I'll be on a diet for the remainder of my life, and I just learned that 6 months ago. I don't call it a lifestyle, but I can understand when someone else does. However, when people are adamant to the point of argument that they refuse to be on a diet, but rather have embarked on a lifestyle change, or are living in a lifestyle change, I want to throw my groceries at them.

Tomatoes, Tomahtoes
Potatoes, Potahatoes

You're on a diet as far as I'm concerned, but I'll try to tolerate your semantics.

So sorry. I am not on a diet I have made a lifestyle change, I can do that forever. A diet is something you go on and then off.

I agree with bargoo, it's not a diet if that is how you live your life. A diet is a temporary thing you do to change something.

A lifestyle change is how you live your life to maintain what you have achieved.

Agreed. When you say you are on a diet you are implying something entirely different than what I mean when I say I'm not because it's a lifestyle change.

Diets are temporary.
Lifestyle changes are not.

Diets are something people go on just to lose weight.
Lifestyle changes can be used for weight loss but continue past that to maintenance and living healthy.

Diets are usually miserable. I've done them before and hated them. Very restricting, easy to fall off of, just not pleasant.
Lifestyle changes become so second nature to you that you don't even notice them after a point. I'm drinking nothing but water, eating more yogurt, watching my calorie count, and putting more thought into nutrition and I'm not even bothered...even after months of making these changes.

My doctor is the one who first told me to make it a lifestyle change and to avoid using the term "diet". She said diets are temporary and that we tend to punish ourselves more when we're on them. Instead, it would be smarter and more effective to make changes permanent, we're not so harsh on ourselves when we make a little mistake because it's just one day out of many that we know will be dedicated towards healthy living. And so far she's been right. I messed up one night last week and barely registered it. One night out of a month+ of really healthy eating isn't going to wreck me. Matter of fact, even after that night, I still dropped a pound which is about right given that I barely exercised. I just feel more stable and content.

/long post

It doesn't matter what you call it--as long as you realize that it isn't temporary then you're good.

Diet Vs. Lifestyle Change <-- I think that's a pretty good article on the Livestrong website.

Diets have beginnings and endings and when they end you gain it all back plus some extra. They cannot be done for life. You are the one that needs to get things straight.

I think you an also call it whatever you want, but for me personally, there is a mental difference between what I think of as a lifestyle and a diet.

In my former lifestyle I would go between periods of dieting and eating what I wanted, which lead to a yo yo and being fat. So I guess eating/dieting was my lifestyle.

Now, I have committed to doing only things that I believe I can sustain permanently. If I'm not willing to do it forever, I won't claim it as part of my lifestyle.

Doesn't mean I won't do trial and error..... for instance - I have had gym memberships in the past, and they have given me great results, but I hate the gym, so.... I will not be joining a gym as a lifestyle choice. If I want to go to a class or participate in gym activities for a while, that would be a temporary thing. My lifestyle is that I walk 4 miles 5 times a week and do light weights at home. This is what I do as a lifestyle because I enjoy it and can sustain it.

If I give up a certain food group for a little while to drop pounds quickly, that is a diet (which I still do on occaision), but the lifestyle that I've committed to is Intermittent Fasting and eating mostly whole an healthy foods - because this is what I enjoy and what I can maintain and will give me the weight reduction I want, albeit slower.

Lifestyle is something that overtime becomes a natural way to live.
So, for me it is different, but that's just me. Maybe it's semantics, but there you have it.

Everyone has a diet and yet one may go on a diet
Same word, same topic, different meaning. (hence the desire to differentiate)
The first is a statement of habit, the second implies a temporary change.

I don't call how I eat a diet even though it is a diet.

I do not call it a lifestyle change because I have eaten many of these foods before I started to try to lose my weight.

I simply call how I eat...My Way Of Eating (WOE) and that works for me.

I'm not arguing or anything but something has changed right? "Lifestyle changes" don't just pertain to food and even then they don't necessarily mean cutting things out. It also refers to exercise...pretty much any changes you intend to make permanent for a healthier life. If you don't want to call it that, it's fine, but I just wanted to comment on the exclusion of exercise from the list. =)

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet... Yes?

Diet... lifestyle... way of eating (woe)...a healthier normal... I've been around a long time here, and have seen plenty of discussions on the difference between one person's version of a diet, and another person's lifestyle change. I've always found the different points of view interesting. I've seen more than one Goal story where a person has said "call a spade, a spade" and that they were dieting to goal, but then I've seen plenty where the person has talked about permanent changes and avoided using the word 'diet' altogether.

I have to agree that the name, itself, doesn't really matter in the end. We are after the same things. A way to sustain healthy changes. That's going to be different for everyone. It'd be like asking "What's the best way to eat?" Not only would the thread explode with different ideas, but there'd be plenty of "I won't do X, I prefer Y." It's just an invitation for different opinions, none of which is going to be the answer.

Diet still has the dictionary definition of "The kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats." It plainly means, "what one eats regularly." In this sense, changing one's diet would be the same as saying lifestyle change.

That being said, "to diet" has evolved around these parts to generally mean "to restrict or limit foods eaten" and even though it's not in the dictionary definition the completely unofficial consensus is that it leans towards having a "temporary" connotation. I wish I could count the times I've been asked "Are you still dieting?", just as an example of that.

The rejection of the word 'diet' isn't a rebel-without-a-cause situation to those who staunchly refuse to make it a part of their plan. It's just a way of rejecting the temporary, which seems to have attached itself to the word.

I admit that part of my interest in this is that words, and how they're used are a fascinating thing. Choosing just the right word for the right feeling, and making sure to convey exactly what one means is a difficult thing, but fun! Especially when we've selected a word that fits perfectly.

What is semantics for one, would be world changing (and word changing) for another.

The words I've chosen to describe what I'm doing has even changed over time. Right now, I very humbly subscribe to "choosing healthier than I have in the past". That's hardly as succinct as a diet, or as catchy as a lifestyle change, but it's 100% truth for me.

As long as the scale goes downward instead of upward, I'm happy.

This is an interesting discussion.

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.

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.