I have never really liked either term. "Diet" has the obvious problems that have been mentioned - the connotations of transience and restriction. "Lifetsyle change" didnt really do it for me either, especially during my first year on plan - it sounds so daunting, big, overwhelming. I, at least, couldn't just wake up one morning and make a lifestyle change or a set of lifestyle changes.
This is true for me as well. I mean, yes, over the last year and a half I have absolutely undergone a lifestyle change. But when I start? Yeah, I didn't think of it that way. I ended up going with having a 'healthier diet', which isn't the same as going on a diet but wasn't as overwhelming as a lifestyle change.
Still though, I understand the struggle with finding words for making big life changes. I chafe less against 'lifestyle' and 'journey' now because I see the truth in them, but trying to sum the experience up in a few words still feels a bit trite. I think advertisements contribute to this, since they often take the words we use and strip them of their emotional core.
As long as the scale goes downward instead of upward, I'm happy.
Oh I agree, I just noticed that we seemed to be focusing in on just food and I wanted to point out that exercise is usually included in a lifestyle change as well. =)
Quote:
Originally Posted by lin43
124chicksinger, I have to agree with you. For some reason--illogical as it is---I tend to get annoyed at the insistence on using the terms "journey" or "lifestyle change." I guess the common sense/efficient part of me just wants to say, "Oh give me a break---just say diet. We all know what you mean!" The terms "journey" and/or "lifestyle change" seems too p.c. or something---I don't know. Like I said, my feeling seems illogical, even to me, but when I read your post, I had to laugh because I feel the same way.
It's not about being "P.C.", it's about what they imply for the people using the terms. For you, a diet is something that you will apparently be on until you die. For most, whether they realize it or not, a diet is something they go on until they drop the weight and then stop. The point of using the term "lifestyle change" has nothing to do with being "P.C." but rather the notion that once the weight comes off, the changes don't disappear - they continue. When I was on a "diet", I removed a lot of foods from my menu and I only stayed on it until I lost the weight. I stopped as soon as it was gone and, well, you see how that worked out for me... I am making lifestyle changes now in the sense that they won't stop once the weight is off. I won't suddenly put down the water bottle and pick up Mt Dew again or stop eating yogurt on a regular basis and open a bag of chips. I make changes with one, much bigger idea in mind - what sort of healthy changes can I make that I can live with forever? And they get made gradually, not necessarily rapidly. The point is stability and sustainability.
I linked a webpage on Livestrong earlier up and they seem to be making the same distinction - temporary versus long term.
"According to the American Council on Exercise, or ACE, only about 5 percent of dieters successfully keep the weight off. In fact, most dieters regain a third of the weight within one year, and almost all of the weight in three to five years. When you reach your weight loss goal on a diet, you will probably stop dieting, and the weight will slowly pile back on. But when you reach your weight loss goals through healthy lifestyle changes, those changes have become a permanent part of your life. Even if you relax a bit, you will probably maintain many of those healthy changes. If you are looking to lose weight for the long haul, you must make a commitment to permanently change certain aspects of your lifestyle.
Whether you agree with the terms or not, most people, when they hear that you are on a diet, don't expect you to still be on the diet 20 years after you have lost the weight. The term "diet" generally means the same thing to a rather large number of people. They think of you watching what you eat until the weight is off. After that, if you tell them you are still on a "diet", they don't generally understand why you, of all people, would be dieting. When friends offer me junk food, I don't say, "I'm on a diet", I say, "I don't eat junk food" - BAM, permanent, not gonna be undone once the weight goes, I simply don't eat it. They consider me a little strange for cutting out "good food" but it's just how I live now. How many times have you heard of someone going on a diet just to lose a few pounds to fit into a nice dress for an event or something? The term "lifestyle change" came up to differentiate between the two or at least that's how I understand it.
EDIT: I understand that you admitted it's illogical but I just wanted to address it anyways. xD
Oh I agree, I just noticed that we seemed to be focusing in on just food and I wanted to point out that exercise is usually included in a lifestyle change as well. =)
That is true. I never did say if I was exercising but then I never said that I wasn't exercising either.
I have never really liked either term. "Diet" has the obvious problems that have been mentioned - the connotations of transience and restriction. "Lifetsyle change" didnt really do it for me either, especially during my first year on plan - it sounds so daunting, big, overwhelming. I, at least, couldn't just wake up one morning and make a lifestyle change or a set of lifestyle changes.
It helped me not to try to put a name on what I was doing at all. I just tried to focus on one choice at a time, making the best choice I could make at every eating opportunity. I quickly realized that the best way I could do that was to plan my eating and exercise, and to make an effort to set up my environment to make it easy to make those best choices - shop and cook carefully with the entire week's eating in mind, figure out when I could exercise and plan it into my schedule, etc.
So, in hindsight, and after more than two years of practice, I suppose I have effected a lifestyle change! But it wasn't what I set out to do, at least in those terms. I suppose I knew, intellectually, that a lifestyle change was needed. But thinking in terms of "the next choice" works much better for me than thinking in terms of "the rest of my life." The latter gives me a constant excuse to procrastinate - if it's the rest of my life, there is no harm in being a little lazy and indulgent today. In contrast, focusing on the next choice I have to make helps me not to put off good decisions until next time.
I loved this post. I understand the difference between "diet" and "lifestyle," and the mind switch that it implies. I think one probably must make a "lifestyle change" in order to maintain a loss. If one loses weight eating nothing but chicken and carrots, say, she's not going to be able to continue eating nothing but chicken and carrots forever. However, I've tried the "it's a lifestyle" idea, and there are times when I need to DIET: eat fewer calories than I am expending. During those times, I try to keep the "lifestyle" goal in mind and make small changes, and keep them.
I have a long road to go, too, so my take on this may be quite different from someone with 20 or 30 pounds to lose. Ooooh, I wish I'd made a lifestyle change back then.
. . . trying to sum the experience up in a few words still feels a bit trite. I think advertisements contribute to this, since they often take the words we use and strip them of their emotional core.
Yes, yes, yes!!! This is it. I think this is what I was trying to get at in my post. I have this rebellious bent so that sometimes when words or phrases become popular, I tend to automatically dislike using them. Just my own contrary nature, I guess.
I don't really care what people call it, but sometimes I refer to it as "my diet" - not in the food-restriction sense. By definition, the word means "what I eat". "My diet of fast food and potato chips" makes perfect sense (grammatically, if not nutritionally ). Turtles live on a diet of vegetables and greens, as they were born to. So I get vaguely annoyed if someone is upset when I say the word 'diet', because I don't mean it to imply any kind of temporary restriction. What someone eats = their diet.
As with most things I suppose I'm live-and-let-live. Call it whatever you like, just don't tell me what I shouldn't call it.
I think the distinction that is trying to be made concerns this entry: "a regimen of eating and drinking sparingly so as to reduce one's weight". It's the temporary nature of that aspect that I personally have trouble with. I'm not going to attack someone for saying they are on a diet but I think it's interesting to see how definitions differ from person to person.
I think that, for people with a long history of weight loss attempts and particularly of yo-yo dieting, the "lifestyle change" moniker helps to distinguish what they're doing NOW from previous attempts (where they went on a diet, lost weight, and went off that diet).
For those with less of a history, the term "diet" may be less loaded, so have less of an impact.
I think it's not about being "PC" so much as it is creating a distinction, if it's needed, between prior attempts and now.
I think that, for people with a long history of weight loss attempts and particularly of yo-yo dieting, the "lifestyle change" moniker helps to distinguish what they're doing NOW from previous attempts (where they went on a diet, lost weight, and went off that diet).
For those with less of a history, the term "diet" may be less loaded, so have less of an impact.
I think it's not about being "PC" so much as it is creating a distinction, if it's needed, between prior attempts and now.
That is a really, really good point mandalinn! I'm one of those people who has tried "dieting" before and I failed every time. The worst failure came when I dropped 30 whole pounds and then put on 50 more... /facepalm Those attempts were more grueling and I never intended to stick with it. I don't know what I was thinking back then. >.<
I don't call what I am doing as a lifestyle. I won't always eat the same and my lifestyle changes throughout my life. At each stage of my life, I have had different nutritional needs. I am now diabetic and that changed what I eat. I am middleage and that changes how much I can eat. It will change again when I even more aged. I have been in a 2 year process of changing how I think about food and reducing my weight. I will not always be doing that. What I am doing now will evolve into the next phase and so on.
I have no problem with the word diet and it does not imply starting and stopping anything to me. All it means to me is that I am conscience of my food intake. So I can say my diet is mostly real foods and not processed.
What I do find a bit irksome is using food as an identity. I dislike when people label themselves by the foods they eat. Vegetarian, Vegan, Low Carber and saying things like 'eating clean'. All are paper hats to me. Nothing wrong with saying what types of food one prefers, but giving it a badge of honor strikes rebellion in me.
). Turtles live on a diet of vegetables and greens, as they were born to. So I get vaguely annoyed if someone is upset when I say the word 'diet', because I don't mean it to imply any kind of temporary restriction. What someone eats = their diet.
