Choose an eating plan that is realistic. Everyone has a specific height, bone size, and unique health considerations. A healthy eating program will take these into consideration or it isn’t healthy.
Which Plan to Choose
The positive loser chooses their own plan. Their physician can tell them what specific foods to eat and which to avoid. It isn’t control. It’s a consultation.
The patient hires the physician to give them professional advice. The doctor isn’t in control of anything except their own medical opinion. That professional identifies the need for caution and the individual exercises their own self-control.
Healthy Eating - Not a Crash Diet
There are many diet choices. Seven straight days of eating watermelon, or any other food, does not teach one anything. That is a crash diet because the individual crashes after going off that silly regime.
A healthy eating plan should have foods that fit the individual’s health requirements. Often, the basic program is a healthy balance of fruits, vegetables, protein, milk products, grains, healthy oil and plenty of fluids.
Develop a physician-recommended program with a dietitian. Ask about one of the nationally known programs that teach balanced eating. One needs to learn to prepare foods on their own.
What is a Diet?
Diet definition number four on Dictionary.com is, "diet - the foods eaten, as by a particular person or group." A diet is nothing more than the food that is eaten. There could be a "Banana Diet," "T-bone Steak Diet," or "Chocolate Diet," if those items are the predominant foods eaten. Everyone is on a diet every day. One either loses, gains, or maintains on their diet.
Many people just don’t want to know what they’re eating. Maybe they have an "Anything Diet" or better yet, an "Everything Diet." It is still a diet, so stop fearing the word.
The Feared Word is Not Diet, It’s Control
The word "diet" is not the true cause of weight loss fear, control is. Control, however, need not be an issue. Control belongs to the positive loser. Anyone who tries to take control out of their hands will find it will not be relinquished.
Don’t struggle for power or control. If it rightfully belongs to the positive loser, they don’t have to prove it to anyone else. No one has to agree with them or validate their argument. Control is simply theirs.
New Approaches to Food
The healthy eating plan is an opportunity to learn a new way of choosing, preparing and eating food. There is no personal quality lacking in those who can’t naturally make those choices. Whether the ability to easily choose healthy food is a talent or a genetic predisposition or learned behavior makes no difference. It is simply a talent or focus that is not automatic to some. Therefore, when that ability is naturally missing, one must deliberately focus on a healthy eating plan and the focus will need to be a lifetime.
The positive loser doesn’t mind taking a few minutes out of their day to deliberately plan for their own health. If one plans to eat for a lifetime, their eating program must be workable for a lifetime.
References:
Dictionary.com, "Diet" (Accessed February 3, 2010).
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