Every year millions of people gorge themselves through the holiday season and have one last hur-ah on New Years Eve, with the same words on their mind: “This year I’m gonna get fit!” And yes, I am one of those millions of people. I am an athlete so I am already working out 99% of the week, but apparently when you get Taco Bell every other day they cancel each other out. Shocking! But here’s the thing about resolutions: they don’t work.
Not only do they not work, they can be damaging, specifically if your resolution is in the “Weight Loss – Get Fit – Get Healthy” category. In the last two weeks, I have really realized how toxic this nation wide idea of “bettering” yourself really is. It started with a tweet from Rosianna Halse Rojas (@papertimelady) on January 9, “So done with January diet bullshit. I’m going to run kms to stand strong in my space on this planet, not make myself invisible.” This is one of those tweets that I thought was super poignant… and then continued to scroll until I found something funny I could retweet. But it stayed stored in the back of my brain.
A little more about my journey so far this year, I am a varsity volleyball player in her off-season, which means we’re not really touching any volleyballs but we sure are touching the medicine balls. We have workouts four days a week, open gyms scattered throughout, and a Wednesday night bar league where we play 40-year-old women who really miss their glory days. For my personal goals, I have added a “21-Day Yoga Challenge” and I have specifically given myself the goal of one trip to fast food a week, so my fridge is full of LeanCousines. Moral of the story: I’m working out a lot and craving a $5 Box every second of the day. Also, I was in Australia the first week of the new year, where everyone is gorgeous and seem to live a generally healthier lifestyle.
But as soon as I got back – when I saw Rosianna’s tweet – I really started to realize how badly America has used the idea of getting healthy to both make money and make people do some pretty unhealthy things. For example, every store I went into when I came back to the states had posters screaming at me: “NEW YEAR NEW YOU!!!”, Target had a display in every section to show off their $50 yoga blocks, and Instagramer’s flaunt their abs and Flat Tummy Tea. I laughed out loud at how ridiculous 24-hour Fitness looked with their windows painted neon orange with deals.
And I laughed and kept laughing until that night when it was 11:30 and we remembered it was Free Pie Wednesday at Village inn, where I inhaled my chocolate silk pie after my California Skillet. And the laughing continued, about how much my friends and I ate. And we drove home. And then I started to feel like shit. “You were doing so well! You worked out a ton today! You were eating so healthy! Why did you do this?!” Shower thoughts are so important, because when I stepped into the shower was when that tweet crawled its way from the back of my mind and helped me see the light. “You worked out so much today! You ate so healthy, but it wasn’t enough! You were hungry, you probably needed the nutrients! You are healthy!”
I had a single moment of clarity that not many have. We as a community, as a nation, need to realize that health is not determined by your waist size. We also need to realize that health is not a resolution, but a lifestyle. The mentality that goes into the weight loss industry is toxic, sometimes causing mental illnesses in the form of eating disorders or over exercising. “Health” has turned into a money making enterprise and continues to grow with new concoctions and powders to add to your daily regimine.
As for me, I need to realize the inevitable: Taco Bell is too close to my apartment to ignore.