STOP saying "Diet"!!!
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flippy1234
Posts: 686 Member
One thing I am learning on my journey is that "diets" do not work. You have to change the way you eat, how much you eat and how much you move. Whatever you end up doing has to become your lifestyle and what you "do". So, find something permanent that works for you. For me, I still eat what I want but I take much smaller portions and eat slower. I walk...a lot. It is sustainable.
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DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!!!
Although I get your point and agree.
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Well, eating less to lose weight is pretty much a diet...0
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di·et
ˈdīət/
noun
1.
the kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats.
"a vegetarian diet"
synonyms: selection of food, food0 -
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Not everyone uses the word "diet" as a verb, or as a noun referring to a restrictive diet. A "diet" is also simply what one eats. Maybe I am used to the term being used in such a way due to the nature of my first career, but my diet is simply . . . my diet. I understand what you mean, though.0
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di·et1
ˈdīət/
noun
1.
the kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats.
"a vegetarian diet"
synonyms: selection of food, food, foodstuffs;
2.
a special course of food to which one restricts oneself, either to lose weight or for medical reasons.
"I'm going on a diet"
verb
1.
restrict oneself to small amounts or special kinds of food in order to lose weight.
"it's difficult to diet"
synonyms: be on a diet, eat sparingly;
By definition, that is what we are doing....
I think many ways of dieting don't work. However this one does. I don't much care if someone says I am dieting. I just say I am tracking calories myself. It is only negative if you decide to make it that way.0 -
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/diet
stop applying only one definition to the word diet.
"Diet"
1. food and drink regularly provided or consumed
2. habitual nourishment
3. the kind and amount of food prescribed for a person or animal for a special reason
4. a regimen of eating and drinking sparingly so as to reduce one's weight.
One out of 4 definitions is used to define the word on this sight.
Saying I eat a moderately low calorie diet is not a problem. It is a fact.0 -
Some people hate the word diet. Some people despise calling it a journey. I should add a funny meme here to punctuate my point, but I don't have the energy to find one.0
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According to the Webster's dictionary, Diet = the way a person (or an animal) eats. So regardless of the desire/intent of losing or gaining weight, or the way we eat, everybody is always in a diet. Some people are in diary free diet, if they are lactose intolerant, other are GF, if they have gluten sensitivities or Celiac, etc. So we are all in a diet.0
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Well, I don't plan to restrict my calories forever, so I'm on a diet. I guess I don't understand why people get so hung up on a word.0
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Diet.
You're not the boss of me.
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Well, I don't plan to restrict my calories forever, so I'm on a diet. I guess I don't understand why people get so hung up on a word.
Because failing to restrict one's calories over the long term usually results in gaining back what you lost in the short term.
Diet as I use it is a noun, never a verb.0 -
I am on a diet. Sorry, but that's what it takes to lose for me.0
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Yes we can all argue the semantics of the word and how the OP used it but I agree with what he is trying to say. When people say they are going on a diet they are actually looking at it all wrong. There really is no short term change that you can do that will make you lose weight and allow you to keep it off. What many people don't understand is that they will be doing this forever. There really is NO finish line. Once you've lost the weight there is no going back to the way you were eating before. Until that clicks...they will be a YOYO dieter.0
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I'm dieting. Eating at a deficit isn't a lifestyle. Sorry to be contrary but diet is a perfectly good word while lifestyle change is... not.
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AlabasterVerve wrote: »I'm dieting. Eating at a deficit isn't a lifestyle. Sorry to be contrary but diet is a perfectly good word while lifestyle change is... not.
You do understand that you will forever have to eat less than what you did before otherwise you will simply regain the weight? So in effect you will have to change your lifestyle and eat less than you did before even when you reach your goal weight.0 -
You can diet and still make a lifestyle change, but they aren't necessarily the same thing. I don't always count calories or worry about macros. It doesn't mean I am failing. Counting calories is a type of diet.0
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Meh. I eat. I use diet as a noun.
When someone asks me how I've lost weight, I answer "Diet and exercise." If they ask me to be specific, I tell them I count calories.
I agree with the thrust of the OP, long term weight management is about more than temporary measures adopted to fix a problem. This is one of the reasons I like thinking of my former obesity as a disease that requires management just like my other medical conditions. I can keep it in remission with attention to how much I eat, but I need to keep paying attention always. Going back to my old ways is not an option.0 -
Well, I don't plan to restrict my calories forever, so I'm on a diet. I guess I don't understand why people get so hung up on a word.
Because failing to restrict one's calories over the long term usually results in gaining back what you lost in the short term.
Diet as I use it is a noun, never a verb.
You plan to eat less than you burn for the rest of your life? At some point you will need to stop and maintain your loss, don't you think?0 -
AlabasterVerve wrote: »I'm dieting. Eating at a deficit isn't a lifestyle. Sorry to be contrary but diet is a perfectly good word while lifestyle change is... not.
You do understand that you will forever have to eat less than what you did before otherwise you will simply regain the weight? So in effect you will have to change your lifestyle and eat less than you did before even when you reach your goal weight.
My diet isn't such a black and white thing. Sometimes I eat more, sometimes I eat less. It balances out. If it doesn't... I diet.0 -
AlabasterVerve wrote: »I'm dieting. Eating at a deficit isn't a lifestyle. Sorry to be contrary but diet is a perfectly good word while lifestyle change is... not.
You do understand that you will forever have to eat less than what you did before otherwise you will simply regain the weight? So in effect you will have to change your lifestyle and eat less than you did before even when you reach your goal weight.
I don't look at it that way. I put on the weight during a time of crisis which I dealt with by overeating. Prior to that I was a normal BMI and I have maintained this higher weight for years, so I haven't been eating an insane amount of food that I am going to miss when I reach my goal weight. In fact, maintenance of my new weight, especially with daily exercise, shouldn't be that far off from what I was eating when fat. So I am not really changing my lifestyle at all. I'll have to be cognizant of letting weight creep back on but it's not like I will be eating far less than I was before.0 -
AlabasterVerve wrote: »I'm dieting. Eating at a deficit isn't a lifestyle. Sorry to be contrary but diet is a perfectly good word while lifestyle change is... not.
You do understand that you will forever have to eat less than what you did before otherwise you will simply regain the weight? So in effect you will have to change your lifestyle and eat less than you did before even when you reach your goal weight.
if you are eating less then you will continue to loose weight. so when you have reached your goal weight you can start eating more and you should stay the same weight as long as you dont go over the recommended daily allowance. im eating 1200 cals, but when i reach my goal weight i will be able to eat upto 2000 again. if i carried on eating 1200 id never stop losing weight! so i dont get how your theory would work?0 -
Well, I don't plan to restrict my calories forever, so I'm on a diet. I guess I don't understand why people get so hung up on a word.
Because failing to restrict one's calories over the long term usually results in gaining back what you lost in the short term.
Diet as I use it is a noun, never a verb.
You plan to eat less than you burn for the rest of your life? At some point you will need to stop and maintain your loss, don't you think?
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sammiewammie444 wrote: »if you are eating less then you will continue to loose weight. so when you have reached your goal weight you can start eating more and you should stay the same weight as long as you dont go over the recommended daily allowance. im eating 1200 cals, but when i reach my goal weight i will be able to eat upto 2000 again. if i carried on eating 1200 id never stop losing weight! so i dont get how your theory would work?
You are correct. What @Bshmerlie meant, I think, is that if you go back to the amount you ate when you were gaining the weight that you came here to lose, you'll be eating over maintenance, and thus gain weight.
For that matter, even if you eat at what was maintenance for your original weight, you'll gain weight. What was maintenance for me when I weighed 225 lb. is way too much now that I'm at 148.0 -
I started gaining weight when I was about the weight I am now. I'd been maintaining for a while but abruptly (for various reasons) became sedentary and did not adjust my amounts, so I gained a bunch probably eating what is around maintenance for me now (since I'm pretty active).
In any case, there's a distinction between figuring out how to eat in a way that will allow you to maintain -- whether that's a change of diet, being more conscious of portion size or whatever -- and "dieting". For me the former wasn't especially a change of diet, but it was various ways of controlling the amount I eat in a day. And I also dieted, as in consciously chose to eat at a deficit. I plan not to do that always (in fact I haven't been for the last several months).0 -
I don't care to say "dieting", anymore than I care for when people say they're on a "journey". I'm not a Hobbit eating lettuce.0
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I eat, therefore I have a diet.0
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sammiewammie444 wrote: »if you are eating less then you will continue to loose weight. so when you have reached your goal weight you can start eating more and you should stay the same weight as long as you dont go over the recommended daily allowance. im eating 1200 cals, but when i reach my goal weight i will be able to eat upto 2000 again. if i carried on eating 1200 id never stop losing weight! so i dont get how your theory would work?
You are correct. What @Bshmerlie meant, I think, is that if you go back to the amount you ate when you were gaining the weight that you came here to lose, you'll be eating over maintenance, and thus gain weight.
For that matter, even if you eat at what was maintenance for your original weight, you'll gain weight. What was maintenance for me when I weighed 225 lb. is way too much now that I'm at 148.
Exactly.
If you were 300 pounds and it took you 3000 calories to maintain that weight and now you are 125 pounds and it only requires 1700 to maintain that weight infact you would be eating a significant amount less than what you were eating before. You would never be able to go back to eating 3000 calories. It is simply a numbers game. Or if you exercised like crazy so that you could burn those 3000 calories than that too would be a lifestyle change because now you are exercising like crazy where you did not do that before.0 -
I actually don't understand the "journey" terminology. I didn't feel like I was depriving myself when keeping a calorie deficit (I made sure to eat food I enjoyed), but I also didn't feel like I was going anywhere. I stopped snacking and worked out more and focused on getting back to my old habits of cooking more consistently at home and bringing lunch.0
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When friends ask me how I lost weight and kept it off I say, "I eat at a deficit," and the conversation usually ends there.0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiCKzDUbiPg
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