The shift into a new year gives many the motivation to resolve themselves with some sort of improvement. I, along with basically everyone else, have already seen or heard women talk about how 2018 will be a new healthy start and how this year will be the year those pounds finally come off the scale instead of on. Quite frankly, it makes me incredibly disappointed.

I say disappointed because I’ve done this myself for over a decade. I’ve spent most of my life pushing the whole “new year, new me” concept centering around weight loss that would have to be visible on a scale. When I was eight years old I remember pulling at my stomach after eating Christmas dinner and telling myself that the new year would be the time for a weight change.

The key phrase there is WEIGHT CHANGE, not LIFESTYLE CHANGE. I revolved my entire sense of worth around the numbers on that forsaken bathroom scale, which led to me to doing some really horrible things to get the results I wanted for an extended amount of time. From hating my body to the point that I became disgusted to eat… to looking up stupid fad diets… to wanting to cut my hair so the number on the scale would drop – nothing was giving me those long-term results because I was focused on what the scale said was healthy vs what actually is healthy.

This is why I think that we all should revise our resolutions if they revolve around mere weight loss alone because the only thing you’ll probably wind up losing in this process your sense of self-worth.

I’m not saying that promoting a healthy change should not be a resolution. However, ladies, what should not be a resolution is fixating our worth and health standards around the number on a scale instead of the other things that go into being truly healthy that matter so much more than weight. In other words, numbers on scales don’t hold any significant value aside from being numbers on scales, especially considering that health is not limited to a numeric standard for multiple reasons.

Even if being healthy for you still means losing weight, the scale is irrelevant.

Online fitness models (you know, the models on Instagram that make us all low-key super insecure that we can’t stop looking at) show that 140 pounds of muscle look a heck of a lot better than 140 pounds of fat on the same body.

The physical aspect of being healthy is important. I mean, we all want to look good and feel good about how we look. However, the thing to remember is that losing weight the healthy way requires exercise and exercise builds muscle in place of fat, so if you’re eating clean and exercising, don’t feel your value lessen because the number on the scale goes up. Be proud you’re physically improving.

Healthy accounts for how we feel just as much as how we look.

There are a lot of outside factors that wear us down emotionally that correlate to bringing us down in other ways. If we want to truly embrace being healthy as a New Year’s resolution, we have to work on some other aspects of our lives beyond the physical.

Try cutting out the toxic relationship you may be in and the overly dramatic, messy friends that leave you questioning your value or stunting your growth as a woman. Once you do this, put whatever is promoting your growth as a person on the forefront, whether that be a job, your education, volunteering, or being a parent. Finding fulfillment by advancing in things that give your life meaning and value is one of the healthiest things you can do for yourself.

Being selfish is ironically pretty healthy as well. Go get your hair done, enjoy the mani-pedi and those jeans that you feel confident walking down the street in, and by all means live for you for a second. We all deserve to have those gratifying moments. Even being optimistic about yourself and your life will lead to a healthier you. If you’re unhappy with your number on a scale, you shouldn’t fixate on that. Focus on your positive qualities and traits. Who cares if you’re 15 pounds overweight when you’re a dedicated worker with a kind heart and stunning eyes.

Give yourself a break from time to time and learn to love your own company. Stop being so hard on yourself and stressing yourself out. Those negative feelings are a toxin to happiness, so take a trip alone to unwind or isolate yourself for a while. Sometimes I take days to myself and it makes all the difference in the world on my attitude and how I feel inside and out.

We as women have to remember that being healthy is as much of growth in mindset as it is a change in our physical state of being.

We’re human. We all mess up from time to time and we all have moments of weakness. However, we also all grow and change at different rates, which is why I say that we all should find our own form of healthy and happy that has nothing to do with a simple number on a scale. Instead, we should focus on how we feel as women who are growing, elaborate, and worthy.

Ladies, instead of saying “my New Year’s resolution is to lose X pounds” let’s try saying “my New Year’s resolution is to get healthy”. Once we make this step, we can spend 2018 focusing what being healthy truly means for each one of us.
As cliché of a notion as it seems, what we feel on the inside really does matter more than what is represented outward, especially when it comes to the standards of how we should determine our worth and our value as women in both our society and as individuals.