The new year is right round the corner and, inevitably, it brings with it an influx of detoxes, body blitzes, kick starts, shape up, slim down programs and an array of tempting supplements, skinny coffees, cleansing teas and meal replacement shakes.
This is the diet industry at its absolute peak, with it’s marketing machine working in full force. It was at this time last year that I felt most exposed, more of a loose cannon than ever and ever so slightly out on a limb.
January 2021 will not be that way. I have spent the past few months planning a revolution and I finally feel brave enough to launch it. I now know that I’m not out on a limb alone, I already have the most amazing army supporting me. But if I’m going to challenge the diet industry in the way I hope to… I need more of you. Lots, lots more of you.
I think it is natural to see the new year as a chance to start fresh. January 1st feels like the ultimate clean sheet. The diet and fitness industry has done a wonderful job of convincing us that we should do better, be better, train harder, eat cleaner. They use every trick in the book to convince us to jump onto the latest plan, to tell ourselves that this year will be different, that this year we’ll stick to it, that this plan is ‘the one’. This year coming, in particular, we are likely to see this juggernaut ramp up further because so many (if not all of us) are desperate for 2021 to be better.
Inevitably, they [the fads and diets] won’t work. Not in the long term. Not if what you are ultimately seeking is a better relationship with food and with exercise. Not if what you are really seeking is simply to feel fitter, to be healthier, and to be happier.
So many people contact me and ask whether they’re beyond help. They feel they have failed so many times that now, what’s the point? They have convinced themselves that they are a lost cause. It is for those people that I have to try and make a change.
If you have ever felt like a failure because your ‘new year, new me’ plan didn’t work out, please understand that the failure wasn’t yours. It was the plan that failed, whatever the plan might have been. It failed, you didn’t. The diet industry needs every new year blitz, detox, kick start plan to fail so that, come next January, if not sooner, you’ll be looking for another.
The media estimate that nine in ten of those who start a diet at New Year will have given up within 12 days. Please. Don’t do it. Make this year the year you refuse to comply.
I am so incredibly proud to launch WeAreFearless. It is the antithesis of diet culture. It is a community of like-minded people who have come to realise that they are much braver and more capable than they ever realised. WeAreFearless is support, it is inspiration, it is help to build a better relationship with food and it is the realisation that the success of a week should never ever be decided by the number on a scale when there are so many more important measures.
You might join WeAreFearless with a weight loss goal and that’s fine. We will encourage you to balance any goal related to the size of your body with at least one other… a goal related to an achievement, a process or a feeling. It might be to complete a ParkRun, to exercise three times per week, or to feel confident enough to take your children swimming.
I have come to realise that weight loss is rather like a magic eye picture. When you focus on it intently, desperate to view the resultant image, it becomes impossible to see. The very nature of traditional dieting leaves us obsessing over food to the extent that it often becomes all we can think about. We obsess over calories, points, syns, macros and cheat days; is it any wonder then that food becomes our undoing? Is it any wonder that we go ‘off plan’ and consume something we weren’t supposed to when food is all we’ve thought about all day?
In order to see a magic eye picture, you relax your eyes and move them away from the image, it then becomes clear. The truth is, it works just the same with weight loss, and that’s what WeAreFearless aims to do. To help you realise that the best way to achieve your goal might be to focus on it a little less intently. To step back a little, to give yourself permission to eat, to find ways to move your body which bring you joy, to set big goals and pursue exciting dreams.
WeAreFearless will provide you with a huge selection of recipes and workouts. It will also provide you with community and education. You will have my support and the support of an incredible group of people who will become your very own personal cheerleading squad. As a certified nutritionist, I will provide you with evidence-based information to help you reach your goals and there is plenty of opportunity to ask questions or schedule a personal consultation if you’d like more individual support.
31st December seemed like the perfect date to launch WeAreFearless. Not only because I personally wanted to start 2021 in a brave, positive way. But also because I desperately hope that I will be able to sway some of you away from re-joining that slimming club, from signing up to that detox plan or buying that latest wonder product.
I hope instead you’ll consider joining me. Joining us. Joining our revolution… and standing up to proclaim that you are not your weight and that you will no longer let the pursuit of a smaller body control you and your life.
We are brave. We are capable. We Are Fearless.
Laura xxx
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