Joy Diet!
I’m going on a diet.
I can already hear you saying, “whoa, what?!”, which is an appropriate response. Thank you.
Before you stop reading, cancel me, or question who the heck I’ve become (because hopefully you’ve gotten the vibe that I’m NOT a diet person), hear me out.
It’s a joy diet.
I’m going on a diet of joy!
Let’s pull this apart a bit to understand why I might even use the word “diet” when I am an anti diet culture person to my core.
We’ll start with the actual definition of the world diet because I believe it’s time to reclaim the original definition of the term.
According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary the word diet means:
1 a : food and drink regularly provided or consumed
b : habitual nourishment
c : the kind and amount of food prescribed for a person or animal for a special reason
d : a regimen of eating and drinking sparingly so as to reduce one's weight
2 : something provided or experienced repeatedly.
There is so much to unpack here!
And there is also this from Merriam Webster (2025):
The word diet first appeared in English in the 13th century. Its original meaning was the same as in modern English, “habitually taken food and drink.” But diet was used in another sense too in the Middle and early modern English periods to mean “way of living.” This is, in fact, the original meaning of diet’s Greek ancestor diaita, which is derived from the verb diaitasthan, meaning “to lead one’s life.” In Greek, diaita, had already come to be used more specifically for a way of living prescribed by a physician, a diet, or other regimen.
In our modern world it is easy to hone in on – or possibly only know – the 1.d. definition of diet: a regimen of eating and drinking sparingly so as to reduce one's weight (Merriam Webster, 2025). The diet industry (and its ties to consumerism, capitalism, and the patriarchal world culture) have focused on this definition of diet because it disempowers by telling us that our bodies are wrong and therefore must be “fixed” by spending our money, energy, and precious time on trying to control and change them. Cristy Harrison, author of Anti-Diet, defines diet culture as “a system of beliefs that worships thinness, equates it to moral health and virtue, and a culture that promotes weight loss as a means of attaining increased status in society” (Harrison, 2018).
I could go on and on about the harm of diet culture. Perhaps I will at some point. What I want to note now is that diet culture focuses on one definition of diet, twisting our understanding of the concept into something distorted and perverse which is only loosely tied to the original definition of diet at all.
In this way the word diet has evolved to almost be synonymous with the concept of “restriction.” When I hear the word diet, I shrink back and recoil from it. I’ve learned to avoid anything that has even a hint of diet culture because I know first hand the harm “dieting” or “restricting” can inflict.
Nonetheless, I believe it's time to reclaim the original meaning of diet as …
A way of living.
The Greek Diaitasthan.
To lead one’s life.
A diet is, in essence, a way of living.
I like this definition much more!
We could also add in definitions 1.b: “habitual nourishment” and 2: “something provided or experienced regularly,” as well as the word “consumed” from definition 1.a.
Now we’re no longer just focusing on nourishment through food but also opening up to all types of nourishment in our lives.
We may want to consider:
Spiritual nourishment
What does your spiritual diet consist of?
Social nourishment
What is your habitual nourishment relationally?
Emotional nourishment
How do you nourish yourself emotionally day-to-day?
Mental nourishment
What do you consume mentally?
Physical nourishment
What do you experience regularly that tends to your body in the form of movement, sexual experiences, food, physical touch, bodily self-care, etc?
And more!
Considering diet as “ a way of living” asks us to consider the entirety of our “habitual” experiences.
Annie Dillard says, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives” (1989).
When we see it this way we cannot avoid being on a diet because we are constantly experiencing, consistently nourishing and consuming, and definitely living. The question becomes: is our diet – our diaitasthan, our way of leading our lives – unconscious or conscious?
I invite you to consider these questions:
What is your “habitual nourishment” in the realms of physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and social life?
What is “provided or experienced regularly” in your life that you might want to change, that perhaps no longer nourishes you?
What is your general “way of living” or your life diet?
I’ve recently been considering how much fear we are “provided” daily. Unless we are very aware we may unconsciously be on a fear diet simply by existing in our current world. Therefore, I’d like to make a conscious return to the thus far neglected 1.c. definition of diet: “the kind and amount of food prescribed for a person or animal for a specific reason.”
With our more nuanced understanding of the original definition of “diet” we can also understand this to mean the kind of living prescribed for a specific reason.
What kind of living would you like to prescribe yourself today?
In other words, what life diet would you put yourself on given the world you live in?
My answer: joy!
Perhaps now you understand why I’m going on my diet - my joy diet.
My intention is to consume, experience, and to be provided with as much joy as my nervous system can handle. It’s a prescription I’m writing for myself to enhance my overall wellbeing and to counteract the effects of the fear swirling all around.
Joy is a radical act, especially now.
Would you like to join me?
Perhaps you’d rather prescribe yourself a beauty diet. Or maybe you’d like to go on a gratitude diet. Or a deep-conversations, or hugs, or music, or comfort diet.
Let me know what you decide to provide yourself and the impact it has! I’d love to hear from you.
P.S. I cannot take credit for the term joy diet, as I first heard it from Martha Beck’s The Joy Diet: A Brief Guide to Feasting On Life!
Here are some photos of some of my joy diet moments over the recent years! I plan to collect many more moments in the near and far future.
Don’t forget these four things:
I care about you;
having a body is beautiful;
recovery is possible; and
we choose what matters in this one wildly precious life!
References:
“Diet.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/diet. Accessed 4 Jun. 2025.
Harrison, C. (2018, August 10). What Is Diet Culture?. Christy Harrison. https://christyharrison.com/blog/what-is-diet-culture . Access 4 Jun. 2025.
Dillard, A. (1989, January 1). The Writing Life. Harper Perennial.
