The Word “Diet” and how it is Used

Today I want to talk about the word “diet” and the negative association that it has within media and with the public. When you hear the word “diet” how do you feel? What comes to mind? Throughout this article I will be highlighting how I believe we should all use the term “diet” as well as exploring the negative impact that results from how a lot of people currently think about it.

Now that we are well into the new year, new years resolutions and striving to be healthier is well underway for a lot of people. Whether it is going to the gym, trying to eat healthier, a mix of both or something else, it can be a challenge to stay on course. So, with challenges such as these already being present, why add more stress and challenge by forcing yourself to be “on a diet”? Saying that you are “on a diet”, or “following a diet” already starts the reinforcement of the negative association with the word “diet”. For a lot of people and especially in the media “diet” is associated with something that you must go on to lose weight. It is therefore associated with restriction, cutting out favourite foods, having to eat healthy foods you don’t like just because they are healthy. This builds an unhealthy relationship with the word “diet”, but what should we associate “diet” with and why is this important?

The word “diet” should simply refer to things that you eat. Going out to a restaurant with friends? That food is now part of your diet. Grabbing a takeaway on the way home? You guessed it, that is now part of your diet. Thinking like this, removes the negative association with the word “diet” as instead of it being something you dread or are forcing yourself to do, it now just is. It simply is just there, neither negative nor positive, it just exists as it is what you eat. Now, why is this important? One of the main points for this is that it also creates a negative relationship with food and from there can lead to further problems. For example, if you fancy a pizza one day and you take the approach of a “diet” being a bad, negative thing, then you are likely to toy with the idea of eating the pizza whilst thinking about failing your “diet”. Additionally, if you then do decide to eat that pizza, it is likely that you will feel bad whilst eating it and afterwards, beating yourself up for not continuing to restrict yourself. This in turn makes you feel bad about yourself and makes being “on a diet” harder. Research has also shown that the more you restrict yourself from having something that you would like means that you can lead to significantly more overeating of that food through binging. On the flip side, if you consider diet simply being the things that you eat, then you can look at the pizza and say, “I fancy this today, and that is ok”.

You may then be wondering in this case; how do I lose weight if I eat whatever I want. Well, you still need to make sure that the calories you are eating are less than what you are burning throughout the day by an appropriate margin. However, fixating on a single day of the week can be detrimental. If you look at the week as a whole, maybe you went over on your calories on a day by say 400 kcal but you were in your caloric deficit for the rest of the days of the week. This is not going to be the end of the world; you will still be losing weight overall for that week. On the other hand, if you have a day where you go over by a large amount of calories such as 1500 kcal for example, this could offset your hard work across the other days of the week and even lead to weight gain. It is important to look for balance. You want to lose weight, sure, but if you restrict yourself too much then you will be just making yourself miserable. However, allowing yourself to continue to eat your favourite foods, but just in moderation and only once or a couple of times a week, means that you can still hit your weight loss goals without completely restricting yourself.

I hope that this article was helpful, an enjoyable read and that maybe you are looking at “diet” differently now. This topic is very large and a lot can be discussed about it, let me know in the comments if you would like to see another article in this area or if there is anything I may have missed. Anyway, I hope you have enjoyed this article. Let me know if there is a specific topic that you would like to see me discuss!  Stay happy and healthy, ciao!