As we start a new year, it is not short of me that I set intentions every year of making healthier choices as it relates to my food and drink intake. I know that it needs to be done more as time goes on and not be as passive to it as I was last year. I know I need to stop making excuses and just start making smaller changes for the better, even if I may not want to, my health depends on it, and I want to be around for longer than I would be should I continue to go down the path that I did in 2024.

There is no lie that I am a large person. It has been a struggle that I have been facing for over twenty-five years. I have been taking multiple psychotropic medications and as a result, partly not being mindful of eating healthy things, it has resulted in my weight ballooning over two hundred pounds over those twenty-five years. Part of me, in the past few years, has made some very drastic decisions by relapsing on my psychotropic medication without knowing the total dangers of doing so. Now that I have lived through that and seen the consequences of doing so, I now understand that I need to make healthier choices as it relates to being better with my food and drink intake.

It is a process indeed, but by making small changes, I may see some progress rather than the many negative choices that I have made over the past few years. I know that I have made many decisions as it relates to my food that could have been avoided and instead been better ones. I know I must do it and that by doing so, I will eventually feel better. However, it is easier to go to old habits because they make me feel comfortable for one reason or another and they can be easier and more fulfilling for me than making decisions that I would think are a punishment for me because I feel that I am not making my own choices, rather than someone else’s.

The reality is that I do not allow myself to think about what the benefits of making those choices can do for me in the long term. I can only see what pleasure I will find in the present moment and what relief to the negative feelings that I am feeling and how to make them go away by comforting my emotions with whatever food or drink can bring me the comfort I desire. Changes are hard to make sometimes, but they are necessary at times when you want to be here for an extended period. I know that feeding me the foods that I should not eat, I am only limiting my time on earth and therefore I must do better at making healthier choices for myself and those that love me, no matter how hard it can be.

It can be easy to say that I am going to do it, but I know how important it is to doing better this year and years to come by making better decisions that will improve not only my physical health but also my mental health in many aspects that I have been putting off for some time. I know this is the time to make better choices for myself finally.