by Joan Inong

Created on: March 03, 2009

Dieting has gotten a bad name over the past decade. Too many diets insist that you'll be able to shed 10 pounds in two days. Too many diets promote "one food item" that will supposedly melt the fat off the body. Whatever happened to healthy eating, then?

Healthy eating is not only an alternative to "dieting," but it is the diet that every person should have. Healthy eating means that you do not have to think about what you are eating, because you naturally reach for all kinds of food, even the healthiest kinds. This means that you eat moderately and you don't count each calorie as if it were a piece of gold. Here's some characteristics that separate healthy eating from mainstream dieting.

1) Healthy eating means no sacrifices

Do you remember those diets that said, "You can't have a slice of cheesecake!"? Well, healthy eating means that you will never have to say "no" to any food ever again. This may sound like a marketing ploy, but it's not. Even though that cheesecake is not considered "healthy," that doesn't mean that you cannot eat it if you want to eat healthily. A small piece of cheesecake is fine when it comes to the "healthy eating diet" because you understand that you may eat it if you are able to moderate how much you eat. Though healthy eating means you have to have a strong degree of self-control, it gives you a lot of agency and freedom of choice.

2) Healthy eating is inexpensive

Those fad diets aren't cheap. In fact, they often sell a product and your diet won't work without that product. What if you could have a diet that didn't require a product? What if you can eat healthily for a fraction of the cost? Healthy eating does not require a special item that pretends that you'll lose 10 pounds in two days. Healthy eating only requires that you open your mind and tastebuds to the whole array of foods out there, especially fruits and vegetables.

3) Healthy eating is for life

With healthy eating, you won't quit your diet in two weeks after you've lost the weight that you wanted to. And, you won't put that weight back on just because you've stopped using their product. Healthy eating is especially a kind of mindset or consciousness that you have about the way you look at your relationship to food. If you can change this mindset to one that is described by the adage, "Eat to live, don't live to eat," you will be better off than if you were to follow another fad diet. What is special about healthy eating is that you are able to keep it as a diet for life. It therefore becomes a guide for your lifelong eating habits.

If you can see through the various advertisements and false promises that most fad diets out there spew forth to the public, you are absolutely ready for the lifelong "diet" that you will truly enjoy. It's called healthy eating, and it's yours for the taking.

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