Should your diet have a name?

Around the age of ten, I decided that I would never again eat meat. The decision to become a vegetarian was not a temporary fad that I would one day give into when I was craving meat or when I was in a social setting and meat was served. Nearly 26.5 years later, I am still proud to call myself a lacto-ovo vegetarian. However, I don't feel my diet needs a name for the only thing that makes my style of eating different from Karel's style of eating is where we get our protein from.

My decision to become a vegetarian was not supported by the idea that I needed to do so to become more popular, to fit in with a crowd, to achieve a different body image or to boost my health. It also wasn't a New Year resolution. Oddly enough, I can't remember the trigger why I wanted to give up eating meat but I do remember that it was around the month of April and I was around 10 years old when I came home from school and told my parents about my recent dietary change. 

I knew very little about nutrition at the time so this was simply a personal decision with no ulterior motive other than I love animals. Since then, I've never told or asked anyone else to become a vegetarian as this was a personal decision that was important to me but it also took a lot of effort, work and time to figure out how this style of eating would work for me.

Because my "new" diet was restrictive by nature, I needed to learn how to do it correctly so that it would support my athletic goals as a high school and collegiate swimmer and keep me in good health. I needed to do a lot of education to learn how to eat a healthy and well-balanced diet while fueling my very active lifestyle. I also needed to learn how maintain this diet in a healthfully way. I'd say that it took me a good 4-5 years to really master plant-based eating as an endurance triathlete.


Going back to the title of this post, still today, I've yet to think of my eating patterns as a "diet." I've worked really hard to create enjoyable, sustainable and healthy patterns that I can maintain for the rest of my life and most of all, as an elite ultra-endurance triathlete, I never feel limited by my lifelong style of eating. Even though I am vegetarian, I don't see my diet as something that is rigid and strict with rules and an off-limit food list. I don't panic when I eat out, eat with others, travel or if someone else prepares my food.

Your current diet doesn't have to be a forever style of eating but it should be helping to pave the way to healthy habits that you can maintain for a lifestyle. Your diet also doesn't need to have a name if you don't want it to.  If your diet has a name for medical/health reasons, just make sure whatever you need to avoid is replaced with an alternative that fills in nutritional gaps. Regardless of what you call your diet (if you choose to do so), your diet should not leave you hungry, deprived, unsatisfied, without energy, feeling isolated, requiring an excessive amount of planning and prep and costing you a lot of money. Your diet should work for you at home and when you travel. Your diet should be simple and stress-free. Sure, with any new improved style of eating, it's going to take some work but if it's all for a lifestyle change (and to support your mental and physical health), the work will be worth it. 

When you think about the diets that are marketed to the masses these days, most claim to be a lifestyle diet. But sadly, diet plans don't teach you the tools that you need to make your new way of eating part of your life. And many diets make you more stressed, anxious, worried and fearful about food than before you started the diet plan. 

In 2019, make the effort to personalize a style of eating that works for you, your lifestyle, your health and your activity regime. You may be surprised to learn that the diet that works best for you actually has no name. Yeah, this style of eating isn't glamorous or sexy but when you stop obsessing and stressing about food, you can put your energy, focus and attention into real life moments and experiences that matter a lot more than whatever diet everyone else is choosing to follow. 

Choose Anti-Diet in 2018

You've probably noticed the sudden increase of ads and commercials promoting certain diet products and plans to help you lose weight and get healthy in 2018. As a dietitian who specializes in endurance sports, I carefully equip and brace myself for the bombardment of diet/nutrition/wellness information as the diet industry does an exceptional job to guilt you into a style of eating that claims to change your life and help you finally reach your weight loss goals or improve your health. But let's get real....in about 18-30 days, most people have wasted a few weeks of life, all to eventually return back to old lifestlye habits.

I'm always amazed with the attention that people place on "healthy eating," making it so complicated and extreme. If you are confused as to the "best" way to eat, there's a good chance that you are searching for the best way to get back on track with healthy eating after all of the holiday indulging.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with healthy eating and I 100% encourage and support nourishing your body with a wide range of vitamins and minerals in an effort to reduce risk for disease, optimize health and to keep the body at a healthy body composition. 

But as it relates to the methods for healthy eating, there's no one "best" approach. Sure, there's a lot of comfort and security in joining a dietary movement (ex. Paleo, whole-30, detox, vegan) especially if you find it terrifying to make nutrition decisions on your own. And with so much food freedom and uncertainty, there's great safety when you have to conform to rules and have an army of other like-minded dietary members to support and to encourage you when you feel weak and vulnerable. 

Sure, you want to get rid of your sugar cravings and eat more real food and perhaps lose some weight and improve your fitness but for many people (especially those who naturally live with an obsessive and additive personality), you may find it easy to overdo things when it comes to changing your diet, wanting to be perfect with your diet and trying to control everything in your environment in an effort to eat healthy and to lose weight.

Healthy eating does not and should not be all or nothing. It should not be extreme. Your diet should never bring you anxiety, fear or guilt. And certainly, healthy eating should not destroy your health and quality of life.

It's easy to get sucked into the beauty of food pictures on the internet alongside perfectly sculpted bodies, posing half naked after a sweaty workout, all in an effort to make you believe that the person behind those pictures (or blog post) is healthy and you should eat like so-and-so.

We must remember that every person is on his/her own individual quest to become healthier and the chapters of your life book do not have to look like the perfectly edited chapters of the book of someone else. Although similar methods and ideologies may work for the masses, like eat more real food and cook more at home, ultimately, you are on your own nutrition journey and you don't need a rule book or off limit food list in an effort to succeed. 

Consider this...

To one person, healthy eating may include making homemade almond milk, purchasing eggs and meat from a local farmer and picking produce from the at-home garden.

To another person, healthy eating may include not skipping breakfast, eating a serving or two of vegetables each day and learning how to cook a whole grain, like quinoa or barley....for the very first time.

And then there are individuals who are seeking a healthier diet by learning how to not stress/emotional eat, trying to reduce binge eating and working through strong and destructive thoughts about food and the body. 

Perhaps healthy eating means making changes in your diet so that cancer doesn't return for a second time. Or, maybe healthy eating means finally admitting that you have been struggling with disordered eating or an eating disorder and after so many years trying to control your weight, health or performance, you want to get help so you can start living your life by not feeling controlled by food.

Healthy eating is different for everyone. Living a healthy life should not require you to do anything extreme. If you are considering taking an extreme dietary approach to kick start the New Year, I strongly encourage you to not waste your time, money and energy following an eating plan that is targeted to the masses.

In 2018, I encourage you to pledge NO DIETING.

It's important to eat healthy but not at the cost of your health and quality of life. Yes, you will need to make changes in your lifestyle and you may feel overwhelmed. But change doesn't have to be extreme. I strongly advise to skip the diet plan or 30-day challenge and start focusing on creating new habits in your life, one small change at a time.

If you choose anti-diet in 2018, here are some tips to help you kick-start your new healthy eating strategies in the New Year: 

1. Create a realistic plan for the day, before it happens. What will you eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner and for snacks? Don't get too ambitious as small changes make for long lasting results. When you have a plan for yourself, you will find it easier follow through and reflect on what went well and what didn't go as planned (and why).
   
2. Don't bring a diet mentality (or off limit food list) to your New Year eating strategies. Allow for flexibility and avoid making food choices with an all-or-nothing approach. Use your best knowledge to make educated food choices as to the most practical food swaps to help you move toward a more real food, balanced diet.
   
3. Make the time, don't hope for the time. Reorganize your life and dedicate 30 minutes a day to food prep/cooking. The more food that you have prepped, cooked and readily available, the easier it is to follow through with your healthy eating plan.
   
4. Take a social media break. If you follow a lot of health-related blogs/twitter/instagram/facebook accounts, you may need a social media detox from the people/sites that are making you feel depressed or not good enough. Remember, people selectively post what they want others to see so as you begin your new journey, it may work against you to click on a site for inspiration, only to feel like you can't keep up with the successes of others. Plus, social media take time out of your day when you could be spending that time on yourself.
   
5. Don't make eating complicated, time consuming or difficult.  Sure, at the beginning of any journey, change is tough and you will have questions but eventually, you should find that your diet easily fits into your life because it supports your life and doesn't control your life. A sustainable healthy diet shouldn't require an excessive amount of energy, thought and meticulous planning.
   
6. People thrive off rules because with rules, you eliminate options and choices. A healthy diet should not require iron-willpower or an off-limit food list.
   
7. Be kind to your body. If body composition modification is a desired goal to enhance performance or to improve health, the methods should not be strict or extreme. You should allow for gradual weight loss (not a quick fix), without extreme food restrictions, excessive exercising, unsafe behaviors (starving, purging, laxatives) or use of weight loss or performance-enhancing supplements. A health-conscious person cares about his/her body. Your diet shouldn't give you anxiety and your body image shouldn't make you feel frustrated or upset.
   
   Feel free to share and pass along in an effort to encourage others to not diet in 2018.