Eating Healthy is NOT Deprivation

I am still very much in the beginning of my travels in changing my life for the better by making and owning more healthy choices.  I am by all means no pro at the healthy life - but I am changing that.  The old me probably got this far into despair by believing that eating healthy was depriving myself of some sort of enjoyment some how. Sure, I guess, not eating the chocolate cake resulted in me not getting to taste it's sugary goodness. But how long does that flavor last, anyway? 10, maybe 15, seconds? And the effects of the choice of eating the cake (or in my case, years of eating the cake over and over again)....can last a life time. Not the positive experience of tasting the cake, of course. But the negative effects that eating poorly does to a person. You know, weight gain, addiction to processed/sugary foods, lethargy, depression, low self esteem, more expensive plus-sized clothes, embarrassment...I could go on and on, but you get the picture.
The definition of deprivation is: to remove or withdraw something from enjoyment or pleasure. I recently came to the realization that by eating better and living healthfully, I have not deprived myself of anything. Alternatively, I have given myself more. To parallel my thoughts above, it would seem that in eating healthy, I have deprived myself of weight gain, addiction to processed/sugary foods, lethargy, depression, low self esteem, more expensive plus-sized clothes, embarrassment...I could go on and on, but you get the picture.

So the way I see it now, I have 2 choices:

1 - eat healthy and deprive myself of ten seconds worth of flavor.
2 - eat poorly and deprive myself of 60+ years of feeling good and living life.

Doesn't seem like much of debate anymore...