How Diet Culture Hijacks Good Intentions Every January

Tracy Astle
5 days ago
3 min read

A few days ago, I was talking with a friend about her gym membership.

You know the kind.

The dusty one.

The one you sign up for with the very best intentions… then keep paying for month after month while rarely (if ever) setting foot inside the building. It quietly charges your card while you quietly avoid eye contact with it in your banking app.

She laughed and said, “At this point, I think I’m just donating to the gym.”

Most of us have some version of this story. A gym membership. A program. A plan. A promise we made in January that didn’t quite survive real life.

And here’s the important part:

The problem usually isn’t laziness or lack of discipline.

It’s that diet culture has a sneaky way of hijacking genuinely good intentions.

January Isn’t the Problem—Diet Culture Is

Every January, I see the same pattern play out.

People want to:

Feel better in their bodies
Have more energy
Take better care of themselves
Feel confident and at peace around food

These are good desires.

But diet culture quickly steps in and reframes them into:

“I need to fix my body.”
“I need to be more disciplined.”
“I need to do this perfectly.”
“I need to push harder.”

Suddenly, care turns into control.

Curiosity turns into judgment.

And self-respect quietly morphs into self-criticism.

That dusty gym membership? It’s often a symbol of that shift.

The Subtle Way Diet Culture Sets Us Up

Diet culture thrives on all-or-nothing thinking, especially in January.

It tells us:

If you’re going to do it, go all in
If you miss a workout, you’ve failed
If you eat “off plan,” you’ve blown it
If results aren’t fast, you’re doing it wrong

This creates a cycle that looks like:

Big motivation
Rigid rules
Exhaustion or rebellion
Guilt and shame
Quitting (or ghosting the gym)

And then—next January—we try again, convinced the problem was us.

It wasn’t.

Good Intentions Don’t Need Punishment

Here’s what diet culture gets wrong:

Change doesn’t stick when it’s fueled by shame.

Lasting change grows from:

Trust instead of fear
Consistency instead of intensity
Alignment instead of pressure

When movement becomes a way to earn worth or undo food, it’s no wonder we start avoiding it. Your nervous system knows the difference between care and punishment—even if your mind is still trying to power through.

A Gentler (and More Effective) January Reframe

Instead of asking, “How do I finally get disciplined enough this year?”

Try asking:

“What kind of relationship do I want with my body?”
“What would support feel like instead of force?”
“What’s sustainable for this season of life?”

This might mean:

Choosing movement you actually enjoy
Letting go of the scale as the main measure of success
Eating in a way that honors both nourishment and pleasure
Defining health more broadly than body size

These choices don’t make for flashy marketing—but they work.

About That Dusty Gym Membership…

Sometimes the most compassionate move isn’t recommitting harder.

It’s pausing long enough to ask:

Why did I sign up in the first place?
What did I hope this would give me?
Is there another way to meet that need?

Maybe it wasn’t about the gym at all.

Maybe it was about wanting to feel strong. Or confident. Or capable. Or at home in your body again.

Those desires are still valid—even if the plan wasn’t.

One Final Thought for January

You don’t need a brand-new version of yourself.

You don’t need more willpower.

And you definitely don’t need shame disguised as motivation.

You’re allowed to step off the dieting roller coaster and choose a path rooted in respect, faith, and trust—one that actually leads where you want to go.

January can be a beginning.

Just not the kind diet culture keeps selling us.

If you'd like some support in reframing your expectations, I'd love to help. Email me at tracy@tlastle.com for a free consultation.

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