New Start: The problem with the ‘New Year, New Diet’ mentality

Heya my wonderful friends! So it is a new year and we are still in the first month. January every year seems to be the year of starting over. Everyone is posting about their new year and about the new ‘healthy’ lifestyle they are sure to achieve.

It is so hard to be in recovery when every you look people are advertising the next diet and the next workout to change your body. We are slowly approaching spring and summer time which is another whole post in itself.

During this time of the year we too often get caught up in the diet cycle. Even if we don’t mean to it may just subconsciously start to happen because you see everyone else doing. Scrolling through social media and seeing picture of girls we may want to look like will negatively affect us.

I encourage you during this time if it is helpful to make a daily list. A list of all you need to eat and make sure you get in, and then leave room for you to eat more or to have dessert. Do not get rigid with food rules.

It is so discouraging to your recover when we get sucked up into diet culture. We have to sit and listen to others talk about their diet of their change in food plans or even their new goal to workout more.

During recovery this can be so triggering. We hear these comments and not only feel left out, but feel as if we need to follow suit. I have felt it too. The want to just eat ‘healthier’ to maybe workout more. But it is a recipe for relapse, and you have worked out so hard to just get to this point, don’t give up now.

There are hard seasons but during the time when all people talk about is their new ‘healthy’ lifestyle instead decide to fill your life with people you radically love themselves (which yes, can be through social media). Stay encouraged in your recovery, be around people who left you up and understand your process.

It is okay to want to be ‘healthier’. But, do not stop at what our culture has turned that word into. Healthier is different for each body. Healthier is the body and mind together, so that means for someone in recovery healthier may mean choosing to get ice cream, or choosing to get the burger, or choosing whatever is positive moving in your recovery. Healthier may just mean stopping working out all together, which sounds scary, but may just be exactly what will make you body the ‘healthiest’ it can be.

So, please be carefully. During the time when everyone is starting new, maybe it’s the time for you to start something new: radically loving your body. Giving your body everything it needs and more. Healing you body view, healing your mental health.

Love, Mack