Woman shares New Year's reminder: Weight loss doesn't bring happiness
Amid the influx of messages on weight loss and change and resolutions that come with the New Year, one woman is sending a different message.
Sarah Nicole Landry, a mom of four, took to Instagram to remind her followers that the first day of a new year is just another day to love yourself.
"Jan 1 will change nothing, except another day to choose love, another day to show up. Nourish her. Move her. Clothe her," Landry wrote, in part. "Another day to get to live in *this* body. However she gifts me that day."
Landry, whose message received over 100,000 likes, said she wanted to remind people that focusing on losing weight or forcing yourself to change because of the date on a calendar is a "distraction from the good parts of life."
"My hope is that people feel a sense of relief, that they don't have to change their bodies to be confident," Landry told "Good Morning America." "That they don't have to get on another [diet] program that will statistically fail for them."
Landry, the founder of The Birds Papaya, a lifestyle brand, said she wrote her Instagram message from experience, having lost about 100 pounds over two years ago.
Around the time Landry neared the end of her weight loss journey, she became pregnant. As a result, she said she has been a "spectrum of sizes" over the years.
At all different sizes, Landry said she used to believe that she would "be happy and live my life" once she lost weight.
Once she lost the weight, Landry said she realized that happiness doesn't just appear.
"When that confidence and happiness wasn't there for me at the end of losing 100 pounds, I realized that I really only have the choice to show up each and every day," Landry said. "I understand now that my confidence and my enjoyment in life comes from making these decisions every day to show up and acknowledging that my body is going to change sizes up and down a bunch of times over."
Landry wrote in her Instagram post that she has come to terms with not knowing whether she'll ever be content in her body.
"Thin or thick, it feels weird to try. It's changing as we speak. It'll do so a thousand times over," she wrote. "But I'm here right now. And that says something. Right? I've accomplished more by actively leaning into the now instead of shaming it and chasing tomorrow."
Landry explained that she has learned to cope with being in the "middle" by making "loving decisions" for her body.
"I'm kind of stuck in the middle of I don't really have those amazing feelings about my body, and I also know that weight loss doesn't answer my problems," Landry said. "So what can I do today to love myself? What kind of movement do I enjoy? What kind at foods are good for me and fuel me and make me feel happy?"
She continued, "I go and make those loving decisions for myself each and every day."
As an influencer with more than 2 million followers on Instagram, Landry said she makes a conscious decision daily to "show up as I am."
"I understand that people are watching and they're seeing what I'm doing and they know I'm not comfortable in my body, but they're watching me step out on runways, go to swim shoots, doing all these things," Landry said. "Internally there's a whole big part of me that says, 'You could look better before going to do that,' but instead I'm saying, 'I only have this shot right now and there's a runway in front of me and so what if I step out onto it as I am in this exact moment.'"
Editor's note: This story was originally published on Jan. 5, 2023.
