In the coming days, all who blog will give you their take on ringing in the New Year. Most will encourage you to put the past behind you and begin anew. From dieting to becoming more spiritually grounded, everyone has something to say and advice to give. Here’s my rambling addition to the clamor of other voices.

After a month off from blogging, I had hoped I would return with something life altering to share with you. Instead of breaking new ground here, I find myself pointing you backward instead of forward. This time of year, as gyms fill for a small period of time and while diets are still a positive thing we’ve decided to tackle, many of us fill our lives with distractions to prevent us from looking at the truth. Whoever you were coming out of 2016, you will be that same person in 2017 unless you resolve past conflict. I don’t mean conflict as in with others, though that’s obviously important. I’m talking about inner conflict. Those thoughts and behaviors that keep you from being the you you want to be.

The bottom line is this: If you struggled with weight in 2016, you will still struggle in 2017. Bet you didn’t want to hear that. That’s not encouraging at all. I’m supposed to be nudging you toward positive thoughts and motivating you to stick to your goals.

Maybe our goals are the problem.

I’ve shared plenty of my own issues as I’ve posted here, especially about my negative self-dialogue. I’m super hard on myself. Most women are. I constantly beat myself up over decisions I’ve made, areas where I feel like a failure, and those changes I swear I will make but never do.

Funny how someone who can be the meanest person I know to me – me – can pamper me way too much in other areas.

My conflict is and always has been with food and my love of it. I think about food most all of the time. Either what I am or am not going to eat, it’s always in the forefront of my mind. (I promise you while I’m writing this blog post, I stopped to look up a recipe.) Sugar is my greatest downfall. More about that another time since today’s message is about the overall conflict I face.

My true conflict: More often than not, I won’t tell myself no. The tiniest little stomach rumble and I’m running to the kitchen for an unneeded snack. If I see a commercial for a favorite food – hungry or not – I will go get that food if I have it in the house. Oreos are a great example. Last week while watching TV, a commercial prompted me to eat five Oreos with milk. That doesn’t sound like such a bad thing, but the fact was, not only was I not hungry, I was already stuffed. (No pun intended.) I knew I didn’t need cookies on an already full stomach, but I ignored me and went to get them anyway. For the life of me I can’t tell you why I did it, other than the commercial told me to and my flesh jumped right on board. Whatever flesh says I want to eat, I’m gonna eat it or be grumpy because I can’t. Why can’t I beat that part of me up a few times to show me who’s boss?

This year, I plan to learn to tell myself no and stick to it. I want to focus on better health and what foods I’m fueling myself with. If left up to me and my flesh, I would live on sweets and wash them down with milkshakes. No kidding. If I could eat cheese without my tummy hurting and blowing up like I’m six months pregnant, I would eat pizza every meal. I’m not joking about any of this. I have a five-year-old pallet.

Thing is, I’m a grown woman who needs to make better choices. I need to know that no is for my own good more often than not. It really is okay to wait a few hours between meals until I eat again. I once teased a friend of mine when she was talking about the latest diet she was doing. She mentioned something about not being able to have an afternoon snack – like it was life or death. I laughed and asked if she was in preschool. Come to think of it, though, I’m exactly like that. If it’s 3:00 in the afternoon and I have the slightest feeling of hunger, I go get food. Rarely is it good food. Snacks should be fun, right? What’s fun about carrots or celery? I would rather have chips or a snack bar of some kind. When the truth is, I can wait that extra few hours without dying. I’ve been proving that to myself here lately. I look at the clock and remind myself that I’m a very big girl now, and I can wait until dinnertime.

Back to being the same in 2017 as 2016 statement. I know for a fact that if I don’t address this inner conflict of how I overindulge myself and give in to the slightest whim, then my new year will look exactly like the old. I will keep beating myself up over having no will power. I will stay in the ugly sugar cycles I get into that cause my moods to swing and my emotions to be volatile. I have to learn to treat myself with as much love and care as I would my own children. When I know something isn’t good for them, I say no because I love them. Instead, fearing I will throw a big lie-in-the-grocery-story-floor-kicking-and-screaming fit, I quickly hand myself a cookie to shut me up.

Earlier I said that maybe our goals are the problem. Rather than setting a goal to work out more or to eat less, my goal is to finally learn to tell myself no when needed. Or maybe to tell myself yes when needed, like, oh yes you are walking today!

So I know my personal journey may not be the most interesting blog for you, but you will likely see more about this going forward. I want to share this part of me with you. Maybe doing so will keep me accountable. Maybe it will even prompt you to look at the 2016 you and decide that girl needs to resolve some inner conflict of her own as she heads into 2017. Typically, I write more about spiritual things. This is spiritual to me. I get one body and one life to impact the Kingdom. If I’m not fueling this body well, it won’t perform well. I need energy and clear thoughts. The only way to get those is by making better food choices.

This blog is dedicated to my favorite diet buddy, who was eating a lunch of cheese puffs and beanie weenies as we decided on our 2017 better eating plan. We both already cheated on day one. Maybe day two and beyond will get better.

I would love to hear your thoughts. Do you have this same conflict – the inability to tell yourself no? Want to do this together?

Remember, Unmending the Veil is available for free on Kindle through the 5th, and all other books are discounted at $2.99 for the month of January. Tell a friend.