A lot of people responded negatively because they hadn’t read my prior post about the two meanings of the word “diet” and the one we would use here:

1. Diet means what you eat.

2. Diet means restricting something (usually calories or fat) in order to suffer and lose weight.

The meanings are similar, but the attitude is radically different.  The second meaning should be eradicated from our dictionary.  It is a harmful meaning.  It leads to all kinds of weird comments in the prior post.

BTW, did you know that meaning only exists within the U.S.  In English speaking Europe, it is completely unknown.  The word “diet” simply means what you eat.  Even “Diet Coke” has been renamed since they are obviously referring to the 2nd meaning above (restricting calories).  In Europe and I believe the entire rest of the world, Diet Coke is known as Cola Lite.

In the comments yesterday, some folks assumed that changing your diet weekly could be dangerous to your health.  Obviously they were using the 2nd definition.  Under the 1st definition (which is the only definition I’ll be using on this blog), we all change our diets weekly… at least a vast majority of us do.  Since I have listed what I eat throughout this experiment on this blog, you can see that I change my diet weekly. 

My health has improved during all of that time.  In fact, my blood pressure (which was my primary motivation to start a health plan), was 113/79 yesterday evening before dinner.  That was the first time it has been in normal range since before my surgery (when it was 155/something).

Regardless of which definition you use though, the concept that changing would be dangerous is ludicrous.  Using definition #2, you might say something weird like “Before I was on a diet, I would change what I eat weekly.  Now that I’m on the cabbage only diet, I eat only cabbage.”   That’s a nonsense statement under definition #1 because it is saying that there was a “before” you were on a diet… implying that you simply didn’t eat.  Well, if that was the case, then it was certainly healthy and not dangerous to start eating.  And once you decided to eat only cabbage, it would certainly be healthy to change after the first week to eating anything other than cabbage.  That would start healing the malnutrition you would obviously be suffering from not eating… and then eating only cabbage which I doubt offers all the nutrients you need.

Others talked about having an eating disorder where they swapped diets.  Huh?  99% of our population changes what they eat weekly.  Most change what they eat daily.  I can imagine someone calling it an eating disorder if you continued to eat the exact same thing every single day for months.  I can’t imagine changing your diet regularly could possibly be called an eating disorder.  That’s what we all do.  Even the FDA agrees that you should eat a wide variety of foods and they are wrong a large percentage of the time.

Others used definition #2 to artificially create two phases of “dieting” and asked how one could move from the “short term” dieting to a “long term” maintenance plan.  That makes no sense under the first definition.  There is no “short term” and “long term” involved.  You are going to eat for the rest of your life.

If the plan gives you food that constantly aims at your target weight, it will automatically give you the best food for your goals at any particular moment.  It could be used for weight loss or weight gain.  It could equally easily be used to simply give you a variety of different eating plans that maintain your weight.  Why would there have to be a “long term” and a “short term” plan?

Some used the term “lifestyle” in odd ways too.  What you eat is part of your style of life.  This is a lifestyle choice.  Eating healthy or not eating healthy… eating in a way that loses unhealthy weight vs eating in a way that maintains or increases unhealthy weight are both lifestyle choices.  How can one do something “short term” that isn’t a lifestyle choice and then later do something “long term” that is a lifestyle choice.

We’ll talk more about self-talk here and how people mangle the language to create self-destructive non-realities to live in.  That is also a big part of success in other areas of life that I cover on other blogs.   That is what is happening with the alternative definition of the word “diet” and to a lesser extent the word “lifestyle” in some of those comments.

Decide today to focus on the words you use and the definitions you use.  Use the definition that successful people use and reject the definition that unsuccessful people use.  In the case of the word “diet”, obviously people of a healthy weight use the first definition and fat people often use the 2nd definition.  Change your perspective to use the 1st definition and you will have your mind working for you on this endeavor.  Your mind is very powerful and is an ally (or an enemy if you choose) that I strongly recommend you enlist as an ally as you go forward.

-James D. Brausch