D is for Diet

Diet: \ˈdī-ət\ (noun) 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

When considering diet using the first definition, you could say that everyone is on a diet. I have a family member who likes to joke that he is on a seafood diet—he sees food, he eats it. But which of the four definitions above truly comes to mind when you think of a diet? I’d say it is probably number 4.

There are scads and scads of books on dieting—low-carb, no-carb, low fat, no fat, nothing but cabbage soup, the baby food diet, Slimfast, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, South Beach, Zone, Blood Type, Atkins…shall I go on?

There are diets that are unhealthy if one were to make them a lifestyle, but are they bad for a short-term weightloss program? As many diets are out there, there are equally many philosophies on how various diets affect people. It’s probably a guarantee that if a particular diet becomes popular, a resistance to that diet will also become popular.

Here is my philosophy on diets, for what it’s worth among the millions of philosophies: Dieting is okay for a short period of time for the purpose of weightloss and long-term health. A diet should be chosen on an individual basis because every body is different.

As soon as the short-term diet is over, a person should immediately find a healthy way of eating that will keep them healthy long-term. If a person finds they gain their weight back after a diet, it’s time to reevaluate the purpose of the diet and determine if other internal issues, besides the simple nutrition and exercise, need to be worked on.