All over the fitness industry the term “diet” gets thrown around, but do you really know what it means? Almost every fitness professional uses this term on a daily basis, but many of them (including me at one point) use the word diet in the wrong way. The original definition of diet is “The kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats.” This basically means the food you usually eat throughout your day, week, month, and year. As fitness has become more popular and in the news, the term DIET has become more of a weight loss term, and it shouldn’t be. Diet is what you eat, not how you eat it. You can plan your diet in a way that makes you lose weight, or gain weight, stay the same, gain muscle, or lose fat. But, you don’t “go on a diet.” You are always on a diet, unless you stop eating all together, and if that happens we have bigger issues to address. I’ll never tell you to “go on a diet” I’ll definitely tell you to adjust your diet and eat better foods, but don’t be fooled by gimmick “diets.” I mean, do you really want to be following something that doesn’t even really know what it is saying? I may be nit-picking a dumb word choice, but to me it is more than that. It is about being aware of what you are teaching people as a Health Professional, and not leading people in the wrong direction. Be aware if your trainer says go on this “diet” and you will lose weight, because I would bet that the same exact thing has been given to previous clients without any tweaking for your personal use. There are definitely great trainers and fitness professionals out there, but there are some people who promote fitness without any actual knowledge of anything related to fitness. So my point is, don’t “go on a diet” and be aware of the so-called “knowledge” that is thrown around in the fitness industry. Do your own research, ask around and find someone who has a great knowledge base in the industry.
Stay healthy,
Zach
