Thread by @mcjulie

Okay, one final morning opinion: Keto diets are weird and brutal & unless you're using it to control seizures, or have some other underlying condition that recommends keto, I have NO idea why you'd choose it over any other "healthy eating" approach.

Ketosis is a specific biological condition with ups (seizure control) and downs (hard to maintain, hard to get full nutritional variety, acidic blood, etc.)

The whole mythology that you're "burning fat" -- well, yeah, if you're eating nothing but fat, of course you're burning fat, but are you burning the fat that's stored in your body? Only if you're maintaining a calorie deficit, same as every other diet.

I'm disturbed by the cultlike nature of many diets, especially the ones like keto that involve a lot of ritualized setting yourself apart from the perceived "normal" eating patterns of North American culture.

You know, you can't just put CREAM in your coffee like those plebes over there, it has to be some kind of special whipped organic butter that renders your coffee BULLETPROOF.

There's a weird colonialist aspect to it. So often, I'll see a white North American argue for the inherent superiority of one of the low carb diets -- arguing that fruit is literally poison or some nonsense -- seemingly ignorant of the fact that Asia even exists.

Just like Christian evangelicals, diet evangelicals want to imagine a "one true diet" for the entire world without any consideration for individual, cultural, or geographic diversity.

Also like Christian evangelicals, diet evangelicals will make really absurd claims about just how THOROUGHLY their chosen diet will save you from literally all your problems.

Like, not merely "oh, maybe you'll lose a few pounds" but "YOU WILL LOOK AND FEEL FANTASTIC!!!! AT ALL TIMES IN EVERY WAY !!!!BETTER THAN IN YOUR TWENTIES!!!!!"

Americans are in love with this idea of complete transformation, all it takes is somebody to show you the Real True Truth, the Hidden Truth, the Truth THEY (whoever they are) have been keeping from you all this time.

Waaaaay back in the 1970s when I was reading my mom's Family Circle/Good Houskeeping kinds of magazines, you know, the ones that always had a picture of a decadent dessert accompanied by text promising you a virtuous diet --

I noticed how often they had "my weight loss" stories that were pretty much identical to "my Christian conversion" stories, following the same arc of fall, then truth, then redemption.

And even as a child I noticed that they all treated the "truth and redemption" part as a one-time deal. Like, you USED to be lost in sin, excuse me, sugar, but now you've seen the Truth of Atkins and your newfound trimness is an accomplished thing, a done deal.

But that's not how it works. Whatever you did, you have to do it every day for the rest of your life, and there's CONSIDERABLE evidence that the more extreme your diet, the more unlikely that becomes.

And furthermore -- here's the part that slays me -- even IF you have all these perfect & wonderful health habits, as you age, you will have to recalibrate them. It gets harder and harder to have the body shape or health level that you want. It just does.

As a culture we're OBSESSED with weight loss & we've turned it into a weird secular religion that follows the general format of evangelical Christianity -- sin followed by penance, constant rededication and renewal --

And, the prompt for this thread, relentlessly "sharing" the One True Truth with people who already know everything you're going to tell them, and don't want to hear it anyway.

Knock it off, diet evangelicals.

The end.

I just blocked a dude for pro-ana content.

Not tolerated, thanks.