I really hate diets. I find them to be obnoxious, constricting, and in most circumstances, completely useless. Have you ever met those people that are perpetually on a diet? Every time you go out with them, they have to make a big deal about what they order because it makes a difference of like, fifty calories?

Or even worse, those people who are perpetually almost on a diet. The ones who always feel the pressure that they shouldn’t eat that ice cream, and vocalize such pressure by swearing up and down that their diet will begin Monday.

But the absolute worst are the people who break their diets and act like they are cheating on an actual human being. They act all guilty when they give in and get a burger instead of a salad, confessing that they are “going to cheat.” You look around like, who’s going to see? Your diet? Are you going to text him about your affair with the burger or something?

I think diets are the worst because they are so bad for the relationship between ourselves and our bodies. Think about it. Why do we go on diets? Why do we count calories, and cut carbs, and drink nasty shakes that are supposed to be all the fiber we need in a week? Because we are telling ourselves if we just go through this temporary discomfort, we will finally have the body we want. We will finally be happy with how we look. But this is always a lie.

First of all, we probably won’t go through with the miserable diet because it sucks and we’re hungry, and then not only are we unhappy with our bodies, we feel like failures on top of it. Bring on the sympathy chocolate. Second of all, even if we do “complete the diet” and lose the weight we wanted to, it was by an unsustainable diet that once we finish it and go back to our old patterns, we will just gain the weight back again. Now we need more sympathy chocolate. And finally, the truth is even if we keep the weight off, unless we develop a healthy relationship with our body image and health, we still won’t be happy with how we look. So we never win with diets.

When you say, “I need to go on a diet,” you are really saying much more than that. You are saying, “I am so unhappy with the way I look that I feel the need to restrict my calories to an unsustainable level so that I lose weight more quickly than I need to. I feel the need to obsess over every little piece of food that I eat, so that I can find what I believe to be acceptance into society.”

Just. Stop. Stop saying you need to go on a diet, because you don’t. Replace the word “diet” with “healthy lifestyle.” It’s a simple change, but words are powerful. What do you think of when you say the words “healthy lifestyle”? You think of a positive change, that is empowering to you and your body. You make changes because they are good for your body, not because you think you will be more accepted. You make changes because they are better for your future, not because you want to be “more beautiful.”

Using the words healthy lifestyle also bring to mind something that is much more well-rounded than just counting calories. It includes exercise, a good amount of sleep, and good nutrition. It is so much more sustainable than a no-good diet. The reality is, you need to have this mindset about your body. The mindset of respecting it as the vehicle to live your life, of taking care of it like it takes care of you. Yes, sometimes part of taking care of yourself is by losing weight. This can be part of a healthy lifestyle. But it shouldn’t be a short term goal where you deny yourself the nutrition you need until you “get to where you want to be.” It should part of a long term goal, where over a long period of time the food choices you make for the betterment of your body will result in weight loss that is sustainable and won’t require sympathy chocolate when you gain it back.

Words are very powerful, and this bad, four-letter word is one I don’t want in my vocabulary anymore.