Once the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Eve, our social media newsfeeds become saturated with images which claim to inspire, lists which purport to point us in the right direction and articles which remind us of the 'importance' of changing our shape and size in 2016.
While undoubtedly helpful in some regards, they also - rather ironically - serve as a reminder of how far we may have to go and how little we may have achieved when discussing our health and fitness goals thus far.
One woman, who decided to free herself of media ideals and New Year resolutions, uploaded an image of herself in a grey bikini accompanied by a message which reminds us all of the complexity of the female body and human nature.
The fitness enthusiast, who bucked the typical 'before and after' trend by refusing to degrade previous images of herself or suggest she needs to aspire to be more than she is, has amassed more than 114,000 likes since her upload on New Year's Day this year.
Outlining her thought process for the year ahead, Molly Galbraith wrote: "This is my body. This not a before picture. This is not an after picture. This just happens to be what my body looks like on a random Tuesday in December of 2015 — it's a LIFE picture."
In words which are bound to resonate wth women all over, Molly, who revealed she has been dubbed "too fat", "too thin" "too weak" and "too strong" in the course of just one day, continued: "This is a body that loves protein and vegetables and queso and ice cream. This is a body that loves bent presses and pull-ups and deadlifts and sleep."
"This is a body that has been abused with fast food and late nights and stress. This is a body that has been pushed to the brink of leanness in figure competitions and maximum strength in powerlifting meets. This is a body that begged for mercy when it was diagnosed with Hashimoto's and PCOS," she revealed in the moving post.
Throwing her mind back to the times she has allowed her body to be subject to judgement, Molly wrote: "Some people say they would "kill to have this body." Others say they would "kill themselves if they had this body. This is a body that I spent too much time, energy, and mental space wishing would look differently."
Explaining that she intends to resign those gutwrenching thoughts and moments to the past, Molly celebrates her newfound freedom, writing: "Today this is a body that is loved, adored, and cherished by the only person whose opinion matters — ME. This is the first year in as long as I can remember that I have made NO resolutions to change the way my body looks."
The inspirational and revealing post, which has been shared by more than 16,000 individual Facebook accounts, finishes with the words: "This is a kind of freedom I didn’t think I’d ever experience, and it feels really, really good."
If there's one person who has nailed her intentions for the year ahead, it looks like it's Molly!
