The top 5 things you should quit to improve your wellness

New Year brings a renewed focus on health goals, and unfortunately so many people feel like they need to quit foods to achieve improved wellness. Over the past few days I’ve heard people saying they’ll quit alcohol, sugar, bread, dairy, gluten… You don’t need to quit these things to be healthy.

A great majority of wellness messages in the media focus on what we need to cut out in order to be healthy. More and more foods are being heralded as the most important thing to quit if you’re going to achieve longevity, happiness, success and the validation of everyone around you.

You don’t need to quit the food you love in order to be happy and healthy. And how you eat does not determine your worth as a person.

Here’s my top 5 things you should think about quitting instead:

#1: Guilt

Try to let go of feeling bad about food, exercise and your body. Food is morally neutral and neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad’. You can enjoy all foods and still be healthy. Learn instead about mindful or intuitive eating, and a non-diet approach to eating. Similarly let go of feeling bad about inactivity. Try to move most days doing activities you enjoy, but if you have a few inactive days in a row don’t feel bad, just get moving again doing something you love.

#2: Shame

Quit shaming yourself and others for their food choices, their exercise habits and their body. There is more than one path to wellness. We all have to choose our own way.

#3: Comparison

Stop comparing yourself to strangers on the internet. What most people publish online is their most shiny, happy, glamorous moments. Comparing your life to someone else’s highlight reel is a recipe for unhappiness. Also stop comparing your body to others. We’re not all supposed to look the same.

#4: Seeking quick fixes and miracle solutions

Every time I blink there seems to be another ‘miracle’ diet, exercise plan, or supplement that will apparently be the end to all your insecurities and help you find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. If we all stopped giving our dollars to the celebrities and online salespeople pushing such fads, we’d see a lot less of them! Unfollow the fads, find your own moderation.

#5: Believing you can see wellness

Health and fitness comes in all shapes and sizes. Truly. You cannot tell by looking at someone how fit or well they are. You don’t know if they have strong mental health, absence of illness, physical strength, and stamina or if they have a disordered approach to food, suffer from mental health issues or struggle with fatigue. A person’s size cannot tell you these things. Set yourself wellness goals that are not related to appearance and let go of thinking you can see who is fit by their body size.

Which of these 5 things will you work on quitting instead of quitting the food you love?