what is a "lifestyle change"?
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I used to spend a good deal of my free time in a chair, eating anything I could get my hands on and watching TV. Now I spend most of my free time being active or reading and I eat at a level to reach or maintain a healthy weight. That was my lifestyle change.7
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cwolfman13 wrote: »I see people talk about changing their lifestyle or making a lifestyle change, as opposed to dieting. What does that even mean? Admittedly, it's one of those terms like "fitness journey" that makes me cringe. But I'm trying to be open minded here... help me understand.
For me, this is absolutely a diet. I'm managing what I eat and how much I eat based on my goals. It requires almost constant attention, and I don't see that ever changing (unless I completely throw in the towel at some point). What am I missing?
When I started out 5.5 years ago I was a 2-3 PAD smoker who was very sedentary, and my diet was not particularly nutritionally sound and I was just over the line of overweight to clinically obese. I went in for my 38th birthday exam and came out with some really bad blood work...my triglycerides were so high that they couldn't even get a number on my cholesterol, pre-diabetic blood sugar levels, vitamin D deficient, and high blood pressure.
For most of my life I was a pretty lean, healthy and fit guy and a competitive track and field athlete from 3rd grade through high school, and I couldn't believe at 38 what was going on.
I dieted to lose weight...but at the same time, I delved into nutrition and my diet evolved into something much more nutritionally sound than it was before. I also introduced regular exercise back into my life...something I hadn't done in well over a decade.
TLDR - My lifestyle change was basically implementing a more nutritionally sound diet along with regular exercise.
Is it habitual now for you? If I'm not mistaken, you've been maintaining for a few years now, right? Does it still require regular attention and effort, or does it largely handle itself?0 -
I used to spend a good deal of my free time in a chair, eating anything I could get my hands on and watching TV. Now I spend most of my free time being active or reading and I eat at a level to reach or maintain a healthy weight. That was my lifestyle change.
I think I like that. I need to let it marinade a little bit, but I think I like that.
Thanks.2 -
For me personally... if I just ate however I wanted, I'd probably average well over 4000 calories per day... which on most days would be a significant calorie surplus. Yes, at some point things would balance out and I'd stop gaining weight, but I have no interest in maintaining at 300lbs (or where ever I leveled off).
So for me, I'll be managing/controlling my calories for most of the rest of my life, regardless of whether I'm trying to gain/lose/maintain. In my book, that's dieting... it's a conscience and intentional managing of what and/or how much I eat. Just because it doesn't have a trendy name like keto or atkins or whatever, it's still a diet. I guess that's the crux of my dislike/lack of understanding about the lifestyle terminology.
I just googled "diet definition" and the verb use of diet is:
restrict oneself to small amounts or special kinds of food in order to lose weight.
I guess the "lose weight" part of the definition is where it loses me. Or I lose it.
I'm the same – – if left unchecked, I could probably easily eat 3000 cal a day, and gain weight. I'm currently "dieting" because I'm aiming to lose weight by eating at a deficit. My method of doing so is a lifestyle change, whereby I will have to manage and log my calories to be sure I'm staying within my calorie allowance. Once I'm at maintenance, I would say I'm no longer "dieting", because I'll no longer be trying to lose weight. But I will still be having to manage/log my calories in order to do that. That to me, is the lifestyle change I have chosen.
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I don't use "lifestyle change" because it's so overused to the point where it's meaningless. It makes me cringe a bit.
I think it means dieting with an eye on maintenance, habit building, sustainability, and situational strategies. Basically, a way of eating that extends beyond a single weight point and becomes part of life, and yes, it still requires effort for most people.
Dieting conventionally means creating a deficit to lose weight through whatever means for the purpose of achieving a weight goal, at least that's how I use it. I'm currently dieting because I'm currently creating a caloric deficit to achieve a goal weight. Dieting can involve "a lifestyle change", a "quick fix", and anything in between. Dieting, in the popular negative sense, means taking a hiatus from your daily habits in order to achieve a weight goal, then resuming said habits with little interest in tackling the habits themselves to support weight maintenance.
The difference between the two, in my mind, is that a "lifestyle change" is more about the process, and dieting is more about the destination.
ETA: my personal lifestyle change involves habits of all kinds, some effortless that I do without thinking (like walking around the house when waiting for stuff or eating a significantly smaller amount of oil than I used to eat), some require only a little bit more effort, like deliberately exercising, and some require more effort, like calculated food choices. I have also developed to-go strategies to make certain situations easier to handle without flying off the rails, like social situations, holidays, and hormonal hunger.3 -
For me the difference would be: a diet is a temporary caloric reduction you do to lose weight you did not want to gain. For example, after my first son was born, I had to be a bridesmaid in a wedding at 4 months post partum, and I spend 2 weeks living on meal replacement shakes and lost the pregnancy pounds I had remaining. This probably just sped up a natural process, as I did not gain any of this back when I resumed to a normal diet.
But since he was a toddler--and he is about to turn 15--I have been "attentive" to my eating and exercise habits and have maintained the same weight within a range of about 10 lbs since then. That might have meant a variety of different approaches (at one point, I was on WW, now I am on keto, but I have ALWAYS paid attention to how much I am eating vs. burning and have reduced when my scale crept up). So that's my "healthy lifestyle"--would not describe it as a "diet" because it's never been temporary. It's always been a strategy with tactics that have changed as I've gotten fatigued by one program or intrigued by another.1 -
I used to spend a good deal of my free time in a chair, eating anything I could get my hands on and watching TV. Now I spend most of my free time being active or reading and I eat at a level to reach or maintain a healthy weight. That was my lifestyle change.
^This is me.
I don't care what it's called, I've developed healthier habits and have different goals than I used to.1 -
MegaMooseEsq wrote: »I see people talk about changing their lifestyle or making a lifestyle change, as opposed to dieting. What does that even mean? Admittedly, it's one of those terms like "fitness journey" that makes me cringe. But I'm trying to be open minded here... help me understand.
For me, this is absolutely a diet. I'm managing what I eat and how much I eat based on my goals. It requires almost constant attention, and I don't see that ever changing (unless I completely throw in the towel at some point). What am I missing?
The bolded is a lifestyle change. As long as you do what you stated above, you have changed how you manage and relate to food.
Most people refer to a "diet" as a temporary thing that goes out the window once you get to "X" goal or whatever. Managing your diet going forward is a lifestyle change.
So it's the existence of an end date that differentiates it? What if I say I'm going on a diet until I'm 100 years old? Yes, I'm being argumentative, but only to make a point. Is there an actual difference between a diet and a lifestyle change, or is it just semantics?
I think you're maybe getting hung up on the fact that "diet" means "way of eating" in addition to "restrict[ing] oneself to small amounts or special kinds of food in order to lose weight". Lifestyle change is about focusing on the former rather than the latter: I am not on a diet, but I have changed my diet.
Can you elaborate?
It seems like you're trying to distinguish between "diet" and "lifestyle change." I think that when people talk about a "lifestyle change," they're signaling that they are focused on the first definition of diet (way of eating) rather than the second (restricting to lose weight). If we had two different words for the two definitions maybe we wouldn't have all this lifestyle change language floating around, but I'm not in charge of the English language so there you go.MegaMooseEsq wrote: »I am not on a diet, but I have changed my diet.
I read that as a change in habit, such that eating an appropriate amount and/or a balanced diet becomes habit, rather than requiring constant effort and attention. i.e. being on a diet = attention and effort, having changed my diet = new habits and tendencies.
I don't think that changing one's habits around eating and exercise means the same thing as not having to put any effort into maintaining a healthy lifestyle. We (the majority of us on these boards, at least) live in possibly the first era in human history where the health problems from overeating outnumber the health problems from under-eating.* We are constantly encouraged to move less and eat more. Changing one's lifestyle means developing habits that counter that influence, so yes, a certain degree of effort and attention is going to be required. Probably more for some people than others depending on a host of factors. In my case, I hope to get to the point where the primary way that I do that is by weighing myself regularly, but if I need to continue logging and weighing my food, so be it.
*Random side note: overeating is recognized as a word by my spellcheck, but undereating is not.
ETA: TL;DR I blame the washing machine and corn subsidies.2 -
The difference between a diet and lifestyle change IMO is that a diet is normally restrictive and temporary. Like, my goal is to lose 10 pounds - I’m not going to eat carbs for 2 weeks to lose that ten pounds - then I’m going back to my “normal” habits. However, a lifestyle change IMO is education. Learning how food works with my body and applying that education for a better understanding of my wellness. And as a consequence of being more educated and applying my new understandings of how much food I’m eating, how that food effects me, documenting my calories.... (being invested in what I’m doing rather than just mindlessly doing it) I achieve goals. But my lifestyle change isn’t goal oriented. Diets are goal oriented. Lifestyle changes are wellness oriented. Ya know what I mean?0
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MegaMooseEsq wrote: »MegaMooseEsq wrote: »I see people talk about changing their lifestyle or making a lifestyle change, as opposed to dieting. What does that even mean? Admittedly, it's one of those terms like "fitness journey" that makes me cringe. But I'm trying to be open minded here... help me understand.
For me, this is absolutely a diet. I'm managing what I eat and how much I eat based on my goals. It requires almost constant attention, and I don't see that ever changing (unless I completely throw in the towel at some point). What am I missing?
The bolded is a lifestyle change. As long as you do what you stated above, you have changed how you manage and relate to food.
Most people refer to a "diet" as a temporary thing that goes out the window once you get to "X" goal or whatever. Managing your diet going forward is a lifestyle change.
So it's the existence of an end date that differentiates it? What if I say I'm going on a diet until I'm 100 years old? Yes, I'm being argumentative, but only to make a point. Is there an actual difference between a diet and a lifestyle change, or is it just semantics?
I think you're maybe getting hung up on the fact that "diet" means "way of eating" in addition to "restrict[ing] oneself to small amounts or special kinds of food in order to lose weight". Lifestyle change is about focusing on the former rather than the latter: I am not on a diet, but I have changed my diet.
Can you elaborate?
It seems like you're trying to distinguish between "diet" and "lifestyle change." I think that when people talk about a "lifestyle change," they're signaling that they are focused on the first definition of diet (way of eating) rather than the second (restricting to lose weight). If we had two different words for the two definitions maybe we wouldn't have all this lifestyle change language floating around, but I'm not in charge of the English language so there you go.MegaMooseEsq wrote: »I am not on a diet, but I have changed my diet.
I read that as a change in habit, such that eating an appropriate amount and/or a balanced diet becomes habit, rather than requiring constant effort and attention. i.e. being on a diet = attention and effort, having changed my diet = new habits and tendencies.
I don't think that changing one's habits around eating and exercise means the same thing as not having to put any effort into maintaining a healthy lifestyle. We (the majority of us on these boards, at least) live in possibly the first era in human history where the health problems from overeating outnumber the health problems from under-eating.* We are surrounded by active enticements to move less and eat more. Changing one's lifestyle means developing habits that counter that influence, so yes, a certain degree of effort and attention is going to be required. Probably more for some people than others depending on a host of factors. In my case, I hope to get to the point where the primary way that I do that is by weighing myself regularly, but if I need to continue logging and weighing my food, so be it.
*Random side note: overeating is recognized as a word by my spellcheck, but undereating is not.
Agreed... the OP has changed the habit of mindless eating to the habit of mindful eating... from putting forth no thought or effort to their way of eating to putting in considerable effort.0 -
That's fair, and kind of what I'm otherwise inclined to think.I see people talk about changing their lifestyle or making a lifestyle change, as opposed to dieting. What does that even mean? Admittedly, it's one of those terms like "fitness journey" that makes me cringe. But I'm trying to be open minded here... help me understand.
For me, this is absolutely a diet. I'm managing what I eat and how much I eat based on my goals. It requires almost constant attention, and I don't see that ever changing (unless I completely throw in the towel at some point). What am I missing?
The bolded is a lifestyle change. As long as you do what you stated above, you have changed how you manage and relate to food.
Most people refer to a "diet" as a temporary thing that goes out the window once you get to "X" goal or whatever. Managing your diet going forward is a lifestyle change.
So it's the existence of an end date that differentiates it? What if I say I'm going on a diet until I'm 100 years old? Yes, I'm being argumentative, but only to make a point. Is there an actual difference between a diet and a lifestyle change, or is it just semantics?
Every term used in the diet, weight loss, fitness industries are semantics. Diet, lifestyle change, Paleo, low carb, clean eating, HIIT, heavy lifting, eating healthy. They are all vague terms or shorthand that people use when they are trying to sell you something or need clickbait for their blog.
I'm not just arbitrarily criticizing terms for no good reason. I'm asking about a term, a concept, that seems to have traction on MFP. I've been at this for some 7+ years and I still feel like I'm on a diet. I anticipate being on a diet for the next 10 years at least (I assume that at some point I'll stop caring). It sometimes seems like I'm missing something.When people use these terms, they mean - diet is temporary, lifestyle change is permanent. Regardless of what the dictionary definition of each word is. Honestly if you are going to criticize terms used in the industry with dictionary definitions there is a long and arduous list for you to work through!
It's weird, I just posted this in another thread. But what I had to do was start figuring out what foods filled me up for reasonable calories, and start planning out my meals based on those foods. Then I found "treat" foods that were pretty easy to fit, and penciled them in pretty much every day. And then I had to take a good hard look at calorie-bombs, and decide if they were worth the hit, and if so, how often. At first it was a pain in the heiny, but eventually it became a habit and now is just the way I eat, I don't even think about it.
Now that I'm maintaining, I sometimes find myself having a lower calorie snack, and then realizing I could have had something more indulgent because now I have calories left over. So I'm not "on a diet" anymore, but my lifestyle change has kept me effortlessly eating in a way that keeps my calories where they need to be. I also started taking brisk walks to burn some extra calories, and now I don't really need to anymore, but walking and hiking has now just become a part of what I do and enjoy. If I had just looked at those walks as something that helped while I was "on a diet", I would have stopped once I hit my goal weight. Logging, weighing, food choices, activity... I didn't think of them as things I was doing because I was trying to lose weight, I thought of them as things I will probably do for the rest of my life because I don't ever want to be overweight and out of shape again. Even if I did stop caring, not much would change for me, it's all habit.1 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »I see people talk about changing their lifestyle or making a lifestyle change, as opposed to dieting. What does that even mean? Admittedly, it's one of those terms like "fitness journey" that makes me cringe. But I'm trying to be open minded here... help me understand.
For me, this is absolutely a diet. I'm managing what I eat and how much I eat based on my goals. It requires almost constant attention, and I don't see that ever changing (unless I completely throw in the towel at some point). What am I missing?
When I started out 5.5 years ago I was a 2-3 PAD smoker who was very sedentary, and my diet was not particularly nutritionally sound and I was just over the line of overweight to clinically obese. I went in for my 38th birthday exam and came out with some really bad blood work...my triglycerides were so high that they couldn't even get a number on my cholesterol, pre-diabetic blood sugar levels, vitamin D deficient, and high blood pressure.
For most of my life I was a pretty lean, healthy and fit guy and a competitive track and field athlete from 3rd grade through high school, and I couldn't believe at 38 what was going on.
I dieted to lose weight...but at the same time, I delved into nutrition and my diet evolved into something much more nutritionally sound than it was before. I also introduced regular exercise back into my life...something I hadn't done in well over a decade.
TLDR - My lifestyle change was basically implementing a more nutritionally sound diet along with regular exercise.
Is it habitual now for you? If I'm not mistaken, you've been maintaining for a few years now, right? Does it still require regular attention and effort, or does it largely handle itself?
I've been maintaining for 5 years as of last Sunday (save for the 5-10 Lbs I put on every winter and take off in the spring). So long as I'm exercising regularly, I find maintenance to be pretty easy. I enjoy eating healthfully and I'm a pretty good cook, so that's not a particularly big deal and I still have my indulgences like pizza night most Fridays, pub grub about once per month, getting together with friends to cookout and drink once or twice per month, and I enjoy a few beers or cocktails most nights.
It's when my exercise and activity dips that I have problems (winter), but that weight comes back off in the spring when my activity starts to ramp up again.2 -
Per Oxford:
diet
1. the kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats.
"a vegetarian diet"
synonyms: selection of food, food, foodstuffs; More
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; More
I see most use this as a verb, which caused people to use a more "all-inclusive" term such as lifestyle change.
I generally support the use if this gets people to understand that successful management requires more than simply restricting calories or eliminating specific foods for a short period of time. Success in any process requires a feedback mechanism to prove that changes made are effective. This would be established with a multitude of factors including diet, monitoring, exercise, supporting habits, etc.... hence lifestyle change.2 -
imho
a diet, long term or short term is a lifestyle change. you are making a change in how you live your life.
a lifestyle change can be bad or good.
it can do with activity level or watching what we eat.
it is a change in the style in which we live our life.0 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »cwolfman13 wrote: »I see people talk about changing their lifestyle or making a lifestyle change, as opposed to dieting. What does that even mean? Admittedly, it's one of those terms like "fitness journey" that makes me cringe. But I'm trying to be open minded here... help me understand.
For me, this is absolutely a diet. I'm managing what I eat and how much I eat based on my goals. It requires almost constant attention, and I don't see that ever changing (unless I completely throw in the towel at some point). What am I missing?
When I started out 5.5 years ago I was a 2-3 PAD smoker who was very sedentary, and my diet was not particularly nutritionally sound and I was just over the line of overweight to clinically obese. I went in for my 38th birthday exam and came out with some really bad blood work...my triglycerides were so high that they couldn't even get a number on my cholesterol, pre-diabetic blood sugar levels, vitamin D deficient, and high blood pressure.
For most of my life I was a pretty lean, healthy and fit guy and a competitive track and field athlete from 3rd grade through high school, and I couldn't believe at 38 what was going on.
I dieted to lose weight...but at the same time, I delved into nutrition and my diet evolved into something much more nutritionally sound than it was before. I also introduced regular exercise back into my life...something I hadn't done in well over a decade.
TLDR - My lifestyle change was basically implementing a more nutritionally sound diet along with regular exercise.
Is it habitual now for you? If I'm not mistaken, you've been maintaining for a few years now, right? Does it still require regular attention and effort, or does it largely handle itself?
I've been maintaining for 5 years as of last Sunday (save for the 5-10 Lbs I put on every winter and take off in the spring). So long as I'm exercising regularly, I find maintenance to be pretty easy. I enjoy eating healthfully and I'm a pretty good cook, so that's not a particularly big deal and I still have my indulgences like pizza night most Fridays, pub grub about once per month, getting together with friends to cookout and drink once or twice per month, and I enjoy a few beers or cocktails most nights.
It's when my exercise and activity dips that I have problems (winter), but that weight comes back off in the spring when my activity starts to ramp up again.
Speaking to the point about effort and attention, I think this is also going to really depend on the individual and a lot of factors both in and out of their control. I used to maintain a moderate weight without much or any conscious effort because of various lifestyle choices - not owning a car (enabled by living in a city where that was doable), being raised to default to reasonably healthy food choices, not having much of a sweet tooth, and so on. It turns out that I also have a higher than average NEAT and I genuinely enjoy moderate levels of physical activity. My weight gain happened because of some fairly discrete factors that I'm working to address, so I suspect that I'll have an easier time maintaining than many.
On the other hand, I have family members who have been overweight almost their entire lives. They gain and lose weight constantly. If they were to make it to maintenance, I'm guessing it would be a huge struggle for them. I don't know that any amount of lifestyle change would make that go away.0 -
Thanks everyone. This has been helpful. I still don't like the term, but I think I have a better handle on what people mean when they make the distinction.1
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I see people talk about changing their lifestyle or making a lifestyle change, as opposed to dieting. What does that even mean? Admittedly, it's one of those terms like "fitness journey" that makes me cringe. But I'm trying to be open minded here... help me understand.
For me, this is absolutely a diet. I'm managing what I eat and how much I eat based on my goals. It requires almost constant attention, and I don't see that ever changing (unless I completely throw in the towel at some point). What am I missing?
I don't mind it as much as "journey," which is a term that just seems stupid and euphemistic to me, I mean WHAT is it even supposed to mean?
But yeah, I like the term diet. SOMETIMES you need to make a real lifestyle change (becoming active, learning to cook and working it into your life, paying attention to food and nutrition from NEVER thinking about how you ate), but for most I bet that basic lifestyle doesn't change just because you eat less, or even better.
I was active most of my life, stopped being active (and gained weight) and when I got active again -- which was my main change -- I didn't think of it as a change, but going back to normal. I cooked and cared about nutrition before losing weight and so that wasn't a lifestyle change, I just got more mindful about what I was eating and limited portions and didn't snack -- a diet and later watching what I eat.1 -
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I see people talk about changing their lifestyle or making a lifestyle change, as opposed to dieting. What does that even mean? Admittedly, it's one of those terms like "fitness journey" that makes me cringe. But I'm trying to be open minded here... help me understand.
For me, this is absolutely a diet. I'm managing what I eat and how much I eat based on my goals. It requires almost constant attention, and I don't see that ever changing (unless I completely throw in the towel at some point). What am I missing?
For me it was going from being sedentary to running half marathons.0 -
I don't really use the wording "lifestyle change" but I consider myself to have made one.
I didn't consider it a lifestyle change for a long time though, probably for a year or two after I lost the weight and stopped dieting. I don't necessarily think of a lifestyle change as not having an end date because I think someone could always have another lifestyle change, it's not necessarily a one and done thing.
The difference for me between when I was on a diet, even when I was in maintenance and when it became a lifestyle change when when healthy choices became what I did without thinking about it. When going to the gym daily became something I wanted to do because I truly enjoyed it and couldn't imagine missing it, not because I wanted to lose or maintain weight. When I'd go to dinner at a restaurant and order a simple meat and vegetable dish instead of a giant Alfredo pasta dish because I wanted to eat the meat and veggies not because it was what I thought I should eat to maintain or lose weight. When I gave up drinking booze 90% of the time because it no longer interested me and I realized I hated the way I felt not because I was scared of consuming calories. Overall I guess experiencing a "lifestyle change" was when I started living a healthy lifestyle without thought instead of making healthy choices if that makes any sense. Under my personal definition someone could essentially maintain a healthy weight forever but still not have made a true lifestyle change.3
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