Carrying excess body fat is far more unhealthy than whatever trace ingredients might be in your afternoon snack. If someone is maintaining a healthy body weight with the occasional vending machine snack or diet soda thrown in, that person is much healthier than the person who’s still forty pounds overweight and worrying about GMOs and artificial sweeteners. This book is meant to help you finally make a lasting change and not get caught up in the minor details. Worry about those little things later.
The truth is, the most effective diet is the one you can stick to for a long time. Making a lasting change takes time, and bouncing from diet to diet, losing and gaining the same five pounds over and over, isn’t going to get you anywhere. If having a cookie every night after dinner helps you finally reach your goal weight, that’s significantly better than trying to cut out all sweets and resorting to binge eating every weekend, making no long-term progress.