Unpacking Body Composition Lingo

The good and bad news about New Year’s resolutions

Those of us who make plans to get in better shape, lose weight, stop putting off that career move, or any other major life change we’ve been thinking of making are more likely to achieve that goal if we commit to such changes at the beginning of the year than at any other time on the calendar. While some New Year’s resolutions succeed, many—some say the majority of—resolutions fail. But the bad news is that by the end of February, it is estimated that 80 percent of New Year’s resolutions have been abandoned.¹

The challenge of making changes

There’s one main underlying reason why our best intentions fall apart: We are unrealistically tough on ourselves. We struggle with unrealistic standards of appearance and beauty propagated by social media. We place a lot of pressure and faith on our willpower to carry the weight of the goals we set, even when we suspect that we are setting ourselves up to fail. Here’s the thing about making challenging life changes: If making changes were as easy as resolving to change, we probably would have already done it.

Changing the way, we treat ourselves.

The real challenge in making change is to shift the way we treat ourselves. When we treat ourselves well, rather than struggle under the weight of harsh restrictions, unsustainable goals, and relentless self-scrutiny, we show up for ourselves by factoring our well-being into the equation of our lives. We take care of our precious — and limited — supplies of time and energy and create healthy and life-sustaining routines and boundaries that support our dreams and goals, no matter how ambitious or elaborate.

Five steps to enhancing your self-care.

1. Make quality a priority in your life. Quality food, rest, and time to connect with friends and family feed, repair, and restore the body, mind, and spirit.
2. Pay attention to your thoughts. Challenge negative self-talk, fears, and feelings of inadequacy.
3. Be as nice to yourself as you are to others. We’re often our harshest critics and most relentless worst enemies.
4. Start saying no to requests to help others when you are running on empty or don’t have the time to take care of your own needs.
5. Try to do one nice thing for yourself every day. Do something that makes you happy and allows you to reconnect with yourself, every day. Try to connect with yourself every single day.



Wishing you and yours a healthy, happy, and fulfilling new year!