Often when I’m at work and there is some sort of buffet of goodies in the break room a coworker is trying to coax me to eat I make the comment “that’s not part of my diet.”  I then feel the need to explain that NO, I am not ON a diet, my diet consists of the food I eat and that happens to be in a category of food I don’t eat.

If you look up Diet in the dictionary there is an array of definitions.  The Diet I talk about is a noun.  Diet- a particular selection of food, especially as designed or prescribed to improve a person’s physical condition or to prevent or treat a disease*.  The definition most people think about in connection to Diet is a verb. . . Diet- to select or limit the food one eats to improve one’s physical condition or to lose weight.*

As a society, we need to start getting away from using the word diet as a verb and start thinking about it more like as a noun.  Having a healthy diet is important to your overall health and well-being.  I try to eat healthfully and feed my family healthy meals.  In my house we eat a lot of whole foods, real foods, you know the kind you have to actually put a little thought into before you serve because it doesn’t come out of a package already prepared for you.  I’ll tell you, it’s not always easy or fun, but I feel like it’s important and so I suck it up and prepare a wholesome dinner from scratch almost every night. (Yes, I am a little crazy, yes it often sucks, and yes learning about food prep is on my to-do list)

I’ve had a lot of friends going on the Whole30 diet the past couple of years and while I am pretty familiar with what it is I didn’t know all the actual rules so I thought I’d break down and get the book to see what it was really about.  My thought process being that even if I didn’t decide to take the plunge, it does have recipes in it and you can never have enough recipes.  I consulted my nutritionist about her thoughts on Whole30 .  She told me that if you are going to use it as a basis of changing how you eat for good, it is a great plan, but that many people use it as a 30 day fast, and then go back to their old habits of eating, which is not so good.

I have a few problems with the Whole30 plan. While a lot of the advice is so good I feel like they categorize some foods as “bad” that should never be eaten. I don’t share that belief.  I am more of an”everything in moderation” kind of gal.  I do believe that every person is different and that some foods get a bad rap, like butter. If you do a little research Grass Fed Butter is actually good for you and raw cow milk or goat’s milk can also be beneficial to lots of people. The topic is controversial but I believe you are smart enough to decide for yourself if having those foods in your diet is what’s right for you.

The one food I do think is the candy coated devil is sugar.  Sugar is addictive and can breed all sorts of unwanted diseases.  If you don’t believe me do a little googling and then look at the labels of the things in your pantry to  see what has sugar in it.  You will be shocked and appalled at home many things we think of as healthy are laced with sugar.

The second issue I have with this “diet” is that I’ve watched numerous friends who go on this diet for themselves and then watch how they continue to feed their children processed food because they think their children won’t eat healthfully.  I am somewhat aghast when I see this.  How can you believe that changing your own diet is important and then fail to apply the same principles to your children? If you want some tips about how to get your children to eat well check out one of my previous posts on the subject Getting Your Child to Eat Well

My nutritionist also reminded me that total health is not just what you eat.  There are 6 main components to our Health.  What we eat, what we drink, how we sleep,  how we breathe, our exercise and our mood.  If one component it majorly unbalanced it can affect our overall health, so we need to spread our concentration to all areas, not just one.

I’m glad I had that chat with her.  I kind of want to do the Whole30 diet, but I just quit sugar in my coffee.  I went from 2 teaspoons a day to 0.  I currently lace my coffee with Raw Milk and Cinnamon. This was not easy for me and I am not ready to give up my raw milk. One step at a time here. . . but if you’ve been thinking about changing your views about food, checking out the program out won’t hurt you.  This is an example of a typical dinner in my household.  It’s not fancy, but it is real food. . .

• Definitions of Diet taken from dictionary.com