di·et noun
1.
the kinds of food that
a person, animal, or community habitually eats.
"a vegetarian
diet"
synonyms:
|
2.
a special course of
food to which one restricts oneself, either to lose weight or for medical
reasons.
"I'm going
on a diet"
The problem with everyone treating the Paleo diet like a diet,
like Jenny Craig or as listed above: number 2, a “Special course of food which
one restricts oneself.” Paleo is not that. In fact, it’s the opposite for me. I
eat what I want, whole real food, not Oreos, candy or gorge on ice cream. Paleo
is a lifestyle. You have to change your lifestyle and think of food as diet not
restricting oneself. The problem with the term diet is the word has morphed
into a meaning that I don’t mean when I say diet. When I say diet, I mean the
food I eat. Not diet food and diet sodas. Real, whole food. I do not restrict
anything I eat. This morning I used whole milk in my coffee and last night I
had a few spoonfuls of real ice cream with dark chocolate. I know what’s going
into my food and I know ice cream is processed but ya know what? I can
pronounce all the ingredients and it’s made locally. I don’t need to defend my
choices. I am a Paleo eater and I know that some folks think if you don’t
follow it 100% you aren’t following it at all. But I firmly believe if I follow
it 80% of the time, as I’ve said before, I’m still getting 100% of the
benefits.
Please world, stop looking at Paleo as a diet and please
remember it’s a lifestyle. My lifestyle happens to be real, whole food and Pilates
with some biking 3-4 times a week. It works for me. I’m not killing myself in
the gym or lifting weights, I’m just doing me. I like my lifestyle and I prefer
it over starving with processed, frozen lunches or dinners. My stomach stays
full longer and I’m eating as much as I want because I’m eating real food and
am not watching calories. I finally got rid of my scale and am just noticing my
clothes fitting or not and how I feel and look in the mirror. Nothing else
matters. It took me a long time to get here and I tried a lot of different
diets.
Being 180 at 18 years old, was rough because I’m only 5’ but
finally, I found something that works for me. So to those folks writing articles
against Paleo and how it’s a fad, back off. It works if you want it to and for
me, I’m healthier than I’ve ever been and I, in no way, feel deprived.
I will say I thought of Paleo like a diet at the beginning. Then I realized it would be a long drawn out process and a forever lifestyle. Once I let it go, serious changes began!
Be well and healthy.
I respect your choices that this is a diet definition #1 that works for you, however I have to disagree with you that paleo isn't also, in part, fitting with diet definition #2. As there are foods that are restricted, as evidenced in your above posted list of foods to stay away from, I believe it does fall under diet definition #2. I believe this about any pattern of eating that restricts/limits/says no to certain types of foods. I'm eager to hear your thoughts.
ReplyDeleteHi Katie! Thanks for the comment and I'm sorry I haven't been able to respond until now. You are correct there are foods that are restricted. I hear what you're saying and I think I was reacting more to the example given, "I"m going on a diet" when the word diet is used in that way, I feel like we set up ourselves up for failure. I have done that so many times and haven't been able to keep weight off. Your points are valid and well taken. The way I was looking at it was as if Paleo is a diet, like Jenny Craig or something else, some diet you can fall off of (as written about in Your Personal Paleo Code). For me, Paleo is a lifestyle and maybe for some, some of those other diets are lifestyles. In my opinion, diets that were temporary, not lifestyle changes, didn't work. I guess I meant diet in the temporary sense. Thanks for making me think!
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