Diet-what's in a word? Personal trainer, Agi, shares her opinion.

What do you think of and feel when you read, see or hear the word, diet? You may immediately associate the term with weight loss, guilt and foods to cut out and not eat. Personally, I see the words ‘die’, ‘tied’ and ‘tedi-ous’ and I feel a mixture of emotions that include mostly anger and frustration. 

As a personal trainer working in the fitness industry, I believe the word diet is misused and misunderstood. I will share a few examples of some of the existing weight loss diets, what the true meaning of ‘diet’ is and why the term needs to be approached from a different perspective to help to decrease the rate of obesity in our society.

There is a long list of weight loss diets that you will have heard of and at one time or another attempted. Here are a few examples; crash diets (Grapefruit, Cabbage soup), low carb diets (Atkins, Dukan), low fat diets, low calorie diets, very low calorie diets, Fit for Life, Blood type, Food combining, Alkaline diet, Eat Clean diet, Weight Watcher’s diet to name a few. Most of us think to go on one, feel the need to be part of the latest diet trend, have high expectations of weight loss results, feel annoyed to be going on yet another one, feel as we are constantly on one, or believe it is time to change to a new one. Without doubt, one thing is certain, we are all on a diet.

Firstly, the word diet actually means to eat. This is an obvious conclusion as if we did not diet, we would d i e. According to dictionary.com the word diet means ‘the food and drink that a person or an animal regularly consumes.’ For example, the diet of a blue whale is krill and the diet of a human being is water, fish, fruit and vegetables.

Another trap of the word diet is feeling tied. It is all consuming and overbearing to be on a diet all of the time. And finally, counting calories is simply tedi-ous not to mention unsustainable, boring and happily, unnecessary.

The simple way to lose body fat is to eat less and move more and you don’t have to go on any faddy diets (yay!) You can start making a change by giving your diet the time, the patience and the priority it deserves. You can do this by enjoying to eat a mixture of fresh, tasty, nutritious whole foods and to start loving to move your body more often!
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