My What IF Diet Plan is essentially an intermittent fasting lifestyle. This diet does not limit the type or amount of food you can eat, just the timeframe in which you can eat it. It also does not require calorie counting or portion control, although I know many people who prefer to track their food intake for at least the first few weeks to ensure they do not “overeat” during their eating window. In fact, my What IF Diet Plan is like no other diet I had ever tried before.
First of all, I was hesitant to even call this a “diet,” since it does not focus on restricting calories or food groups, as most conventional diets do. In contrast, my What IF Diet Plan allowed me to never think or worry about food again! So I sought out other terms I could use instead, such as strategy, procedure, arrangement, routine, but nothing else seemed to fit. The term “diet” just seemed so natural.
In searching for the perfect term to describe my plan, I looked up the official definition of the word “diet” in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and found this statement:
“diet was used in another sense too in the Middle and early modern English periods to mean ‘way of living.’ This is, in fact, the original meaning of diet’s Greek ancestor diaita, which is derived from the verb diaitasthan, meaning ‘to lead one’s life.’”
Wow…I just about fell out of my chair when I read this line! It turns out that the original meaning for the word “diet” was exactly what I was looking for to describe my new What IF Diet Plan! In fact, this goes to show just how skewed our view of health and nutrition has become throughout history. I now believe that the word diet was never meant to convey restriction or willpower. Diet was literally meant to convey a way of living one’s life, which shouldn’t be an endeavor. Life should be as relaxed, fruitful, and free of worry as possible. This describes my What IF Diet Plan perfectly!