Have You Ever Noticed...

[RJLupin]

How much those "bad food" diets can start to resemble a cult? I say this because I was checking in on my low-carb forum (no, I am not doing low-carb anymore, but was into it before I started No S) and was really creeped out by some of the stuff I saw. Some people claimed to eat nothing but meat and eggs all day. Some people said whole grains were poisonous, and that fruit was the same as a candy bar. What REALLY scared me, though, were what happened to people who were having problems. A new-ish poster said she was having problems with severe nausea, fatigue, depression, and a rapid heart rate. That, to me, would signal that something was really wrong but the other people told her to keep on it, this was good, and it would go away. If you ever question the logic behind low-carb (if carbs are bad, why is it that the thinnest people in the world eat a diet so high in them?) people will just about take your head off.

It saddens me to see how many people go on these bizarre and ridiculous regimens, and suffer through all kinds of diet-related health problems, to lose weight. Worse still, I don't think it's possible to stay on something really weird and restrictive like that so you'll end up gaining the weight back. I used to fall victim to all these weird diet, too, so I know the kind of desperation that can cause someone to latch on like that.

I think I am very lucky to have found No S. Never again will I have to risk my health on any more fad diets, or spend months at a time only eating eggs or something weird.

[Journey]

Yes, I noticed this too while frequenting a low-carb forum. People do become very extreme and very aggressive about what ever plan they have chosen to follow. I think that to eat all meat is the same extreme as people who eat all fruit or all raw foods. Neither produces good health. I think they'll find out years down the road when deficiencies start to set in. Sure they may be thin...but come on? Would God have made all the different types of foods if he didn't want us to partake. And have you really ever looked closely at these people's pictures? The all meat eaters and the all raw eaters both look thin in a unhealthy way. Their faces don't look healthy. Yes I have heard of cultures that ate no vegetation. But these people lived off of pure meats that didn't come from a factory and they ate all of the animal including organs in order to obtain nutrients and vitality. Eating Walmart beef everyday is not going to give one good health. Contrary to popular belief thin does not equal healthy.

Getting rid of processed foods, fake foods, excessive sugars is a good thing no matter what plan you follow. But making any natural category of food evil is crazy. Instead of saying that fruit is like a candy bar, they should say that fruit doesn't react well with their body because years of eating unhealthy things has caused an imbalance.

I have come to the conclusion that if the world had never developed the process of refining foods and accepted the idea of packaged snacks, we wouldn't have a world full of overweight people. People wouldn't need to restrict their fruit and grain intake because their bodies would be able to handle these things.

I accept that I am insulin resistant and that it comes from years and years and years of eating too much refined food and sugars. Just because I have to restrict my carb intake doesn't mean that fruit and grains are bad for everyone.

Just my thoughts about it all

[RJLupin]

I try and watch my sugar and refined carb intake, too, but those people are just crazy. Even if you could eat nothing but meat at all (and I don't think anybody will ever stick to that) why would you? Can you imagine never having another baked potato, a slice of birthday cake, another slice of bread? I also don't buy at all their claims that there was this magical time when people ate nothing but meat; humans are by nature omnivores, and probably ate whatever they could find.

It also ignores the fact that the thinnest people today do eat lots of carbs. The French are thin and have lower rates of heart disease, but they eat all that white bread. The Japanese eat rice. I don't think anybody ever got fat eating too many veggies or fruit. God help you if you bring this up on the low-carb boards, though, because they will freak out. It's very disturbing to me, too, that they recommend people who are sick and vomiting from their "healthy" low carb diet to stick with it, as though this was somehow normal. Saddest of all, none of them ever seem to keep the weight off......you see the same people coming back again and again.

It's just too bad that the struggle to lose weight has come to this: demonizing entire categories of food as "poison" and accepting illness as being ok in an attempt to get thin. Maybe you can lose weight on it, maybe you can't, but I really worry what the long-term result will be, and if you could keep the pounds off even if you lost them.

[wosnes]

How much those "bad food" diets can start to resemble a cult?

I became aware of this several years ago when a friend noticed it. I hadn't thought of it in those terms before. It's true. The leadership can say or do almost anything and the followers will believe it . Heaven forbid anyone points out that slim, healthy people haven't consumed the forbidden food for centuries or millennium. At best, some of these diets are extreme; at worst, dangerous.

Eating Walmart beef everyday is not going to give one good health.

Isn't that the truth? Recently I've been buying most of my meat from a specialty grocery. They cut and grind all their own meat and nothing is packaged. They rarely have the quantity that a regular grocery does, but I think the quality is better and they have a much better variety. In addition, there's a great service element. It's more expensive, but I think it's worth it.

[RJLupin]

I have lost 5 pounds in my first two weeks doing No S, and I did it eating all the sorts of things that the low-carb people told me would make me fat: baked potatoes, bread, pasta. I also ate the stuff the low-fat people told me was bad: cheese, butter, sour cream. I never once counted calories or fat or carbs. It just goes to show you, you CAN lose weight without having to remove entire foodgroups from your diet.

It's weird, but both low-carb and some high-carb diets HAVE been shown to improve certain risk factors like cholesterol and triglycerides. How is this possible, since they are both opposite? I think the one common thread through both is NOT what they do eat, but what they do NOT. By cutting out sweets, lots of sugar, and heavily processed stuff they both seem to improve health. So, why not just do that......why cut out good stuff, too?

[wosnes]

It's weird, but both low-carb and some high-carb diets HAVE been shown to improve certain risk factors like cholesterol and triglycerides. How is this possible, since they are both opposite? I think the one common thread through both is NOT what they do eat, but what they do NOT. By cutting out sweets, lots of sugar, and heavily processed stuff they both seem to improve health. So, why not just do that......why cut out good stuff, too?

I've known for a long time that people who follow a diet (as in way of eating) that prevents heart disease, for example, also tend to have low rates of diabetes and cancer, not to mention a generally healthy weight. When I was reading The Jungle Effect was when I realized that there is no one way to eat that promotes health. There are many ways. The common denominator is absence of processed and manufactured foods.

The Tarahumara Indians of Mexico were featured in the book because of their low rates of diabetes. Their diet consists mainly of corn and beans. They're certainly not counting carbs!

It's not even refined foods -- the white stuff. As you mentioned above, many of the healthy populations include those in their diets.

[BrightAngel]

How much those "bad food" diets can start to resemble a cult?

Yes, I've noticed how BOTH
the "bad food" diets
AND
the "good food" diets
can resemble a cult.

In fact, it seems to be true of just about every group of people,
that insists a diet hold to a rigid, limited way of eating.
...including those who feel that eating "healthy" means avoid processed foods..

That is one reason I admire Reinhard's approach re modifications to NoS,
i.e. if it works for you, it's okay.