New Year's Resolutions Not Tied To Weight Loss

There is so much more to life than trying to shrink your body. If you've been victim to the yo-yo dieting trends that our society pushes this time of year, I'm here to offer a different way to improve yourself in 2024. These are my suggestions for resolutions to make instead of losing weight this New Year's season. Here's to a 2024 of making peace with your body and expanding the possibilities of your life. If you've been holding off on important moments and milestones because of your weight, do it fat!

Practice Joyful Movement
Remember when we used to play as kids and move our bodies just for the fun of it? Somehow society has turned movement into a punishment for adults, and especially fat ones. Doing monotonous workouts in a stinky room with a bunch of "Alpha Bros" side eyeing you or immature people trying to film you in secret does not sound like fun. Moving your body should not be couched in shame, and doesn't need to have the goal of making yourself smaller attached to it! There are so many fun ways to move your body for people of varying abilities. For instance, most of my spine is fused due to scoliosis surgery at a young age. I can't lift a lot of weight due to the stress it would put on my lower unfused vertebrae. My hips are pretty uneven and that means that walking for extended periods causes me a lot of pain. So I focus on movement that works for my body! I really love to dance, going out for a night of dancing is one of my greatest pleasures because it also means I'm going to be wearing a cute look. When I'm dancing I'm not thinking about making myself smaller or my pain, I'm just enjoying the music. I also enjoy yoga due to its versatility and pain relief for my back. Anything can be joyful movement if you come at it from a place of wanting to have fun! Hiking, walking your dog, gardening, swimming, etc. are all examples of joyful movement. You don't have to beat yourself up for not doing an activity for a set amount of time or skipping a day or even a week. Move yourself in a way that feels authentic and freeing to you.

Learn A New Recipe
Instead of focusing on limiting your diet, why not expand it? Food can be one of the greatest pleasures in life and there are soooo many interesting cuisines to try out there! I'm all about experiencing new things and food can be a big adventure. Have you always wondered how your Grandma's amazing dessert is made? Ask her or ask around the family to find that recipe! Keeping a family recipe alive is a lovely tradition and can help you connect with your roots. Love to eat Indian food but don't have a great restaurant to eat it at in your town? Look up a recipe online and see if you can make it at home! See a viral trending recipe that looks super fun to make? Do it! Challenging yourself in new ways is always worthwhile, even if you don't end up loving what you've created. There's always the chance that you'll end up finding your new favorite food! Food is such an integral part of humanity and culture. Don't limit your world in 2024, expand it!

Keep A Journal
Journaling is a great way to work through your thoughts and feelings. It can have a lot of benefits for your mental health and is a wonderful way to start or end your day. When I'm journaling I feel my brain being activated in new ways. I tend to be pretty disorganized in certain aspects of my life (yay ADHD) so journaling helps me to remember things I've accomplished or things that I want to. I'm a biiiiig list maker! My notes app is filled with so many lists haha. I find a hand written journal is easier to keep track of, it feels much more concrete in my mind. Journals are great to look back on and can provide a lot of self awareness and mental clarity surrounding different periods in your life. You may be able to connect the dots on events that you thought were completely unrelated or gain new insight on why you're experiencing a certain emotion. There are so many benefits to journaling, not to mention you can get a super cute journal and cover it in stickers. ;)

Learn A New Skill
Modern society often wants us to be ultra productive, but only in service of making more money. Not everything you learn or are good at needs to be monetized. Learning new things just for the sake of it can be very good for our mental health and growth as a human. Maybe you have some knitting needles laying around that you meant to get to (I get it, ADHD makes it really hard to start new things!). Knitting a cute hat for yourself could be a fun new hobby and then when people compliment it you get to say "thanks I made it!". Maybe that one kitchen cabinet door has been hanging off the hinge a bit for over a year. You could learn to fix it yourself through Youtube! Seriously you can learn almost anything on Youtube. Taking the time to fix up your living space is one of the nicest gifts you can give yourself. You'll be feeling a big sense of accomplishment afterwards too! Its never too late to learn a new skill and with all of the learning resources available at our fingertips, its never been more accessible.

There are endless possibilities for resolutions that don't involve losing weight. Let me know some of the non weight related goals you've set for yourself in the comments below!
Cheers,
Miranda