Life style change vs. dieting

I LOVE food. Like, it's a passion. So, "eating to live" would suck a lot of fun out of life for me. Instead, I learned to love the right kinds of food. 2 years ago, if you told me that I would sigh in pleasure at a cup of steamed carrots sprinkled with cinnamon, I would have laughed. Now, I love stuff like that.

I enjoy food more now. I don't get drawn to creams and oils as much. Like, oily food doesn't taste right to me. I appreciate more natural, delicate flavors a lot more. Also, I savor things more. I realized this for the first time on Thanksgiving. My sister wolfed down her slice of pumpkin pie in three bites. I, however, savored mine for a good 10 minutes, letting the flavors play on my tongue, making sure I tasted each and every spice. It was delicious and soooo satisfying. So satisfying that I had no desire for a second piece!

Now, though I do love food, I have broken my habit of depending on it to make me feel better. Instead of running to food when I've had a bad day and becoming a slave to grease and fat, I tell myself that, no matter how crappy of a day I've had, I am going to enjoy a nice, filling dinner. And then I'll have one, but it will be healthy.

Hi, I have been a member since late September.. I read all the post, but I never write lol. I felt like I needed to reply on this one. Hope no one minds. It’s going to be long. I agree with everyone's opinion on here, but the two words have different meanings for me. When I started this I was clearly on a diet, and sort of still am. When I started I made sure I was under my calories, drank my weight in water. Exercised when I could. Moved faster at everything I did, no snail moving for me. I lived off of lean cuisine, and Healthy choice. Now here's where my lifestyle change started coming into play. I have
three boys 14,15,17. They all play soccer, football, and wrestle. During football the boys ate anything they wanted. They needed a lot of calories for the way they were working out to stay fueled, and to feel energized. At this time I made 3 diff. meals a night. 1 for the boys, 1 for my DH, and 1 for me.
Now wrestling season is here, and they need to lose weight, even though they have the same hard work-out. I started to make home cooked meals that worked for us all. You can't put boys on a diet. They don't like the food :sad: lol.
So I started making changes to what they did eat. For example choc. chip granola bars instead of chocolate chip cookies. Popsicles instead of ice-cream, splenda instead of sugar. Fiber one cereal instead of fruit loops. You get the picture. Now their losing weight yet are fueled enough for any of the sports. I see it as a lifestyle change, because it changed for everybody in my life, and not just me while everyone else had meat, and potatoes. I also explain why, and how I make things so my boys can make the right choices on their own if their out somewhere. Come to find out they adapted faster, then I did. They consume a lot more calories then me but they are growing boys that have a lot of exercise calories that they rack up. I've also learned portion control because I found myself eating the same portions as my growing boys. As theirs got bigger so did mine.:mad: I also have a husband
that has diabetes so he had to make the lifestyle change also. As for cheating, and indulging once in a while, well I have not cheated once since I started this diet/lifestyle change.:happy: I never thought I could do that, but this site helped with that. I had planned on eating like crazy on turkey day....that was my reward for being so faithful. Well turkey day came. I found my self not really interested in PIGGING out. I ate a lil turkey a salad and some dressing (had to have mom's dressing):) def. not enough to go over my calories. Then I seen the desert table couldn't wait to dig in....then I picked up a fork the smallest fork in the drawer. I took a bite of everything I wanted, and had a big black cup of coffee then I was done. I felt full, and satisfied. I didn't feel guilty. I Checked the scale faithfully for the next three days....I was down a pound
Oh, and my boys made their weight class for wrestling. So I guess this change in all of our lives is working. Sorry about the rambling.
shell

I think you'll find that the majority of us that are trying to loose 30 pounds or more have a story similar to mine, if they are being honest with themselves. We ate too much, ate poorly in terms of nutrition, went on yo-you diets that exasperated the problem, and exercised too little. For us, diets are part of the problem.

There it is in a nut shell for me - 'diets are part of the problem' Yep Yep :frown: :ohwell: