Set Body-Positive Resolutions for the New Year: Embrace Self-Care and Self-Love
As the New Year approaches, many of us find ourselves caught in the cycle of setting resolutions that revolve around dieting, weight loss, or drastic changes to our appearance. While these resolutions are often well-intentioned, they can reinforce negative feelings about our bodies and lead to a focus on external standards rather than true well-being. This year, what if you tried something different? Instead of resolutions that shrink, restrict, or punish, let’s explore body-positive resolutions that celebrate, nurture, and care for the body you have right now.
1. Prioritize Self-Care Over Self-Improvement
The New Year is often seen as a time for self-improvement, but what if you shifted the focus to self-care? Rather than setting goals that require you to change your body or push it to its limits, consider resolutions that prioritize rest, relaxation, and rejuvenation. Self-care is not a luxury; it’s a necessity for physical, mental, and emotional well-being.
Body-Positive Self-Care Resolutions:
Commit to Regular Rest: Make sleep a priority by setting a regular bedtime and creating a calming pre-sleep routine.
Indulge in Relaxation: Schedule time each week for activities that help you unwind, such as reading, taking a bath, or practising meditation.
Listen to Your Body: Tune into your body’s signals and honour its need for rest, nourishment, and movement.
2. Embrace Joyful Movement
Exercise is often framed as a means to an end—specifically, weight loss or body transformation. But movement can and should be about joy, not just results. This year, resolve to move your body in ways that feel good, energize you, and bring you happiness. Joyful movement is about finding activities you love rather than forcing yourself through workouts you dread.
Body-Positive Movement Resolutions:
Find Activities You Love: Experiment with different forms of movement, from dancing and swimming to hiking and yoga, to discover what brings you joy.
Move for Fun, Not Punishment: Let go of the “no pain, no gain” mentality and embrace movement as a way to connect with your body, relieve stress, and boost your mood.
Honor Your Body’s Needs: Some days, gentle stretching or a walk might be all your body needs. On other days, you might crave something more vigorous. Listen to what your body is asking for.
3. Nourish Your Body with Intuitive Eating
Instead of jumping on the latest diet bandwagon, consider making a resolution to nourish your body with intuitive eating. Intuitive eating is about trusting your body’s hunger and fullness cues, enjoying a variety of foods without guilt, and letting go of restrictive dieting rules. It’s a way to build a healthier, more positive relationship with food and your body.
Body-Positive Eating Resolutions:
Ditch Diets for Good: Resolve to say goodbye to diets and hello to intuitive eating. Trust that your body knows what it needs.
Savour Your Food: Make mealtime an opportunity to fully enjoy your food without distractions or guilt.
Honour Your Hunger: Feed your body when it’s hungry, and stop when you’re satisfied. Your body’s cues are there to guide you.
“I hate my body, I hate being seen in swimwear on holiday and I avoid exercising in public. I don’t feel comfortable in anything I wear. I have clothes in my wardrobe which I’m hoping to slim into… they’ve been there for 15 years. I usually wear something baggy to cover up my body.”
Does this sound like you?
This coaching workbook is designed to help you move from a place of hating your body, to a place of respecting and accepting your body, while also recognising that you are so much more than your appearance.
After completing the coaching exercises your body image will no longer hold you back from the parts of life you've been missing out on.
This workbook is split into three parts of coaching exercises:
1. Body Neutrality - Shifting your focus away from your physical appearance and onto the other parts of what makes you, you.
2. Body Acceptance – Learning how to show your body respect and compassion and reach a place of peaceful acceptance with it.
3. Body Confidence – Reaching the stage where we don’t let our appearance or, more accurately, the thoughts we have about our appearance, hold us back from enjoying the life we want.
//UPDATED - June 2021 // My bestselling workbook has now been expanded to include more coaching exercises and information to help you heal your body image!
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Your purchase is a digitally fillable pdf, which you can complete using your computer :)
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About the Author & Store Owner:
Karen Lynne Oliver, BA, MA, is the Founder of Beyond The Bathroom Scale®, a hub of self-help resources to aid with recovery from disordered eating and body image. Karen is also the Programme Director of The Health Mindset Programme™, a 6-month online self-help programme for anyone who wants to improve their body image and relationship with food.
Karen has had articles published in on HuffPost UK and has been featured in The Metro and Cosmopolitan Magazine. Her award-winning blog and coaching programme is based on the Health at Every Size ® approach to health and draws on the principals of Intuitive Eating, the Body Positivity movement, Motivational Interviewing (MI), Positive Psychology and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), in order to help busy women tackle disordered eating, overcome emotional eating and recover from long-term dieting via a holistic, research-led online coaching programme.
A former Social Worker, Karen comes from an academic background of Psychology and Sociology. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology, specialising in health and society and a master’s degree in Social Work. She has trained in Counselling skills and Psychotherapy-based approaches such as CBT, DBT and Motivational Interviewing.
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4. Celebrate Your Body’s Strengths
This year, instead of focusing on what you want to change about your body, celebrate what it can do. Our bodies are incredibly resilient and capable, and they deserve our appreciation. Make a resolution to practice gratitude for your body’s strengths and abilities.
Body-Positive Gratitude Resolutions:
Keep a Gratitude Journal: Each day, write down one thing you’re grateful for about your body, whether it’s your strong legs that carry you through the day or your hands that allow you to create and connect.
Practice Positive Affirmations: Replace negative self-talk with positive affirmations that celebrate your body, such as “My body is strong and capable” or “I honour my body’s wisdom.”
Share the Love: Compliment yourself and others on qualities that have nothing to do with appearance. Celebrate kindness, creativity, strength, and resilience.
5. Set Boundaries Around Body Talk
The New Year often brings an influx of conversations about dieting, weight loss, and body changes. While it’s natural for these topics to come up, they can be triggering and unhelpful, especially when you’re working on body positivity. This year, resolve to set boundaries around body talk, both with yourself and others.
Body-Positive Boundary Resolutions:
Limit Exposure to Diet Culture: Unfollow social media accounts that promote dieting or unrealistic body standards, and surround yourself with positive, body-affirming content instead.
Set Boundaries in Conversations: If someone starts talking about diets or body changes, it’s okay to politely steer the conversation in a different direction or express that you’re not interested in discussing those topics.
Speak Kindly to Yourself: Notice when negative self-talk arises, and consciously replace it with words of kindness and compassion.
Nurture a Positive Body Image with Our Body Image Course
As you set your body-positive resolutions for the New Year, remember that you don’t have to go it alone. Our Body Image Course is here to support you on your journey to a healthier, more loving relationship with your body. This course offers practical tools, expert guidance, and a supportive community to help you build a positive and empowering relationship with your body—no matter where you’re starting from.
In the Body Image Course, You’ll Learn How To:
Challenge Negative Body Talk: Transform harmful thoughts and beliefs into positive, affirming ones.
Develop a Compassionate Mindset: Cultivate self-compassion and kindness toward your body.
Embrace Your Unique Beauty: Celebrate your body’s uniqueness and strength, and learn to see yourself through a lens of love and acceptance.
This New Year, choose resolutions that uplift and empower you. By focusing on self-care, joyful movement, intuitive eating, and positive body image, you can set resolutions that truly support your well-being and help you start the New Year with a sense of empowerment and self-love. Here’s to a year of nurturing the body you have—because you deserve it.
Join our Body Image course to explore body acceptance and positive self-view. This video-based course includes CBT worksheets covering topics like body shaming, self-respect, media detox, and the body positivity movement.
