Joyful January

Let’s Make January Joyful

The start of a new year can bring with it a mixture of feelings such as nostalgia for the year just gone and a renewed sense of hope that comes with a fresh start.

Along with all of this comes a myriad of advertising and marketing messages using the slogan “New Year, New You.” All kinds of products and companies pop up, trying to sell you the thing that is going to finally create the “you” that you’ve always dreamed of being, turning your hope for a fresh start into a frenzied attempt to erase anything you don’t like about yourself and replace it with a new and improved version.

But what if you start this year differently? What if you started by recognising that life can be hard enough without adding a layer of self-loathing that your body is not good enough? What if you decided to move your body in a way that makes your heart feel happy and your head feel clear rather than as punishment for enjoying too much cheese over Christmas? What if instead of working on a socially acceptable bikini body, you worked on finding the joy in movement and appreciating your amazing body for what it can do, rather than what it looks like?

Whatever your goal, we want you to enjoy the journey of reaching it while discovering the benefits of exercise outside of the number on the scale or the size label in your clothes.

What is Body Acceptance and how do I achieve it?

This is a big topic, which is almost impossible to unpack in one podcast or blog post, but learning about how to accept your body for what it does rather than how it looks is one of the most empowering things you can do.

In order to start accepting your body, you must disconnect from the ingrained mind-set which has been repeatedly sold to us by diet culture. Diet culture bases itself around the idea that thinness equals health, worthiness and a moral value and that everybody, especially those in naturally bigger bodies, should pursue thinness at any cost.

Body acceptance promotes the idea that we are worthy because we exist, and if we can learn to engage with our bodies from a functionality perspective then we will feel more empowered and happier in our skin, and we can learn that our bodies deserve respect and care no matter our size or weight.