Spectral Mornings - Steve Hackett

I simply love this track from Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett. Take a listen during it's 6mins 33secs and consider your lifestyle and then whether your diet matches your aspirations...it's very uplifting!

Anyway, I thought I'd write about 'diet' and 'lifestyle' as I think folk get them confused. And it's this confusion that leads to misappropriation od time and energy that yields average results and yo-yo weightloss.

So, let's start with the basics and look at what each word actually means and in what context. 

Lifestyle (n)

1. The way in which a person lives.

Diet (n)

1. The kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats.

2. A special course of food to which a person restricts themselves, either to lose weight or for medical reasons.

Diet (v)

1. Restrict oneself to small amounts or special kinds of food in order to lose weight.

You see, for me it's really obvious that 'lifestyle' is about how I live my life. Totally understood - yet 'diet' is a lot harder to define as it's a noun but 99/100 times used as a verb and something that many folk see as a pick up - put down attitude of mind that can stand a few cheat-eats and extra beers at the weekend.

Only it's not.

'Diet' is just as important as 'Lifestyle' in my opinion and it's not about being good or bad or sinning or complying - it's about making a conscious decision about the food we put into our mouths as it has a massive bearing not only on health today but also our future health. It's something that our ever-growing younger generation are going to have to endure and overcome and redress as Diet in its Noun form 1 is changing and in Noun form 2 will mostly be for medical reasons in the future.

For those of us in our middle age, adopting some new 'Lifestyle' rules and backing them up with a cleaner diet works wonders - but will need constant attention - forever. Eating what we actually need to live is the tricky part as spicing up one's diet normally spices up the waistline too. Oh and forever means that...

It's far from impossible and the best way to start is to think of what you'd like to achieve, when you are the new you and adopt the qualities of what you believe the best version of yourself would have. 

And have a go as you have nothing to lose apart from a few pounds.

1,045 Marathons, 254 Ultras, 9 Guinness World Records, 15 Marathon des Sables