It’s the new year and that means that all of those diet companies and gyms are revving up for a good quarter in sales. The #1 New Year’s Resolution is to get fit or lose weight. It’s really everywhere. We get bombarded.
I wanted to give you my own advice from a self love standpoint. If you’re going to do the whole diet thing this year, here are some things to keep in mind.
More Lifestyle Change
If you want to lose weight, and keep it off, it’s not about going to the gym everyday, exercising all of the time, and eating a diet of stuff with no fat or calories. It’s about making a lifestyle change, a sustainable lifestyle change. You might have the drive and the energy, the general oomph, to go all out for a few weeks or a few months, but what you really want to do is create a healthy lifestyle that is not about motivation, it’s about what you can do (and keep doing) without getting burnt out. What you can add to your life and feel good about. Don’t completely change your schedule and your eating habits and expect it to stick easily, chances are it won’t. Add healthier foods into your everyday, make more time for fitness and healthy activities, integrate it into what you already do. At the end of the day, make better choices.
Cut Out Failure + Disappointment
If there’s one thing that’s going to stop you from being good to your body it’s that inner critic. The one that tells you that you’re lazy and fat and worthless. Shush her up. Don’t pretend it’s motivation. Don’t let her be your cheerleader. Don’t berate yourself into going to the gym by telling yourself you’ll gain 10lb and be fat forever if you don’t. Don’t stop yourself from eating a piece of pizza because it’s going to make you look like a walrus. When you do that you are hurting your mental health at the expense of getting fit. If you want to get healthy it should be a nourishing process, not one that mentally tears you down or makes you feel like a failure. Create a positive force in your head that has your best interest at heart, not your waistline. There is a difference.
Also, set realistic goals. Want to know what I’m a fan of? Not setting a weight goal at all. Gauge your health by something other than a number. Do what you do until you feel good and your body feels good and then keep doing it.
More Unconditional Love
Love your body now and twenty pounds from now. Your body love should not be measured by how much you weigh. Your body is your body whether you are 110lb or 310lb and it is amazing. What it looks like, the fat and the tummy rolls and the cellulite, are one little facet. Your body is an amazing machine that keeps you living, breathing and loving. Your heart beats an average of 40,000,000 times a year and can pump up to 2000 gallons of blood a day. Your body is made up of 7 octillion atoms that are billions of years old. Your bodacious bod holds 60,000 miles of blood vessels. 60,000 miles. Is your mind blown yet? That’s just fucking amazing and it’s in you, happening right now. Again: Your body is amazing. Love it. Love it unconditionally because it houses your soul and your heart and that wonderful brain of yours. You might not care for the exterior, the paint job, but inside of you is a whole lot of wow. Love it.
If your goal this year is to get fit or lose weight I hope that self love and self care are one of the tools that you use to get there! Be positive, be kind to yourself and your body, make good choices and if you slip up, be compassionate. Your body will thank you for it and so will your mind. Not only will you come to associate being fit with positive feelings (that don’t involve guilt trips, pain, and disappointment) but you’ll start creating changes that will stick! That’s the #1 secret that no one tells you.
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