Atkins-bashers

[cjsmith]

WTF is up with Atkins-bashing? I'm not even on that diet and I've heard more snideness, put-downs, and just general meanness about it to last me the rest of my life. Some haven't even read what the diet is supposed to be, but the myths about it arouse their ire anyhow. Some raise the subject just so they can spew their bile about it. The internal pressure must be immense. One gal I met at a quilting group got so hot under the collar that I'm semi-seriously glad she wasn't armed. What the hell is the threat here, lady? Go ahead, eat your bread. Nobody's taking it away from you.

Obviously there's something I'm missing, because the way I look at it seems simplistic by comparison: if I don't like a diet I don't go on it.

Is it really more about fat-hatred? That might explain some of it, but not all of it. Is it that anything strongly contradicting previous wisdom must be suppressed? That probably doesn't explain all of it either.

If I leave comments enabled, I'm a fool, right? Yeah, I'm a fool. So I'll just delete any comments bashing any diet at all (see above remark about my lifetime quota being full).

Comments

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

I'm with you here. It's a very complex issue. I too, dislike the [whichever diet]-bashing that I hear all around me, all the time. And the thing is, it doesn't matter which diet you're discussing--someone will object, and do so loudly and obnoxiously, implying if not outright stating that whoever is on [diet X] must be an idiot/not care about animals/have a death-wish/secretly want to be fat forever, or whatever.

I recently got myself in hot water at an event. It was a group of all women, very full of PC Berkeley-types (don't get me wrong--I respect these women for much of what they do, but I lived in Berkeley long enough to have developed a bit of an allergy to things PC). At least half of these women were "off sugar," most of them were actively "watching their weight," and a goodly number of them were vegetarians. There were a few vegans in the mix, too, along with one or two low-carbers. I don't recall what the comment was that sparked mine, but I said something about disliking the sorts of vegans whom I find to be inconsistent--e.g., folks who'll put down people who eat meat because it's wrong to kill animals for food, but are still OK with buying leather shoes, for instance. Wow, I got slammed. As I found myself backpedalling, I struggled to figure out how to express to these women what it was I was really objecting to. I found it nearly impossible to communicate with them about it, because everything that I said was taken as a slur against someone in the room. I felt extremely judged for the fact that I haven't embraced a "healthy" way of eating (which to me looks like an obsession with avoiding the evil-food-of-the-month), and in fact prefer to walk a more moderate path about food.

I've tried my share of diets over the years. A couple of years ago, reading a book on depression, I came to the VERY RELUCTANT conclusion that I should try low-carb. As I delved into the diet suggestions, I found that it was full of contradictory recommendations, and that I had to completely re-vamp everything I thought I knew about cooking. I tried, I really tried, to cook that way. But it didn't work. And more to the point, I didn't lose any weight either. And the longer I tried to keep strictly to the diet, and failed to achieve any real success, the more depressed I became. Clearly, it was not a success FOR ME.

After yet more research, I've concluded (well, as much as any of this can be a "conclusion"!) that the low-glycemic stuff is the way to go. It makes the most sense scientifically, and the largest number of people seem to have the best results with it. But in some ways it's even harder to do than Atkins, because it's more complex. Bodies are complex, and it's silly for us to think that a simple solution ("eat no fat!" "eat no carbs!" "eat only grapefruit!") could possibly be the answer for everyone.

And ultimately I'll do what I do, and you do what you do, and as long as you don't give me some sort of guilt trip about it and vice versa, I think we'll get along.