A Registered Dietitian’s Best New Year’s Resolution

A few years into my career as a dietitian I was working as a consultant in a health club.  Members made appointments with me, and one by one, wanted a quick fix, a gimmick, some magic that would help them loose weight fast.

I remember one woman, scoffing at me, as I gave her a meal plan for healthy sensible eating.  She told me that this wasn't going to do it and stormed out of the room. 

I felt years of frustration in her statement.  She’d been convinced by society’s prevalent diet culture that the only way to lose weight was to restrict food, cut out food groups, or eat in a certain specific pattern.  It’s been drilled into us by the US’s $78 billion dollar diet industry. 

Nonetheless, as the calendar year winds down, countless Americans establish the  common New Year’s Resolution, 48% of which are to lose weight.  The word resolution means to determine upon an action, which is consistent with the black-or-white, good-bad mentality that diet culture promotes.  However, when we are unable to keep our resolutions, we feel failure, shame, or frustration.  Future weight loss efforts become doomed, because we’ve convinced ourselves we cannot possibly be successful losing weight or getting healthier. 

New Year’s resolutions tend to be about what you ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t do’.  They’re typically motivated by a comment someone else made-perhaps your physician or a relative- or a desire to look a different way.  These external reasons for wanting to lose weight don’t produce lasting behavior change which ultimately will result in weight loss that stays off.  Weight loss resolutions lack commitment because they often don’t mean much to the individual and lack personal relevance, ensuring that resolutions run out of steam. 

Diet culture has convinced us that weight loss is a matter of deciding on the goal, and taking specific action and you are guaranteed the promised result.  However, there are many factors that affect our ability to lose weight, many which are not within our control such as medical conditions, metabolism, gender, and certain prescription medications.  Setting a goal of losing a set number of pounds in a set time frame may not be realistic for all individuals.  Diet companies prey on our desire for an easy fix by making promises of large weight loss in a short time.  But quick weight loss only results in quick weight regain. 

Additionally, the timing of New Year’s resolution is often forced.  Why do we think January first is the best day for the decision to lose weight when there are 364 others equally available and suitable days?  We end up forcing our weight loss efforts into this predetermined window even when it may not be right for us. 

Most of us will be in the same place we started before the new year as the vast majority of New Year’s resolutions fail by February.  We’re left with feelings of failure, and frustration.  Thoughts of ‘I knew I wouldn’t lose weight’ or ‘what’s wrong with me’ float through our head.  Of course we want to avoid these feelings and thoughts altogether.

Fortunately, my client at the health club, unknowingly planted the seed in me to approach weight loss in a different way.  My dietetics practice has shifted and I now provide different strategies to promote weight loss.  I suggest we all start with throwing out the New Year’s weight loss resolution altogether.  Instead I promote setting general intentions which can be revisited throughout the year.  Here are some ideas:

*I listen to my body and trust that I know how to nourish it well.

*I prioritize my wellbeing and make time for rest.

*I appreciate the ability to move by body in a variety of ways.

These types of intentions are much more empowering, we can control them, and shift our approach related to food.  This has a positive affect on the psyche.  And guess what happens as we shift away from traditional diet strategies, and dich the New Year’s Resolution?  That’s right, weight loss.