Should We Be Dieting for the New Year?
New year, new me? Why we need to stop putting so much pressure on a New year’s resolution diet.
Whatever the reason be it environmental or health, or most commonly weight loss, thousands of us every year try to adopt a new diet in the new year.
In 2015 The Guardian said: “A fair share of Brits looking with guilt at their indulgence over the festive season will start the new year hoping to be a little healthier.”
It’s great that people are looking to try and become healthier but when there is a focus and pressure on losing weight it’s arguably not healthy for us at all: “Focusing just on weight loss can lead to cycles of losing and regaining weight, lower self-esteem, and a preoccupation with food and body image” says WebMD.
But from the year that we have embraced our ‘lockdown podge’ and recognised the importance of body positivity, we need to look beyond guilt enthused diets that focus on weight loss.
Carol Landau, Ph.D. professor of psychiatry and medicine at Brown university instead suggests to focus on wellness rather than weight loss. She says, “You’ll do better if you have goals that have to do not with weight, but with health.”
But what about those who aren’t looking at a New Year’s diet from a weight loss point of view?
As a society we are becoming more and more aware to the damage the meat industry has on our environment and further alert to the ways in which we can adopt a more plant-based diet.
In fact, The Guardian revealed; “A record 500,000 people have signed up to the Veganuary challenge to eat only plant-based foods for a month. The milestone is double the number who pledged to go vegan for January in 2019.”
For the past few years, I decided to give the Veganuary challenge a go.
I was a keen vegetarian beforehand -and have been since I was the mere age of eight after learning that ham actually came off the dead body of a pig - which arguably makes it easier as I was used to using meat-based alternatives, I just had to check the ingredients a little more thoroughly to ensure they contain no pesky bits of dairy.
I enjoyed the challenge to find alternatives, as well as proving to myself I could abstain from my two true loves for an entire month (dairy cheese and chocolate of course).
At the conclusion of January, I allowed myself the luxuries of said dairy cheese and chocolate again, but was inspired to continue reducing my consumption of dairy in my ‘typical’ vegetarian diet.
The Veganuary month encouraged me to adopt healthy habits, like using alternative milks like soya and opting for the vegan choice on the menu, that I knew primarily was better in reducing my footprint on the environment but also better for my body.
You don’t have to go vegan for this method to work, using meat alternatives that are fish, milk or plant based works the same to reducing your meat intake.
Outstandingly it is predicted that “13 million Brits will be meat-free by the end of the year”.
Obviously not all of those 13 million are going vegan, but instead those who were (until the New Year arrived) carnivores are taking the opportunity to give a vegetarianism or a pescatarian, or a vegan diet a go.
Before the new year that figures showed that 7.2 million Brits followed a meat-free diet. This means that “86% of the population currently eat meat in their diets. Of the non-meat diets, the vegetarian diet is the most common (6%), followed by the pescatarian diet (5%) and then the vegan diet (3%)”.
Even though it is great to see thousands of people adapting their diets with the intention of saving our environment as well as making themselves feel healthier, for some going completely ‘cold turkey’ (excuse the pun) on previous dietary habits can be overwhelming and incredibly challenging.
“Nine out of ten (87 per cent) will break their new healthy eating habits as soon [by the] 12 January” reveals the Independent new.
So how do we stop it?
Setting up for the challenge is a good, but if you’re finding the transition hard to do then cut yourself some slack and try gradually building up to it as a goal for the end of the year.
Ditch the Friday steak and have a fish fillet or a Quorn meat free one instead.
When I did Veganuary the first time I’d already spent the previous few months doing a day a week vegan so I knew what alternatives I liked and had found recipes I knew I’d want to come back to that made my challenge of doing vegan for a month so much easier!
You can adopt this method to your new vegetarian or pescatarian diet too.
Slowly these small changes made over the course of a year will build up and your diet will have changed.
Having a whole 12 months to work towards your new environmentally and health friendly goal sounds much more achievable right?
Besides, making small changes like having one less meal with meat a week truly makes a difference on our impact to the environment: “Eating Vegan Once a Week Can Reduce Greenhouse Gases by 8.4% per Year.”
So don’t load the pressure on at the start of the year, instead work at it.
Even Healthy.com agrees that; “It’ll be more manageable and still make a big impact in the long run”.
Set your end of year environmental and better health diet goal and take it easy, you’ll get there without it even feeling like a challenge.
New year, New goals.
Written by Abi Purvis
Hi, I’m Abi. I’m a freelance writer, as well as a hiker, climber and an environmentally minded individual. I also have my own lifestyle blog and Instagram. Since graduating I am Duolingo obsessed and have an 105 day streak learning French.