Don’t eat sugar; cut out cholesterol. What about preservatives, gluten, dairy and all the other dietary villains? Hey, did you see what Dr. Oz said? A person who is diet conscious is bombarded with the can’ts, the don’ts and the stops. What about the cans, the shoulds, and the musts? Flip the way you position yourself around your diet and it can change everything.

This is the basis of an “eat everything diet”.

What does the eat everything diet mean? An eating pattern which places nothing off limits but asks us to thoughtfully think about the healthful aspects in the foods we eat and eat according to tastes and preferences.

Eat more and embrace healthy aspects of food, rather than shunning the perceived perils. For example, a person might get confused that sugar is present in fruit, therefore, they ought not to be eating it. Now, that’s certainly not true; eating fruit is a healthy snack anyone can agree with.

Part of the reason people fail with diets is that they’ve been under the impression that complexity and agony begets success. There must be a hack, a secret, or knowledge they don’t possess. They need to push harder, get motivated, and embrace the hunger. Actually, a simple mindset around how to eat supersedes the need for complexity.

A lot of times, nuances actually discourage a healthy diet. A diet shouldn’t cause stress; there need not be strict avoidance. You don’t need to count the sugar in grapes versus sugar in blueberries. You don’t need to ponder whether kale is better than spinach, if brown rice is better than white. All exist within such a narrow bandwidth that as long as you eat any of them, in the right portions, you will be on target.

Consider the ways to improve eating habits rather than cutting out entire food groups or subgroups. Maybe eating fruit instead of tortilla chips would be healthier? Maybe a baked potato instead of fried potatoes is a better side. Does the burger need two patties, bacon, and cheese? How about eating a salad as an appetizer to squash the anguish of hunger beckoning against the rational voice to eat less.

If this seems to be against your diet dogma or experience, that’s because what grips and captivates are the extremes. This is how media, politics, and word of mouth spread some of the less positive messages in the world.

If you have tried and tried with nothing but failure to show, perhaps you can learn something from adding more foods, and knowing you can — and should — eat it all.