What IS a good Diet?

What IS a good Diet (or Lifestyle or Way-of-Eating)?
What’s the criteria we use when making this judgment call?

Is it the amount of weight we lose, when we’re following it?
Is it the amount or the kind of food we eat, when we’re following it?
Is it the physical feeling our body has, when we’re following it?
Is it the emotional satisfaction we feel, when we’re following it?
Is it the length of time we can follow it?

 Here’s one answer:

How do you know you're on a "good" diet?

Simple. You like it.

What do I mean?

Tolerating a diet's not good enough.
If you're only tolerating your new lifestyle you're certainly not likely to keep living it.

Food wise - you can't be regularly battling hunger, it can't be making you feel unwell
and your life has to be "normal" meaning you should be able to include food
for comfort, food for celebration, with no forbidden foods.

Fitness wise -
you can't be running out of time, running out of energy, hurting yourself, or hating it.

Ultimately you're aiming for a lifestyle where you can't happily eat any less
and you can't happily exercise any more.

Sure we can all improve our lifestyles but to use an extreme example,
... do you really think you can be a tee-totaling vegan, shut-in, marathon runner forever?

If you can't happily eat less, you're not going to eat less.
If you can't happily exercise more, you're not going to exercise more.

Your goal should be your personal best
recognizing that the best lifestyle you can enjoy
and the best lifestyle that you can tolerate
are two very different things.

            Yoni Freedhoff, MD, Canadian obesity doctor, weightymatters .com