Nowadays Dieting is very popular. People diet to lose weight mostly. Although it can be used to maintain or gain weight. On the other hand Healthy Eating or Healthy Lifestyle (in general) is also a thing!
Take good care of your body, it is the only place You have to Live IN!!
In this post I will analyze the basic differences of those two, Dieting and Healthy eating, and point out my opinion on which of them I prefer…
Differences Between Dieting and Healthy Eating.
Before I jump to their differences, I would like to point out that both of them require willpower, the right motivation to go on and discipline. One isn’t easier than the other to stick to!
Thus don’t try to pick the easier one, but the one that fits you and your character!
Here are the basic 3 differences between Dieting and Healthy Eating.
1. Restriction vs Freeness !
When on diet we eat based on a program, standard meals,grammars,food choices(most of the times), always depending on our end goal. During that period we eat only based on the diet on not to what we want or our body wants to!
On the other hand on a Healthy Eating lifestyle we are making our choices everyday. We eat what we feel we want to eat. Although that doesn’t mean we should eat candies all the time. We act freely on our eating habits and shape them towards a healthy lifestyle that doesn’t have an end goal!
That doesn’t mean that Healthy Eating is easier for any particularly reason! It is as tough to make healthy choices as to follow a diet program.
2. Short-term (dieting) vs Long-term
(healthy eating) Solution.
The solution I will refer to is when we reach a point that we want to take care of our body!
As we all can see and say ,and be bold on this, we diet having in mind that it will end at some point in the future. Dieting comes with an end goal, that being lose,maintain or gain weight. Although that sounds great it makes us feel that we will be free at some point in the future. When the program ends or the goal reached we will go back to what we were eating before. That makes Dieting a short-term solution!
On the other hand Healthy Eating does’t come with a plan/program. At first sight that isn’t so good because we need to have a goal in mind. The goal here tho is our health. There is nothing to look forward to, we just take care of our-selfs at the present moment. Healthy Eating is more of a Lifestyle. We build it everyday with our choices and it will last probably for ever or for a looong period of our lives. That makes Healthy Eating-Lifestyle a long-term solution.
3. Action (dieting) vs Connection (healthy eating) !!
We discussed the points of restriction/freeness,
long-term/short-term and its time to go a bit deeper.
Dieting is more of an action! We take action cause we want to “change” our body. Dieting seems to require more discipline,requires the ability to stick to what you aim for(change your body). As a result, I could say now that: Dieting is Self-Control!
Stay with me in this one: Healthy Eating/Lifestyle is a connection!! It’s a connection to our body, mind-body connection. Healthy Eating is more of understanding, inner understanding! It is the ability to Listen to our Body. As a result Healthy Eating/Lifestyle is Self-Care.
Conclusion
Dieting and Healthy Eating/Lifestyle are both great if you want to take care of your body. These 3 basic differences tho separates them clearly. Keep in mind that it takes times to see changes on your body in any way!!
It comes down to Restriction-ShortTerm-Action vs Freeness-LongTerm-Connection.
You can pick whatever fits you the most! Some people find it easier to stick to a plan/program that trying to go deeper into self-awareness. It is that one is bad and the other one is good like good vs evil, it is more what work for you. At last , you can try both and look for yourself.
I am into the Healthy Eating/Lifestyle, because I like the idea of self-care, we are what we eat!!. I realized that when we crave for a candy or w/e unhealthy its our mind that craves not our body , keep that in mind.!
The body always knows what it wants! And when it doubt, close your eyes, take a deep breath, exhale and ask your self : “do i want to eat this food because it will nourish my body and mind.”