If I could bestow a few wishes on the United States of America right now, one would surely be to forever abolish the ‘D’ word. That’s right, D-I-E-T. Diet.

No more, “I’m starting my diet tomorrow.”

Or, “I really should go on a diet.”

Or, as a sweet confection meets the lips, “There goes my diet.”

Or, “Try my new grass and leaves diet.”

No more, as we are subjected to every January, books blaring “diet” set up in a bombastic display as we enter a bookstore.

I despise that ‘D’ word. I do. It leads to another dreaded ‘D’ word -- deprivation. And, boy, that’s one state that will put you on the road to happiness, huh? I can see it now at the top of everyone’s list of New Year’s Resolutions -- I want to experience deprivation this year.

Well, you know what? If ‘diet’ appears anywhere on your goal list, then you might as well switch it out for ‘deprivation’ because eventually that’s where it will go. Even if you lost 25 pounds because you stuck to a ‘diet,’ the very fact that you labeled it a ‘diet’ will have you putting the weight back on in no time because down the road you will end up feeling deprived in some way.

Let’s be clear here. I’m not condoning our nation’s obesity or any individual’s propensity to pile on Big Macs like they’re an appetizer in a Henry VIII-style feast (A fun fact from WikiAnswers: Perhaps the only type of food Henry and his court didn't consume to excess was vegetables, which were viewed as the food of the poor and made up less than 20% of the royal diet). I’m wholeheartedly disagreeing with how most people approach their desire to change something about their body. It needs to start with the mind.

When a human body is carrying an unhealthy amount of weight, it is typically because either the person does not know how to eat well and exercise or because when they try they cannot stay the course due to compulsion. The solution for the former individual is to learn about how to eat for wellness by consulting a book or a professional, like a holistic health counselor or nutritionist. The solution for the latter is to find out what void in their life they are trying to fill with food. This requires soul searching and mindfulness around changing habits, sometimes even some digging with a therapist to get to the root of the problem.

Wellness cannot be attained in a gimmick-y fashion or through temporary fixes. It must be paid heed to every day, thoughtfully and consistently. This brings me to ‘D’ words I happen to love -- ‘delicious’ and ‘disciplined.’

I live in an urban neighborhood where every food craving I could possibly have is easily satiated. In fact, I live so close to a Ben & Jerry’s that one day I went and bought a Heath Bar Crunch cone during a commercial break of "Law and Order" and didn’t miss a second of the show. Even closer than that is a brand new, soon-to-be-opened candy shop. And just two blocks from that is a bakery called Sweet whose coconut cupcakes are, in a word, blissful.

There was a time in my life where all of this proximity to sugar would have sent my weight skyrocketing into a danger zone. But I don’t need or want the fix every day because I took the time to examine the source of compulsive eating and consciously make a change in my entire attitude about food and exercise. I can go to Ben & Jerry’s and fill a one-time craving and not have to buy a pint that will sit in the freezer and work on my brain until it’s gone. That’s old behavior.

In the January 2009 issue of O The Oprah Magazine, Oprah Winfrey addresses her recent weight gain and gets it just right in her “What I Know For Sure” back page essay: “My focus is no longer on the weight. My focus this year will be on how to achieve optimum health, deepen my spiritual connection – and have some fun.”

Yes. This shouldn’t be a battle. It should, in fact, come from a place of peace. The book Winfrey promoted in 2008, A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, is actually a good source to begin to understand why we make certain choices.

Just two days into the New Year, I approached a personal trainer at my gym with a question and he said he could help me to lose weight. It is an assumption so many people make about others’ motivations. I told him I didn’t give a hoot about losing weight and he looked stunned. Now, had he said he could improve my quality of life or make me stronger, I might have signed on that dotted line.

But no thanks. No more counting for me. Not calories, not fat grams, not points, not pounds, not inches.

And no more diets.

I wish I could make that attitude an American epidemic.

Nancy Colasurdo is a practicing life coach and freelance writer. Her Web site is www.nancola.com. Please direct all questions/comments to FOXGamePlan@gmail.com.