You see, language is powerful, so not only the information you have but the way you think about
it—your beliefs, assumptions and attitudes—matter here. Nothing can help you evolve your
thinking faster than changing your words and ways you use those words. By increasing our
awareness, knowledge and experience, we are able to change our thinking (neuroplasticity).
"Diet thinking" is a term originally coined by Robyn Landis, the young groundbreaking BodyFueling
author, in the early 1990s. In BodyFueling: Stop Watching Your Weight, Start Fueling Your Life,
Landis made a strong case for how a collection of wrongheaded beliefs not based in fact or
effectiveness was taking dieters and healthy eaters off track, confounding them as to why their
efforts always failed. After all, “everyone knows” these things are true, so why aren’t they working?
As Landis urged readers then, and as I do now, you must finally consider “maybe they aren’t
working because they aren’t true.” They are assumptions—paradigms. And nearly the whole
culture buys into them.
Sadly, many of those beliefs have persisted today, even though Landis’ popular book offered an
incisive and scathing exposé of this body of myths. The fact that this and many other books over
the past 20 years that have tried to set people straight and share the basic facts simply shows the
powerful grip that this thinking has on our culture and the velocity of the momentum in the wrong
direction.
These concepts have become so much a part of the popular culture that even professionals, who
aren’t schooled in nutrient-rich healthy eating and all of its benefits, continue to espouse them and
the resulting diet-trapped solutions to patients and clients. In fact, people have come to expect diet-
thinking solutions. They regularly ask health and nutrition professionals for fad diets to follow, diet
pills, and weight-loss surgeries.
Landis identified in her Diet Thinking™ a number of terribly persistent beliefs and assumptions that
unfortunately you still hear and may even hold today. For example, in her definition of Diet
Thinking™, “eating” and dieting” are separate; you try it “fix” your body (and not change your life);
language is negative and restrictive (like reduce, give up, fight, allowed, cheat, control, regimen); the
word “should” implies you are not the one choosing; you and your body and food are enemies;
beliefs are based on hearsay and not science; and much more. (See the book BodyFueling for a full
definition and discussion.)
To switch to rich, you have to break out of Diet Thinking™ and "diet-speak." Every aspect of this
book and system/plan is helping you do that, from the science to the psychology to the steps you
take to the nitty-gritty food choice suggestions. These are higher concepts and ideas that will
change the way you think, eat and live.
Helping people evolve at the level of language and vocabulary was one of the specialties of a
groundbreaking motivational trainer and personal performance guru: Tony Robbins, also known as