day 2: diet is a four-letter word

"How's your diet going?"

*cringe*

I knew I would be fielding this question a lot but that doesn't make it any easier. Eventually it is going to get old saying, "It's not a diet, it's an experiment."

The concept of "dieting" has so many negative connotations. When I hear the word "diet", I immediately think of deprivation--and before you accuse me of depriving myself of all the non-compliant foods for Whole30, I challenge you to observe how much ghee (which is basically like butter except buttery-er) I consume daily and then tell me I'm deprived.

The thing about dieting is that it's inherently temporary. One diets to achieve a certain weight loss or fitness goal, that goal is accomplished, then the person presumably goes back to "normal" food consumption until the need arises to diet again. The initial Whole30 itself may be temporary, but the results I will gain from it are going to inform my choices about food going forward indefinitely, potentially for the rest of my life.

I mean, some people with autoimmune diseases (e.g. Crohn's) live the Whole30 (and if they don't, they might find some relief if they did). It's not a Whole30 for them, it's a WholeLifestyle. And some of those people have even more restrictions, like no eggs and no nightshade vegetables (tomatoes, peppers, potatoes and eggplant) ON TOP of the no grains, dairy, or legumes. Can you imagine? And that's not just so they can look good in a bikini for spring break photos, that's so they can stay alive. Don't worry, these people eat very well--I have the Instagram feed to prove it.

So yeah, if you wanted to whip out the Webster's dictionary and look up "diet", you could probably argue that the Whole30 fits the definition ("the kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats"). But let's just be clear about a few things:

This is not a trend.
This is not a fad.
This is not about weight loss.
This is an experiment.
This is based on science.
This is about health.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I must repeat: this is not about weight loss. I am someone who is at a perfectly "healthy" weight according to the standard body mass index tables (someday if you have time and are feeling chatty, ask me how I feel about the BMI system). If anything, I would say my long-term goal is to GAIN weight (in muscle, of course). Let that concept blow your mind for a second.

In the meantime, when you ask me how my "diet" is going, I will do my best to hold back the eye roll, smile politely, and say, "Well, it's not exactly a diet, it's more of an experiment. But it's going really well. Thanks for asking!"

And then go back to taking care of business.