Healthy Eating, if it's going to be for "life" cannot be dieting, and the one thing you don't want to do is define "dieting" as not being able to eat everything in the supermarket or at the circus (a good metaphor).
You see, everything in the supermarket or circus is not fit for consumption; you can eat it sure, but not without major negative consequences to your health and eventually your well being. The diet industry is always trying to get you to believe that you can eat whatever you want, but that to lose weight, all you need to do is eat less, exercise more and or take this pill, powder or potion, which you'll soon learn makes little sense.
But the fact is part of that mantra is true and needs to be.
I know this will sound really over the top, almost unbelievable, but it's true. You can eat whatever you want. The minute, no, the second you think you can't, you ARE dieting. You must maintain the autonomy, and the certainty that you CAN eat whatever you want. It's one of the Golden Rules of Healthy Eating, meaning, it's a healthy mindset to have and an empowered place to come from period.
Now, that doesn't mean you can eat "whatever" and get the results you want. That's the other half of the rule.
In other words, you know you can eat whatever you want but you choose to eat what serves you and your goals, maybe even the planet.
Anyone who eats healthy and enjoys it has this mentality and maintains it; almost to the point of proving the point, by eating less than "healthy" periodically just to establish this given the environment we live in that seems to be always tempting you to eat foods that are almost drug like. It doesn't need to happen frequently, but this exercise has value.
You must maintain a healthy mindset, or "well being" in addition to "healthy eating". Which is not to imply that eating the junk, overstimulating, toxic nutrient poor food which most people eat enables you feel better or "healthy". Fact of the matter is, those people people who eat that food, feel bad about how they look, feel and perform, if not now, they do later. And they likely know that they are eating poor, so this does not bode well for their self esteem; but in general they have a greater sense of well being than most dieters I know, largely because they don't feel limited, deprived etc.
That is part of the reason why people like to "cheat".
Hence, the reason why you must know you can eat whatever you want, but that you can't just eat whatever and get the results you want.
This is one reason why making the "Switch to Rich" is so important, because it's not about giving up foods it's about upgrading the quality of the foods you eat and learning how to really eat healthy. Nutrient rich is the only approach to healthy eating that actually works and can work for life, because it naturally maps closely to how you are eating today, only the food you now eat is nutrient rich!
Within the realm of nutrient rich healthy eating, you can now truly eat whatever you want, guided by true feedback from your body that is no longer under the influence of toxic substances that create withdrawal, cravings, fatigue and drive you crazy like nutrient poor foodstuffs do. Foodstuffs do not meet the bodies nutritional needs and overwhelm it with stuff that shouldn't have been consumed to start with!
So the moral of this story is that healthy eating for life is not dieting. When you make the Switch to Rich, adjusting your mindset is just as important as changing the quality of the food you eat; they go hand in hand and one without the other might have you eating healthy but not feeling well, thinking your are dieting, or, eating poorly and thinking you are well but aren't.
Once you make the Switch, you can then make The Nutrition Transition which will get you to the point of feeling stabile, strong and confident eating 90% or More Plant Based Nutrient Rich!
Healthy Eating for Life is not dieting, it's a mindset that is real and supports an approach to eating that is great tasting and health promoting. Now the questions are 1) how to you really "eat healthy", 2) how do you ensure that you will do it for life, and then 3) how do you make adjustments to your diet to better achieve your goals?