Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

Diet Blog has an interesting article about the word “diet.” Does it mean misery? Does it mean an eating regime? Does it mean restriction? Does it mean normal eating?

• Does Dieting = Misery?

For the longest time, going on a diet meant that I had new hope that I could finally be skinny. After years of smashed hopes, I decided that I was never going to diet again. I was going to “eat healthy.”

It’s amazing how those habits of the early years can become ingrained, however. I joined Weight Watchers because I could eat anything as long as I stayed within my Points. There were no food restrictions. After years of eating on the program, however, I started installing “forbidden” foods into my mind. It had nothing to do with Weight Watchers, I just decided that to be on program I needed to avoid certain foods. After a year or so of that, the words “eat healthy” became synonymous with “diet.”

Now, when I think, “I need to get back to eating healthy,” I feel deprived just like I did when I was dieting. Somehow, I broke that phrase in my mind.

What I need to do is eat whatever I want.

It might seem counter-intuitive, but giving myself permission to eat whatever I want without guilt helps me to eat healthier. It’s only when I put arbitrary limits on my diet that I end up bingeing.

Years ago, I buried the word “diet,” but it wasn’t the word that needed to be buried. It was the idea that there are certain foods that I can’t eat. When I started eating healthy, I was just limiting my portions of foods that I loved. It was later that “eating healthy” mutated into yet another way to make myself feel deprived.

I never need to feel deprived again. When will I learn that?