Happy New Year!
The New Year can be a wonderful time for self-reflection and self-assessment. It can be a time to take stock, imagine, and chart courses into the future. Yet this time often comes with many pitfalls – especially where commitments toward health and well-being are concerned.
As you know, the “diet and exercise” mindset sets us up for trouble in many ways. The two troubling traps that come to mind this time of year are “The Wagon” and “Monday.”
In the diet and exercise world, we’re either “on the wagon” or off. And if we’re following a program – and then “fall off the wagon” – it is very easy to think we will “start again on Monday.”
So from that perspective, our New Year’s commitments for health and well-being really only last until we’ve made that inevitable first tumble.
But from a Happy Calories perspective it’s not black or white, all or nothing, on the wagon or off. Happy Calories is about developing a relationship with your body. There is no “program” you can “fall off.” Food and exercise are simply vehicles through which you express yourself in relationship with your body.
And when you think about weight-loss, wellness and well-being in the context of relationships, the “Monday” issue is also resolved. If you get into an argument with someone you love, do you hold grudges and “wait until Monday” to say you’re sorry and make up? Of course not!
Relationships express an on-going, moment-to-moment dynamic. And when you view your body as your partner in relationship, any moment – at any time – can bring all the energy and optimism offered by the New Year.