New Year, New Me?
I actually bloody love a new year. Just like I kind of love a Monday (I know, what a weirdo).
I love the impending routine, that I was wishing away at the start of the Christmas holidays but now I’m craving it. I love the opportunity for some sort of fresh start, to set new goals and refocus.
New Years resolutions always get a bit of a bashing on social media, but I just think ‘you do you’ if its not your thing then fine… if its someone else’s and they are looking to better themselves or achieve something new then thats fine too.
I used to spend every single new year with one solid focus, ‘I will get slim this year’, and that was that. To be honest I look back and feel sad about that, because it took me bloody ages to actually do it, I’m talking like 10 years of having this thought process at the start of the year… then it took me a good 3 years to undo all the bad habits and try and overcome my terrible relationship with food… which I wish I’d done from the off rather than focus my energy on weight loss.
As I said ‘you do you’ but I am a strong believer now in do what makes YOU happy and everything else will fall into place.
The last few months I’ve been trying hard to just BE. To just enjoy life, eat what I want when I want, notice when I’m not feeling too snazzy and maybe try and eat a bit more of the stuff that does make me feel snazzy, exercise for enjoyment/endorphins/that feeling of being able to do something you couldn’t do 3 months ago… ALL of these things combined have lead me to feel the best I ever have, body image, food relationship, confidence wise. Its almost like I’ve had to unlearn all those guilty feelings around food, and its hard… some days it’s still really hard but definitely getting easier.
I think the Christmas period has been the most noticeable in how times have changed, like not thinking OH SHIT well fuck it I’m just going to stuff my face till January the 2nd THEN I’ll draw a line… because that has always been 2nd nature to me, and like my guilty pleasure every year to just binge and binge and binge, almost like an excuse to just eat till I feel sick which to be honest didn’t ever actually make me happy.
I know this blog will relate to a lot of you, and I KNOW I sound like I’m preaching to the choir, but when it clicks, it just feels like I can’t believe how much time and energy I focused on being skinny, when all along I should of focused on being HAPPY, and its really so simple, you just listen to your body and mind a bit closer. It might take some practice and you will sometimes slip into old habits… you can’t undo years of habits overnight but it can be done.
For the first time ever, I’m starting the new year with no weight related goals, I’m just going to carry on what I’m doing now and focus on feeling good… I’m actually starting a dance class next week which I’m excited and nervous about in equal measures but think it’s going to be quite life changing tbh. All of my goals are centred around family and work and things I want to achieve and do more of/less of and I’m excited about that.
And that is basically all I have to say, If you have goals and new things you want to do this year then good for you (as long as you aren’t making yourself miserable!) and if you are quite happy just doing what you are doing now, then good for you too.
Happy New Year everyone and THANKYOU for making the last year so bloody great <3
L x