New Year’s resolution: ditch my weight loss mentality?

I have been there before. Many times, many New Year’s eve: "Next year I will loose x amount of weight".

Whilst I have overachieved such goals in the past (and I wasn't necessarily at my healthiest), it took me many years to understand that even after all I was thought when I first started my degree, there are other indicators to a good diet and health beyond weight.

You may have heard that "diets" for weight loss will end up failing as a high percentage of those who have followed them would have regain all the weight or even more than when they first started. The reasons for such failure could be many: from unrealistic diet plans (i.e., too restrictive, expensive, difficult to follow, not educating you around better choices just dictating you what to eat at every meal), to life events, relapses into old habits, boredom?. Perhaps if you have been part of the former statistic you can relate to this and also to the qualities, virtues and expectations that loosing weight will apparently give us:

We often associate becoming thinner to being more likeable, attractive, successful, worthy, valuable.

Hopefully, as you are reading this, you are able to recognise that you have these qualities, regardless of the number on your scale.

I’m not trying to deflate your goals of becoming healthier (if you have also made this resolution for 2023), but often, there is too much pressure on the kg (or pounds) we loose as the greatest indicator of success and progress. Weight is inevitably an important indicator of our health and can provide useful information around our risks of certain diseases and/or conditions. It can be very relevant if, for example you are going under surgery or are pregnant and it’s a good resource for government and public health initiatives to track tendencies at a population level.

Yet, weight it is not the only aspect that changes when you engage in healthier habits, and when you think about it, there are many steps you must have taken before you see a change in the scale (which are equally important).

Considering that weight can be affected and fluctuate for so many reasons on a daily basis, often not seeing any numbers going down can make you forget other gains you may have reached. I'm inviting you to consider instead "health as a resolution", which may translate into: consuming less alcohol, engaging in more physical activity, cooking more meals at home (regardless if they are not as photogenic/instagramable at first), eating new foods (i.e., vegetables, pulses), drinking more water per day, etc, etc.

You will see that many of these changes may indirectly impact your body composition (i.e., your weight) and it may be easier to sustain them in the longer term.