Diet vs Health

This morning I noticed that there was a "Coach" option on the Nike+ website.  I decided to do the 5K coaching and it automatically creates a program and downloads it unto my iCal (mac) calendar.  On iCal you can have multiple calendars within your main calendar (color coded).  It entered in all the runs for 3 months, but put them under my "social" calendar, so I had to go in and manually change them to what I had as my "weight" calendar.  This was the purple color code that I was using when entering my weight in every day.  I recently started entering my walks/runs as well under this same calendar.  One by one, I started changing the coached-runs into my weight calendar, when I realized, "I need to rename this calendar".  This is not about my weight-- this is so much more than that.! I am being more active and there are so much more things that are starting to fit under this calendar that are not just "weight".  I went in and renamed the calendar "Health & Fitness".
I thought this was an interesting change.  It represents the transition from diet to health.  I knew that there was a big difference- since I was rearranging my agenda (pun intended), but I wanted to really see what the differences were.
I looked up the definitions of diet, health and fitness.  Ironically, the definition of diet was as long as health and fitness combined. Basically, DIET has to do with FOOD and HEALTH has to do with your BODY.  Interestingly enough, the first definition of fitness was "Health".
More and more, you hear people talk about "lifestyle change" rather than "diets", the reason being is that the word diet has certain connotations associated with it-- just look at the first three letters of the word!  Also, it implies that it's- for a certain period of time, it's restrictive, or selective.  If we think of our transformation as temporary (until we loose X lbs/kilos) then there really is no plan for our overall health, and dieting does not always guarantee that we will be healthy.
Why not make the overal goal HEALTH, and diet will follow right along.  Unfortunately, it does not always work the other way around.  Doing the Dukan alone (or any other weight-loss plan) does not guarantee health.  We still need to make choices about what we are going to put into our bodies-- and how we will maintain our bodies and that's where the health comes in.  As I've mentioned in earlier posts, I really try to stay away from red meat.  My diet consists mostly of egg whites, chicken, and lots of fish, and of course lots of veggies on my PV days.  I know that increasing my veggies, will cause me to retain more water (weight), but you know what?- I'm ok with that!  I also take a multi vitamin daily and I drink so much water, that whenever I go somewhere- the first thing I do is scope out the distance to the bathroom.
I didn't exercise much in the beginning and was just doing the prescription-ed amount of walking (20'-attack, 30'-cruise), but then the weather started getting nicer, and also I began to gain clarity on my walks. I began looking forward to them and started extending the time.  Now, I am doing 5K at least 3x a week- more if the weather permits, and as you can see from my post yesterday- I did 11K.  I have started doing a combination of walking with short distance running in between, and now my goal is to get to a point where I can jog regularly instead of walking.
So to summarize- today I realized that I needed to change my vocabulary because my program had outgrown the scope of "weight" and it was much more than a "diet".  I needed a new category for the vision I wanted to achieve.  I have gone from thinking about my "weight" to thinking about my overall "health" (and fitness).  This is a more accurate description, since the overall changes I'm experiencing go way beyond the scale.  I've noticed differences in my stamina, my sleep, my joints, my digestion, my energy, my focus, my hair, skin and nails, my mood... in short my health!

Definitions from dictionary.com

di·et   [dahy-it]  noun, verb, -et·ed, -et·ing, adjective

noun

1. food and drink considered in terms of its qualities,composition, and its effects on health: Milk is a wholesome article of diet.

2. a particular selection of food, especially as designed or prescribed to improve a person's physical condition or to prevent or treat a disease: a diet low in sugar.

3. such a selection or a limitation on the amount a person eats for reducing weight: No pie for me, I'm on a diet.

4. the foods eaten, as by a particular person or group: The native diet consists of fish and fruit.

5. food or feed habitually eaten or provided: The rabbits were feda diet of carrots and lettuce.

verb (used with object)

7. to regulate the food of, especially in order to improve the physical condition.

8. to feed.

verb (used without object)

9. to select or limit the food one eats to improve one's physical condition or to lose weight: I've dieted all month and lost only one pound.

10. to eat or feed according to the requirements of a diet.

adjective

11. suitable for consumption with a weight-reduction diet;dietetic: diet soft drinks.

health   [helth]   

noun

1. the general condition of the body or mind with reference to soundness and vigor: good health; poor health.

2. soundness of body or mind; freedom from disease or ailment: to have one's health; to lose one's health.

3. a polite or complimentary wish for a person's health,happiness, etc., especially as a toast: We drank a health to our guest of honor.

4. vigor; vitality: economic health.

fit·ness   [fit-nis]  

noun

1.health.

2.capability of the body of distributing inhaled oxygen to muscle tissue during increased physical effort.

3.Also called Darwinian fitness. Biology .

a.the genetic contribution of an individual to the next generation's gene pool relative to the average for the population, usually measured by the number of offspring or close kin that survive to reproductive age.

b.the ability of a population to maintain or increase its numbers in succeeding generations.