We couldn’t be more WRONG.
The word diet comes from the Greek word diata, meaning a way of life; a mode of living. So you see, we are all on a diet of some sort. What you eat right now, day in and day out, is your diet; your mode of living. Interesting, your mode of living. What does this even mean? Have you ever thought of what you eat as a mode of living? Sounds much more significant than the tainted word "diet," doesn’t it?
For most of us, we eat not just because we're hungry, but because our appetite is telling us to; because we crave a certain food; because we tell ourselves we deserve it; because it's a reward for a "job well done;" because we're bored or lazy or entitled. We have a relationship with food. Have you noticed what yours is? Do we eat, and only eat, to give life to our bodies and our well-being? Or is the main purpose of our diet for personal gratification founded on convenience alone?
Whatever your case may be, if you plan on a diet change, it's in your best interest to plan for much more than just simply eating different. Sure you can white-knuckle it and try to just "be better," but as you will learn, a diet change is a lifestyle change. And if you try to white-knuckle a lifestyle change, you'll fall short and lose your fingers.
A mode of living simply means a manner, a way, or act of doing things. It's a given condition of functioning; a status. What is the status of your diet? Is it (are you) functioning in a healthy manner? If not, how come?
Just because you are at a weight you’re happy with and you don’t have any current health problems doesn’t make you healthy. Shocking, I know. It’s the simple law of cause and effect. What you eat has an effect on how your body (and mind) performs and maintains its health. If you aren't reaping the effects of your diet decisions now, in time you will.
You reap what you sow. If you don’t pay your bills, you go into debt. If you don’t go to work, you lose your job. If you don’t put gas in your gas tank, your car runs out of gas. Catch my trite drift? What you do- and don’t do- has consequences...eventually. If we believe these general laws when it comes to everything else, why don’t we believe them when it comes to our diet of food? Eat crap all day, feel like crap all day.
Now don't get me wrong, I am all for enjoying your food. I LOVE food. I savor it. I like variety. I like color. I like taste and flavor. I'm not advocating that you eat raw fruits and vegetables for the rest of your life. But in the words of Dr. Jordan Rubin, "Let's get real; too many Americans are exiting fast-food restaurants, ice cream emporiums, and supermarket checkout lines with processed foods pumped with calories like weight lifters on steroids."[1]Unfortunately, our culture has gone in to overdrive with all our in-vogue diets. We have numbed and dumbed people down to a point where each new diet that hits the market we ignore as just another marketing scheme. We’re afraid that it will get crammed down our throats that inevitably causes us to feel guilty (or defensive) about our diet.
A healthy life has become a chore; a discipline we don’t have time for or desire. We have beat people over the head with every new diet plan under the sun. So much so, people hop from one plan to the next, never finding one that really works for them CONSISTENTLY and so they give up.
What if there were a way to maintain a healthy mode of living that was consistent, steady, reliable, and valuable? What if you didn’t have to eat nuts and berries for the rest of your life and you could actually enjoy your food- without feeling guilty- while reaping the benefits of it’s delicious nutrients? What if your perception shifted and you came to value a healthier lifestyle? Like I said earlier, you can’t white-knuckle “just being healthy.” If you don’t value it, you’ll always fall short and you'll constantly see it is a chore, boring, weird, and too hard. Your weight loss and health are downstream for your values. You must (and I repeat) you must imply intrinsic excellence or desirability on a healthier way of living or else your habits and attitudes will remain what they’ve always been.
Footnotes: [1]The Great Physicians Rx for Diabetes- by Jordan Rubin
