5 Non-Diet New Year’s Resolutions That Aren’t About Losing Weight
It’s that time of year again. Diet ads are everywhere and your social media feed is likely plagued with weight loss programs, fat burning supplements, and before-and-after photos.
The start of a new year often leads to setting New Year’s resolutions, usually ones that are rooted in losing weight. But I am going to go out on a limb and challenge you to not set a goal related to shrinking your body this year. In fact, you don’t even need to set any resolutions at all!
That said, if you do enjoy a fresh start and goal setting, read on to learn how to choose non-diet resolutions that won’t leave you feeling guilty by February.
If you’re new here, hello and welcome! My name is Hannah and I am a non-diet dietitian here to help you improve your relationship with your food and finally find food freedom.
In this blog we will cover:
Why New Year’s resolutions tend to fail
Why you don’t need to set resolutions
Examples of non-diet resolutions
Why New Year’s resolutions tend to fail
Most New Year’s resolutions involve losing weight, eating “healthier”, and exercising more. While these goals are not inherently a bad thing, they tend to be very rigid and “black and white”. This means that you either “succeed” or you “fail” at your resolutions. But when it comes to your health, it is not that simple.
Resolutioners also tend to have an “all or nothing” mindset when it comes to their goals set on January 1st. Many people say things like “I am going to go the gym every morning before work!” or “I am not going to eat dessert at all this year”. The extreme nature of these resolutions is just setting them up to be broken. This leaves you beating yourself up for not having enough willpower and motivation, when in reality, the goals were just not realistic to begin with.
Diets don’t work
With weight loss goals comes some form of restrictive diet. This might look like extreme fad diets (“I am not going to eat a single carb!”) or more sneaky diets such as intermittent fasting and calorie counting. These types of diets tend to hide under the guise of a “healthy lifestyle” but have the same negative outcomes of every other diet out there.
Regardless of the approach, a majority of diets do not work in the long term. Sure, they may lead to short term weight loss. But most dieters tend to regain the weight back and then some. And this is not just a New Year’s thing! Diets don’t work on any day of the year.
If you have dieted before and “failed”, this is not a character flaw on your part. The diet industry is a multi-billion dollar industry set up for you to fail so that you try diet after diet without breaking the cycle. If diets worked, then the diet industry wouldn’t exist.
You don’t need to set resolutions
A large chunk of adults in the US will set New Year’s resolutions this year as they have in years past. I know that I have been one to set resolutions myself! This is largely because January 1st feels like a fresh start, a blank slate. But here’s the thing - it’s really just another day of the week.
More importantly, I want to point out that your body is not a project that needs to constantly be worked on. While it is totally fine to set self-improvement goals and want to better yourself, it is critical that you respect and care for the current version of yourself as well. You can’t hate yourself into a different person. That will never be sustainable.
If you do find it fun and exciting to set goals, I also want you to remember that you can set goals that have nothing to do with your health or your body. Being “healthier” or thinner (which are not one in the same, by the way) does not make you more worthy of love, care, or respect. Not to mention that your health and your body size are not completely in your own hands.
Examples of non-diet resolutions
Instead of setting resolutions to shrink your body this year, I have a few other ideas. These are just some examples, and I challenge you to write down any of them that resonate with you!
1. Explore new forms of joyful movement
Rather than using exercise as a punishment or as a means of quick weight loss, set a goal to try different types of movement to see what makes you feel the best. Try hiking for the first time. Take a Zumba class. When you shift your focus of exercise to how it makes you feel, movement will seem like less of a chore and you will find that you actually want to get moving.
Joyful movement is one of the ten principles of a framework known as intuitive eating. You can learn more about this principle in this blog post.
2. Read more
This is one of my personal resolutions for the year! In fact, I have already started on it (because like I said, there is nothing special about waiting until January 1st).
I plan to read more fiction books as a hobby, but if you are working on improving your relationship with food, there are lots of great anti-diet books out there. I share some of my favorites here.
3. Challenge your fear foods
Do you have a laundry list of foods that you have avoided for a long time as you’ve gone from diet to diet? One of the most critical parts of recovering from disordered eating is making peace with food. And the only way to do this is the eat the foods that you have deemed off-limits. You can’t learn to swim without getting in the water!
It is important to start slow with this one. It probably won’t end up too well if you go to the store and buy all of the fear foods and try to eat them all within the same day. Rank your fear foods by their level of difficulty and choose one new food at a time. You will also likely need to repeat your exposure to these foods over and over again.
I share more tips for making peace with food in this post here.
4. Ditch the scale
I know, I know. This one is tough! But the truth is, the number on the scale really doesn’t matter all that much. And weighing yourself is probably doing more harm than good. It might feel like it is keeping you “on track”, but I’m willing to bet that it really is just making you second-guess what your body actually wants and needs.
Smash that scale with a hammer! Throw it off the balcony! (But then clean it up because littering isn’t cool). It will feel so liberating to take the power back from the scale.
5. Do a social media detox
There are so many social media accounts promoting a positive relationship with food (not to toot my own horn, but…) Unfortunately though, social media is also an endless supply of diet culture messaging. Seeing posts idealizing thin bodies and restrictive eating is not going to serve you on your healing journey.
While I don’t recommend juice cleanses or liver cleaning supplements, the one type of detox I do encourage is a social media detox. Learn more about how to do that here.
Bottom line
Setting weight loss goals is so last year. If you do decide to set resolutions for this upcoming year, set flexible intentions rather than strict resolutions that you either “pass” or “fail”. You do not need to set any resolutions at all, but if you do enjoy them, choose goals that are not revolved around shrinking your body.
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