I started a new diet for no reason other than the fact that someone I was spending a lot of time with ate so strictly. I had found a happy and healthy balance where I was eating according to my cravings, but I threw that out the window because I thought this made me less disciplined? All of a sudden I was comparing myself and my eating habits to those around me. Shouldn't the goal be to not have to constantly exercise our will power?
Will power is cool but it's even cooler when you don't have to use it.
I've gone through endless cycles of "strict" or "clean" eating and in the end it has taught me that no diet or eating or workout program is going to work for you if it isn't something you can imagine yourself doing almost everyday in a similar fashion. It might work temporarily, but eventually you'll end up right back where you started. It’s about sustainability. And your intuition is good at that, your body wants to find and maintain a natural balance.
It's possible to get to a point where you go to the gym because you want to, where you eat healthy food because you want to, where you do all of these things that are good for your body because you want to — and that's what's exciting. Not the potential to lose weight or tone your muscles — but the fact that eventually you're going to fall into the balance of simply living like this. Doing something for the sake of achieving a very specific end goal (like a certain weight or body type) is not sustainable.