When people diet (or otherwise restrict their food), they tend to define themselves by what they don't eat. No meat. No dairy. No wheat. No fat. No taste (haha).

And I think that's interesting. When I was deeply anorexic, I related to that a lot. I would eat anything- as long as it didn't have calories! It's even become a cultural phenomenon. There's a book called "What not to eat."

People aren't stupid. They know they're missing out on things. And dieting=deprivation, however you define diet.

Think about it: you're defining your diet by what isn't in it. This doesn't apply to someone with allergies, of course. They literally have to define their diets (in part) by what they can't eat. But the rest of us have so much more freedom.

When you restrict your food, you restrict your life, and that's what our culture seems to be doing. We're so afraid of what might be (in our food, in our lives) that we start to miss out.

On the blog Vanilla Garlic, Garrett had this to say about the bizarre food requests received by friends:

Really, I don't mind cooking around allergies, likes, dislikes, health problems, and religious or moral viewpoints. I'm not going to serve a ham sammich with tomatoes to a practicing Muslim who gags at the thought of a sliced tomato touching their food. I will not however cook for someone who sits down and says they are on the Atkins for the next three days and can't eat the salad I made (insisting on near-raw hamburger instead), or the vegan eating a cheese bagel because "They're just too good to give up."

I think it comes down to starting to say yes instead of no. What are you going to eat today? What will you choose to include in your diet, in your life? Even if what you eat doesn't change, your mentality might.

What do you think? What are you going to say yes to today?