TWV Podcast Episode 489: New Year's Resolutions and Healthy Weight

On this episode of The Whole View Podcast, Stacy and I discuss the considerations and mindset around living with a healthy weight. I discuss that my most profound lessons of this last year regarding the fact that your weight does not determine your health. In fact, you can be extremely healthy based on other habits in your life that promote health in so many ways. Not the least of which is reframing your own opinions and the conversations around weight loss. Stacy and I discuss how we have had to work on shifting our mindset on gratitude for the things our body can do, and not how it looks while doing said things.

Table of Contents[Hide][Show]

Listener Question from Beth
Key Takeaways
Recommended Reading and Listening
Citations

We also dive into our personal habits and routines around diet, movement, sleep and stress management to give some examples about how our daily choices and habits promote our health-focused lifestyle. I personally, focus very heavily on celebrating the little wins and not penalizing the bad–for instance, I celebrate that I had a long wonderful hike this morning and plan to go to bed early, instead of focusing on what dessert I had last night or that I went to bed late yesterday. We offer many strategies for setting yourself up for success including purchasing your very own high-energy dog to make sure you can keep up your active lifestyle (joking, but not really!). Finally, the biggest thing I think that has helped me with my stress and adrenal health, even with all of the lifestyle habits I use, is supplementing with vitamin C and magnesium to support my adrenals. Ultimately working on resolutions should never be about the way we look, but about how we are worthy and deserving of these healthy choices so that we can live our best healthy life.

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Listener Question from Beth

Hello to Stacy and Dr. Sarah! Thank you for all the work you both do to help keep us all in the know! I really was touched by your recent shows on weight issues. I’m not 100% there yet but I have heard you! I would love a show that is a ‘How-to’ on this topic. If our physical size is no longer a good marker, what should the goal be? How do we REALLY find a way to not care about our weight? I just feel very overwhelmed and confused after so many years of using my weight as my goal post, the one that keeps moving on me! I love the whole idea of body positivity, but how do we even start that process? What are your priorities when focusing on your health and not your weight? I think I just need to know what this looks like day to day. – Beth

Key Takeaways

Dr. Sarah and Stacy love this question because there’s so much predatory marketing this time of year! As discussed at length in episodes 471 &472, science shows that losing weight does not make you healthier. Healthy habits make you healthier!
The most popular New Year’s resolutions for 2021 were: exercising more and improving fitness (50% of participants), losing weight (48%), saving money (44%), and eating healthier (39%).
Studies show what we know intuitively: most New Year’s resolutions fail. In a 1989 study, 33% of participants gave up on their resolutions after one week, 45% gave up after one month, 57% gave up after three months, 60% gave up after six months, and 81% had given up by two years.
So, we want to encourage our listeners to think about New Year’s resolutions a bit differently: habit centered, rather than goal centered, and with a healthy mindset!
Healthy mindset starts with positive self talk, viewing our choices through the lens of nurturing and looking after ourselves. Dr. Sarah finds that taking pride in each individual good choice (rather than achieving milestones towards a goal) is super helpful.
The main priorities for Dr. Sarah and Stacy are: eating breakfast, eating a Nutrivore diet that includes tons of veggies, living an active lifestyle, getting enough sleep on a consistent basis, managing stress, and self-care.

Citations

Eric R. Spangenberg, Ioannis Kareklas, Berna Devezer, David E. Sprott. A meta-analytic synthesis of the question-behavior effect. J Consumer Psychology. 2015 Jul; 26(3):441-458 doi: 10.1016/j.jcps.2015.12.004

Larkin M. Have a healthy new year: easy to say, hard to do. Lancet. 2000 Dec 23-30;356(9248):2164. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(05)67248-0.

Norcross JC, Ratzin AC, Payne D. Ringing in the new year: the change processes and reported outcomes of resolutions. Addict Behav. 1989;14(2):205-12. doi: 10.1016/0306-4603(89)90050-6.

Norcross JC, Mrykalo MS, Blagys MD. Auld lang syne: success predictors, change processes, and self-reported outcomes of New Year’s resolvers and nonresolvers. J Clin Psychol. 2002 Apr;58(4):397-405. doi: 10.1002/jclp.1151.

Oscarsson M, Carlbring P, Andersson G, Rozental A. A large-scale experiment on New Year’s resolutions: Approach-oriented goals are more successful than avoidance-oriented goals. PLoS One. 2020 Dec 9;15(12):e0234097. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0234097.

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