What if our New Year's resolutions didn't suck?

On Sunday night our community group got met for the first time in 2014. As most people tend to do when congregating for the first time since the ball dropped, our conversation turned to goals and resolutions for the upcoming 365days -- make that 353.

Our group is made up of married couples ranging in age from mid-20's to mid-50's. Some have kids, some don't. Some have been married for decades, some only months. So you would think our New Year's resolutions would be as varied as the people in the room.

But they weren't.

Everyone said they needed to eat better, exercise more, and lose weight.

Before you start throwing statistics at me that 99% of the country is obese and 97% of us need to eat less bacon and exercise more, let me just stop you right there and agree. Healthy eating is a good thing. Exercising is a good thing.  Bacon is a good thing and no amount of research is going to change my mind on that.

Photo Courtesy of  Laurel Fan

But hear me out.  In addition to Sunday night's meeting, I've hung out with no less than four other women since the New Year started (yeah, I have friends!  Okay, mostly they are relatives,) who have said exactly the same thing.  They need to lose weight.

And I'm right there with them.  In fact, I have a line of supplements on my counter right now that I started for that exact purpose.  And I can tell myself it is because my cholesterol is creeping higher than I'd like, but if I'm honest it is because my thighs are creeping wider than I'd like.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to lose some weight.  Nothing at all.  Nothing wrong with looking in the mirror and saying, "Dang, that's one sexy woman!"  But here's the thing, sitting in that community group on Sunday and hanging out with my family and friends these last couple of weeks,  all I have seen are a group of incredibly beautiful women.  The irony being that the only woman I ever see that I think needs to lose weight is me.  And I'd bet that every other woman in the room feels exactly the same way.

I have a nine year old daughter. Somehow she got a recessive gene for long skinny legs, so right now I have to cinch her pants as tight as I can.  But someday she might hit an awkward stage where she hates her body. Who knows, she might hate being tall and skinny (imagine that!). How can I possibly tell her she should love her body no matter what when she constantly hears me telling myself how much I hate mine?  

I think maybe our New Year's resolution to lose weight doesn't suck because we are eating rice cakes while everyone else is eating brownies.

I think it sucks because we are trying to lose weight to feel good about ourselves when what we really want to resolve is to feel good about ourselves no matter how much we weigh.