Body Positive New Year’s Resolutions: The Complete Resource Guide
Depending on your personality and life commitments, the turning of the year may be a time for deep peace and reflection or a wild whirl of parties and celebrations. But as New Year’s Day approaches, many of us are becoming more aware of the day’s ever-present accompaniment:
Resolutions.
New Year’s resolutions are by their very nature intended to improve us. (After all, you don’t hear many people saying “My New Year’s resolution is to keep being my awesome self. Yup.”) Resolutions can be used to uplift us, to challenge us, and to set and achieve goals. But unfortunately, they can also be used to beat ourselves and each other up, to fill us with shame, and — by unscrupulous people and companies — to manipulate us into buying more stuff to try to fill that achievement gap.
The classic New Year’s resolution is, of course, weight loss, in the form of gym memberships and new (or repeated) diets. But we know that intentional weight loss– whether you call it a diet, a lifestyle change, keto, clean eating, yoga for weight loss, Whole30, or anything else — doesn’t work in the long term.
So if weight loss doesn’t work in the long term, what are we supposed to replace it with? What about our friends and family who are all excited to get back to the gym or start on that lifestyle change that’s really going to work this time? How are we supposed to navigate all this while still being able to participate in the fun of New Year’s resolutions in a body-positive way?
From ditching diets to replacing unachievable goals, here’s your complete guide to a positive new year and to setting resolutions that are healthy both mentally and physically.
Quick Support: Body Positive New Year’s Quotes
“Instead of focusing on what you feel you need to fix or something you hate about yourself, how about making a resolution to do something that helps you love yourself? Maybe something fun, like go dance once a week or take a drawing class or learn to knit or play the piano or learn to code so you can make your own badass app. Something — anything — that helps you realize that focusing on what makes you feel joy is way more fulfilling than resolving to torture and starve your body because you hate it.” » Lindsey Averill
“New Year’s resolutions are bullshit. Why not choose goals that are not only more attainable, but also more beneficial? Commit to being honest and kind to everyone — including yourself — every day, not just the first few weeks of January. Promise yourself more belly laughs [next year]. More pleasure. More love. Your weight is not your worth.” » Substantia Jones
“If you want to make a resolution, resolve to find peace with your body exactly as it is.” » Pia Schiavo-Campo
“Remember this: You’re absolutely perfect and valuable just the way you are (yes, I’m serious) and making goals from a place of knowing your self-worth is a surefire way to ensure next year is a year to remember and love.” » Jes Baker
“This year, instead of focusing on being less, let’s focus on being more. Resolve to have more gratitude for everything your body does for you.
Take up more space in the world. Speak up more about things that are important to you. Do more joyful movement. Eat more delicious food that nourishes you.
This year, instead of trying for to create a ‘new you,’ resolve to take the old you out for a spin. I think you’ll find that she’s pretty spectacular.” » Ragen Chastain
“My yearly reminder: There is no resolution that, if kept, will make me more worthy to be loved.” » Nadia Bolz-Weber (h/t Carmen Cool)
Deeper Resources
Rewriting Your Body Image Story. What if you could change your life without changing your body this New Year? Experts Jennifer Rollin and Colleen Reichmann have created a training to help you find freedom from body image issues. Learn more about this course at The Eating Disorder Center »
10 Reasons Not to Focus on Weight in the New Year. “Every year, as January approaches, the siren song of the dieting and cosmetic fitness industries are at their loudest. People working to heal their relationship with food and body can feel tempted by all of these hope-filled commercials that say, “it can be different this time.” Few of us are immune. So we thought we’d share 10 reasons NOT to focus on your weight this year.” Read more from Be Nourished »
New Year’s Revolutions. “A major step in my own body positive journey was relinquishing the control that New Year’s Resolutions had over me. They were often filled with shame – promising to make changes to “better myself,” specifically my body, in some way that felt forced upon me by society instead of some way I personally wanted to grow.” Read more from Amy Pence-Brown »
Reassess Your Values in the New Year to Make Peace with Food. ” Finding different approaches to health, that are in line with your values, can help you get off the vicious cycle of diets that fail, and on to the path of recovery from chronic dieting and/or disordered eating.” Read more from Erica Leon »
Banning soda, sugary cereal or ice cream for your kids may not be the best strategy. “As a new year begins, I hear many of the typical restrictive resolutions: I will give up gluten, cut sugar, never drink again. Does restriction actually work? The answer is no.” Read more from the Washington Post »
“It’s scary to opt out of the typical dieting = enoughness narrative we’ve been force fed our entire lives.
Your peace is worth trying something different. Your peace is worth smashing the the old narrative and creating your own. One that reconnects you to your body, to yourself, to meaning that extends far beyond how your body shows up to the world.” Read more from Sarah Herstich »
Food Psych #179: How to Avoid Falling for the Wellness Diet This Year. How to keep from falling prey to diet culture, the problem with Whole30 and other forms of The Wellness Diet, why true well-being is about so much more than food and movement, a quick way to tell if your “lifestyle change” is really a diet, why eating-disorder diagnoses are often problematic, and so much more. Listen at Food Psych »
The Diet Industry- Your Drunk, Booty Calling Ex. The New Year is approaching and here’s the Diet Industry drunk and crying, calling, texting, e-mailing, sliding into your DMs, trying to convince you that it has changed (Now it’s going by its initials instead of its name! It’s a whole new person!) and it can give you everything you ever wanted if you just come back baby, please, just one more chance. Read more from Ragen Chastain »
“I will disagree with food and body-shamers this year.” Read more from Isabel Foxen Duke »
New Year, Nude You: Celebrating Plus-Size Bodies. “But what about those of us who are content in our bodies, or want to be happy and content simply as who we are? This week, we embrace “New Year, NUDE You” and celebrate bigger bodies and their resilience and beauty.” Read more from Ravishly »
Next Year, Let Go Of The People Who Aren’t Ready To Love You. “It is the hardest thing you will ever have to do, and it will also be the most important: stop giving your love to those who aren’t ready to love you.” Read more from Brianna West »
Dealing With Diet Season. “It’s New Years – part of the Diet Industry Axis of Evil (which also includes “bikini season” and “the holidays are coming.”) That means that you can’t open your eyes without being assaulted by diet industry propaganda, and your Facebook feed will be chock full of people (who you likely thought knew better) starting (yet another) diet. Ugh.” Read more from Dances with Fat »
Whatever this year transition might mean to you, may you offer yourself kindness.
May you remember the ways in which you’ve grown.
May you honor the passing of time.
May you thank yourself for being your own home.
May you hold space for all you’ve carried yourself through.
May you let go of societal expectations and live proudly.
May you recognize how far you’ve already come.
May you be your own compass.
May you keep showing up, even when it’s hard.
May you hold space for all the places you have yet to go,
and may you hold trust that you will get there. Read more from Lisa Olivera »
The Burnt Toast Guide to Surviving January “New Year’s Resolutions have been around for about 4,000 years but for most of that time, it was just people pledging loyalty to a monarch, praying to a vengeful god, or promising to pay off debts and plant more crops. Sometime around the late 18th century, we began resolving to work harder, earn more money, and be better, less sinful people. And as modern diet culture became its own religion, Resolution Culture has become all about self-improvement—namely in terms of weight loss goals, of course, but also hydration goals, exercise goals, skincare goals, home organization goals—pantry makeover content is also on the rise!—and so on.” Listen on Burnt Toast »
You don’t need to feel guilty for what you ate this week. If you want to detox: drink water, eat food, let your organs do the rest. Read more from Heather Mae »
Non-Diet New Year’s Resolutions. “Here are some ideas to kick of the New Year by ditching dieting and creating a revolution in your own life, and ideas for resolutions that will take the revolution to the streets.” Read more from Ragen Chastain »
Before you change your eating again “As we enter January, what we at Find Your Food Voice call, International Dieting Month, join Julie for a guided meditation and reflection exercise to help you get through this month and all the diet BS that comes along with it.” Listen at Find Your Food Voice »
What you really mean when you write ‘lose weight’ on your New Years Resolutions list. “Sometimes we need to take concepts loaded with history and layers of social meaning and unpack them before we use them – or if we even use them at all! ‘Lose weight’ is one of those concepts along with ‘get in shape’, ‘get healthy’, ‘get fit’, and they’re usually all mixed in with one another. New Years Resolutions are filled with all kinds of vague and loaded health-related aims that almost seem like they ‘should just be’ on the list without question.”
February And Your Resolutions Are Already History? What To Do Now. “The big problem with the resolutions flame out is how often it discourages people from trying to make positive life changes, and that’s a shame. Instead of heading down a resolutions shame spiral that lasts until next year, let’s regroup and do this in a way that makes sense.” Read more from Ravishly »
What Works for You?
Have your own sanity-saving resolution-setting tips to share? Are there links I should add to this list? Drop your wisdom in the Body Liberation Blanket Fort, bright stars.
Hi there! I'm Lindley. I create artwork that celebrates the unique beauty of bodies that fall outside conventional "beauty" standards at Body Liberation Photography. I'm also the creator of Body Liberation Stock and the Body Love Shop, a curated central resource for body-friendly artwork and products. Find all my work here at bodyliberationphotos.com.
