Dear January 2021: Please Stop With The Weight Loss Advertisements

t’s January of a New Year and you know what that means? Ads that are targeted at us to remind us that this is the year for losing! Lose weight, lose that “stubborn belly fat”, lose your cellulite, your stretch marks, and your inner thigh fat. Lose everything that is inherently normal and inherently human about your body. It’s time to get ready for that summer beach bod because the body you were born with and the body that has been surviving through a life-changing pandemic is clearly not good enough to be in a bikini.
Dear 2021: We’ve just been through the year 2020, the year that has felt like 30 years combined; a pandemic; a social justice uprising; a tyrannical monster who was somehow elected to be in charge of the United States; the year of COVID-19; government shutdowns; the year that the United States Government gave us the equivalent of $5.90 a day to make it through ten months of joblessness and all-around uncertainty. So, instead of piling weight loss advice onto us, on top of all of that, can we just take a break?

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Every year we are expected to begin the year by wanting to look different, be different, finally have our dream body, and every year the weight loss industry gains literally billions of dollars because they are betting on us hating ourselves. This year, let’s move past all of the nonsense, all of the January 2021 advertisements that tell us that we are not good enough and make the beginning of the year about gaining instead of losing.
Here are some things I recommend gaining in the New Year, please feel free to add to this list or even make your own:
Self-confidence, self-love, self-acceptance, and self-reliance. Forget needing to change in order to love yourself, begin by simply thanking yourself for making it through an unimaginable, hellish, dystopian nightmare of a year, and let’s go from there. Your body has done incredible things, you’re alive, appreciate that because that in itself is remarkable considering the times.
New, healthy habits. No, I’m not talking about trading your meals for green smoothies, I’m talking about creating habits that help you be a better you. For example, I plan to continue my yoga training and continue to work on my meditation. These two things help me start the day positively and I cannot recommend them enough.
Knowledge. Pure and simple. Read more, do more, learn more. This year I am re-learning Spanish, I plan to read far more books than I did last year, and I plan to hopefully finish two books by the end of the year. These are my goals, they do not at all need to be yours, but you can learn from them and create your own, new goals, focussed on gaining more knowledge.
An appreciation of who you are, where you’ve been, and what you’ll do next. Everybody is constantly so hard on themselves, this year, appreciate yourself. Appreciate your body for what it does for you every day. Appreciate your mind. You’re an incredible human capable of great things, you can begin doing by beginning to appreciate yourself.
So, this year, the year 2021, let’s begin by avoiding all of the weird, horrible, invasive targetted ads and replace them with love, knowledge, growth, and appreciation of ourselves, our bodies, and each other. By accepting yourself and appreciating yourself you can begin to help others and make a positive change in the lives of the many people whom you encounter on a day-to-day basis. Believe me, you’re not going to look back on the past year and think about all of the weight you’ve gained or lost, you’re going to look back on growth and what you’ve been able to achieve.
Begin by asking yourself what you can gain this year instead of lose and go from there, together I believe we can all gain a wealth of love and appreciation of both ourselves and our bodies and also of one another. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of constantly thinking about my body, this year I simply want to exist in it, be proud of it, and appreciate it for allowing me to live through another year on this beautiful, awful, planet.
Together we can make a change but we must change ourselves first. Positively and with love, focussed on growth instead of loss, with patience and kindness, and with grace and understanding.
Happy New Year, 2021; now stop with the negativity already.