Change Your Diet

I spoke to a friend whose teenage daughter had started a vegetarian diet and gained a lot of weight. Apparently she decided that eating French fries every day was acceptable within the definition of her new lifestyle. In our overweight society, there is much confusion about diets.

The word ‘diet’ comes from the Greek word ‘diaita’ which literally means ‘way of living’. A person’s diet is the sum total of what they eat. For example, someone who lives on a raw food diet eats primarily raw food. Sometime in the twentieth century, the word ‘diet’ began to describe a routine of deprivation. When you ‘go on a diet’, you are not allowed to eat the foods you prefer. Instead, you are required to deprive yourself with the objective of weight loss.

Instead of going on a diet, the best way to lose weight is to CHANGE your diet. The best way to change your diet is to experiment with new foods and to develop new cravings. If you tasted a juicy peach and a dry cookie for the first time, the peach would likely taste better. When you actually look forward to eating a salad you have developed an eating style that leads towards healthy body weight. When you substitute tasty delicious new foods for the crap that you used to eat, your body and mind can both benefit.