New Year, Restrictions are OUT, and Self-Care is IN in 2025

To make the jump from "I hope this is the year" to "Last year was the year and this year it will continue" is such a relief.

Like so many who have lived a life surrounded by diet culture and pressure from friends and family members, I have promised myself and those around me on more January 1s than I can count... that this year would be THE YEAR that I'd lose the weight. What I didn't know is that what I actually had to do was change my relationship with food, and "just losing the weight" wasn't entirely in my control. January 1 wasn't going to magically bring will power, when the problem was never will power to begin with.

Seeing as my relationship with food is much healthier than it was on January 1, 2024, I'm starting off 2025 with a lot more optimism that I did a year ago. Over the course of the holiday season, it made me feel so sad to see how many women, on the Wegovy Facebook groups I'm part of, freak out over eating Christmas cookies.

News flash: Restricting goes on the "OUT" list in 2025. There is no way that anyone can expect to have a healthy relationship with food, and sustain weight loss, if Christmas cookies are prohibited. When you experience food noise to the degree that I once did, restricting any one food is not going to work -- it won't be long before you feel as though you're in, what I've always called, Food Jail. And then, you will inevitably find yourself in the midst of Food Prison Break.

Wegovy, and other GLP-1 medications, allow for us to have less Christmas cookies than we did in the past, and be OKAY. You bet I ate cookies throughout the season, and you can also bet that I still have cookies in our apartment because I did not feel as though I needed to inhale an entire tin of cookies in one sitting. I am able to sit in the den and write with cookies in the kitchen -- when I only had a piece of cookie after dinner. Let me repeat: PIECE OF COOKIE, not COOKIES. I've been on Wegovy for seven and a half months, and the fact that I'm not thinking about the cookies still hasn't gotten old.

Now that I've covered why restricting food is OUT, what is IN in 2025?

• Self-care, relaxing, and finding out what that looks like for me (still working on that).

• Understanding the difference between restricting, and avoiding foods that aren't good for your individual body. I did eat some fried calamari on Christmas Eve, and I had an acid reflux episode for the first time in months. Choosing not to eat fried calamari when a friend ordered it at dinner a few nights later is not the same action as restricting; it is avoiding food that doesn't make me feel good. Food that doesn't make ME feel good might be fine for you! And food that doesn't make you feel good might be fine for me -- this line is not me telling you to stop eating fried calamari if it doesn't make you feel bad.

• Believing in myself and my ability to eat the food I want to eat in moderation.

• Not comparing myself to peers on GLP-1 medications and wondering why so-and-so lost more weight than I did when so-and-so started around the same time as I did (also still working on this one).

• Celebrating the NSVs!

• Using the storied birthday treadmill (my husband did SO GOOD)!

• Avoiding the diet culture commercials that are on 24/7 at this time of year! Those commercials are not real life. If this isn't THE YEAR, it isn't your fault.

Happy New Year! The best is yet to come in 2025.