They sound the same but are all different.

I eat to sustain life

I give a treat to my dog for good behavior

I cheat if I am not true to myself or others.

Only one word can remain in my diet or whatever you want to call it.

I must eat to lose weight or maintain within a certain numbers of calories and those must meet my nutrition goals, that is fine, thatt is why we should eat.

Should I treat myself with food for losing or maintaining? Should I eat a treat and pat myself on the head when I behave well, hum.......what brought me here in the first place a whole bunch of treats. I will reward myself with things that have nothing to do with food. I will buy that skirt that I saw when I achieve a goal or buy a nice paint brush or a tube of color. I will reward myself with objects that make me feel good or an activity that fullfills me and not make me full.

Should I cheat, been married a long time and know that cheating is one **** of a bad thing to do, it can ruin my life so why would I want to cheat with my food if it is something negative that will only lead to more cheating and remove my self esteem. I can instead be honest with myself and see what would be the consequences and decide if the outcome are worthed. I must keep an honest relationship with the food that sustain my life. Like a relationship does not mean that I will not be tempted but like a solid relationship I will have to find a way to make things right, instead of cheating with a bag of chip, I will have some oysters that in my mind are so delicious and staying faithfull to my calorie count.

Dieting or maintaining are nothing different than real life what I would not do to others I should not do to myself.

Treat and cheat are not part of my vocabulary anymore. Every time I eat I make sure that I am eating something I enjoy, that it's exactly what I want to eat and I eat it mindfully to make sure I extract the most pleasure possible from that eating experience. In my world, every meal is a treat.

Cheating is not applicable to food. Cheating is when you stray outside of your marriage. Or when you steal answers on a test. Cheating is taking the easy route. It has nothing to do with food, if I think I'm cheating with food it leads to feelings of guilt which leads to an all out binge. Cheating interferes with building a neutral relationship to food.

Eat to sustain life - what a boring way to look at food. If I looked at eating in this way then there's no doubt I'd be cheating and looking for treats.

it is all about attitude you are both right

Love these words!

I agree 100% with this statement. I think this is very well stated, that cheating is taking the easy route.

And I absolutely apply this to eating. I eat clean. I do enjoy what I eat, its very good food. It often takes a little longer to prepare, but so does any meal really.

However, I think that eating processed food is the easy way. Even if I go out to a party, its much easier for me to just eat the fair served, then to make, pack and eat my own food. Not to mention, occasionally someone has to say something because its so "strange" I wouldn't want to eat the garbage food served at events. Its easier to buy premade goods than bake them from scratch. Its easier to order a pizza after work than make dinner. Its easier to just eat what everyone else is eating. Actually at work on Monday, they provided us with lunch, and I did make my own but forgot it at home. They served green salad, with oil & vinegar and subs. I was the only one that had just a salad, and I made sure to eat more when I got home so I wasn't under eating. But in that case, it would have been the easy way out to just eat the sub, because I honestly didn't truly want it, I just forgot my own lunch. To me that is a cheat. I don't want to take the easy way. I am working towards a certain body. Not just through weight loss but through running and lifting. This requires good nutrition, not just staying within my calories. That is a challenge for me, monitoring my calories and carbs/protein/fat, and it would be for me the easy way out to just eat whatever with no regard for those things.

A splurge/treat would be when I *want* something that is not clean eating. If I really want some ice cream, and I'm not eating it because I'm feeling lazy but because I truly want it, then I splurge. And I don't feel guilty about it.

For me, cheating vs treating is about the motive behind it, not the actual food.