing mindset for good.
There will no more fad diets or calorie counting. I will no longer skip meals with my family only to binge later. I will let myself feel however I feel about food and know it’s okay. To know that being happy has nothing to do with my weight or dress size.
To exercise because it feels good and it’s good for my body and not just to see how many calories I can earn for the next day. To give myself some grace when I do give into my feelings and eat a little too much. To eventually give into my feelings and not need the comfort of food.
To realize that this is my journey alone and no one can do it for me. Fighting against my body and food has never worked for me, but I am hopeful that loving my body and embracing healthy food will.
I don’t want to spend the rest of my life being so jaded about food, I don’t even want to spend one more minute.
“While we may not be able to control all that happens to us, we can control what happens inside us.” — Benjamin Franklin