write a lot about manageable weight-loss, nutrition and fitness. Through out my years of writing in the health and fitness space there’s something that’s become abundantly clear to me. Most people hate the word ‘diet’.
I get that. People hear ‘diet’ and they think of horrible 80s weight loss plans full of endless plates of cottage cheese and watery cabbage soup. They equate ‘diet’ with a finite amount of torturous time that will end eventually and they can go back to drinking wine and eating cheese. People blame the word ‘diet’ for this all or nothing mentality but it’s actually fear of the word ‘diet’ that’s the problem.
In order to lose weight, you need to eat less food than your body requires. That’s a scientific fact. Eventually if you’re disciplined enough you should reach a point where you need to phase into a more manageable way of eating, these are usually called weight maintenance plans.
As a person who has lost and maintained quite a bit of weight in my life I have a method for maintenance where I eat in phases. You’ll find these phases mimic the styles of pretty much every popular diet and weight loss plan.
Dieting – when I’m actively trying to lose weight.
Maintenance – where I eat super healthy almost like I’m on a diet but I don’t sweat it if I have a few glasses of wine.
I Don’t Give A Crap – which is reserved for holidays, weddings and my own birthday.
If I’m in a dieting phase, I tell people I’m in a dieting phase (because of this) which is usually met with horrified gasps and cries of ‘DIETS ARE THE DEVIL!!! JUST EAT HEALTHILY!’.
I don’t lose weight when I simply ‘eat healthily’ and very few people do. If I ‘eat healthily’ my weight doesn’t move. I’m going to repeat my earlier statement – in order to lose weight you need to consume less calories than your body is burning. That’s what diets are. Very strict eating plans that are set for a certain amount of time for you to lose weight and then you move on to a healthy eating plan.
I’ve done every diet known to man – The Cabbage Soup Diet (totally awesome but it only works once and you will never want to eat cabbage soup again), Sure Slim (great but boring), Lite’n’Easy (fine but I found all the salt and preservatives gave me headaches) and many, many more and honestly? All diets are pretty much the same and as much as weight loss experts would want you to think otherwise, all diets are based on the 7 Word Diet – Eat food, mostly vegetables, not too much. Almost every diet I’ve been on is based on this – they’re just all packaged in different expensive boxes.
The issue that most people have with the concept of ‘dieting’ is what they think the opposite of dieting is. It’s not eating MacDonald’s three times a day. It’s not eating a Mars Bar for morning tea or having cheesy pasta or pizza for dinner every night. The ‘dieting’ phase of eating shouldn’t really be much different from your every day eating except a little stricter and with less room for treats.
Diet is not a dirty word and I will continue to use it as a descriptive phrase to mean I’m currently in the process of losing weight. Which is exactly what it means.
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How do you feel about the word ‘diet’? Is it a positive or a negative word for you?
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