LOVE the fact that....

[Bear35]

people here treat the nutritional side of things like I do. They say "lifestyle change" NOT diet!! To me, diet is an evil four letter word......it ranks right up there with "can't" and "hate". I honestly feel as though diet means "I can't have" rather than "I can have". Lifestyle change changes all of that and its wonderful! 

Funnily enough, a trainer friend of mine at Lifetime told me that its not that you "can't have" it, you "choose not to". Pretty clever wording if I do say so myself.

[Odyssey13]

@Bear35  Your friend is right. I can have anything to eat that I want, but not everything that I want is what my body needs or I should have. It's a power struggle, I suppose.

I used to go to a weekly meeting for lifestyle changes to get healthier. One woman used to say how the brownies would call to her at night. She had to stop listening to them before she lost weight. She stopped listening for a while, but the last time I saw her, it was evident she and the brownies were having too many late night conversations!

[Bear35]

HA HA!! She should have tossed out the brownies, make herself a whey chocolate protein shake, and then they would have shut up and let her be. For me its not a power struggle some of the time......its just a fact that its there and I want it. Self gratification I think its called......or some such nonsense. And whats worse is at those moments its automatic and its like I come out of it mid-chew/drink (if its pop, but it very rarely is). Then I think to myself "well, Ive already had half that cookie (or whatever it is), might as well enjoy and then start anew". I think I need to start treating those types of things like I do pop.......think of something just absolutely disgusting and apply it to whatever looks good at the moment. 

Pop, for me, held something at some point........or rather I thought it did. Then I started thinking about it looking like sewage in a can, and that didn't appeal to me at all and it worked. Then I would fall back into that habit, open one, take a few slugs of it and think "what the hell am I doing?" and dump the rest out. Total waste of a drink (not to mention Mom and Dad's money)? Yeah......but it was a struggle that I won when I did that and I felt better after for dumping it down the sink even though I did have a slug or two before realizing what I just did. Today I have no issues with not having pop........and if I feel like I want one, I think of the 20 uses for coke. Coke is absolutely toxic.......did you know they often use it to clean your car's engine? And if you put a tarnished penny in it, it can actually make it look like new again? WOW. Imagine THAT in your system and try not to be disgusted.....ugh.

[WaltTN]

I agree "pop", "soda", "coke" is very bad and not much more than sludge... my reasons for that is that over time, the enamel wears away on your teeth and the HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup)...  but I do have to set one thing straight according to Snopes:

http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/acid.asp

[Nomes]

I have always heard that if you are doing the right things 80% of the time things will fall into place. You are very right, diet isn't a word I like either. I want to change my life, not just my waistline.

[Bear35]

That snopes site is right....coke does a lot of things other than clean your cars engine. It can strip paint (lead paint, I think) off furniture as well.

And yes, "diet" doesn't mean changing ones life, it just means "I'm doing this now, but once I'm where I need to be I won't have to do this anymore".