MOVING WITH INTENTION

Your body isn't a train and you don't need to 'get back on track'. Ditch weight-loss traps, and redirect your energy towards a wholesome 2023, one walk at a time

- ROBYN SIMPSON

Your body doesn’t need fixing. Read that again. This year, we’re doing away with the nonsensical pressure that arises between the stroke of midnight and the start of a new year. That’s right. No crazy diets, no detoxes and no lists on ways to shed holiday weight.

The ‘get back on track’ hysteria is all too predictable. Still, we feel it deeply. Women’s bodies have been at the rotten core of subjection for ages. It’s hard to toss this internalisation to the wind. But we must try. We must ditch the discourse of the past, which always seems to weigh heavier in the month of January.

While you’ve been on vacation and caught off guard, mainstream media has been preparing for this season’s onslaught of body-shaming campaigns, locked and loaded with juice cleanses and quick-fix workout plans. As if taking a break needs to be paid for in all-consuming guilt and the caloric intake of an infant. Our frank response to it all? No.

Imagine this: new year, same you. The self-imposed pressure to reinvent what’s already perfect is given room for realisation. That is the glorious thing about bodies: They don’t need to be fixed.

If you’re still not convinced, consider the science. Fad diets and all that come with them almost always fail. They are not viable in the long term. So, when (or if) you make it to the wretched finish line, your starving, beat-up body will fight back. The lost weight is regained and then some. Or you re-enter the neverending loop of starting and failing, all while ruining your relationships with food, exercise and self. It’s exhausting.