A Rose By Any Other Name...
 

I introduced my much-younger coworker in another thread, but she said something today that just reinforced what I've always thought. It really matters what you call something. A diet, a job title, a fashion item; anything can be more readily acceptable if you call it by a well chosen name, or avoid one with bad connotations. I've read comments about intermittent fasting where someone's loved ones or friends had a fit at the word 'fasting'. We had a lot of fun suggesting alternatives. There was 'intermittent eating', the Condensed Calorie Diet, the 'True Hunger Diet', the 'Natural Hunger Diet', the 'Every Other Day Diet', etc. The possibilities are endless. HFLC could also easily be changed to LCSF, or Low Carb, Stored Fat. You get the idea
So, four of the five people in our office are on diets. Said co-worker is CICO. Of course, she's always hungry. And recently, she's been in a slump, physically. I gently suggested that IF she gets unhappy with the CICO, she might consider low carb since it controls hunger so well. She sees me fast regularly and I am always willing to trade lunch times so she can go ahead and eat. It just adds an hour to my daily fast. But noooo, she couldn't possibly do low carb or keto. She 'tried it before' and just missed her favorites too much. So I dropped the topic.
Anyway, she regularly drinks a fruity tasting sugar free drink from Herbalife that supposedly has a thermogenic effect, somehow. Who knows? Maybe it does. The girl is losing and, at 34 years old, and 5'10" tall, is looking slimmer. So she came in after lunch today and said the little shop that sells the drinks is having a 21 day cleanse and she feels she needs to try it. It's supposed to have pre and probiotics, and all; but here's the thing. She has to avoid wheat as part of the protocol.
Is she kidding? She is avoiding sugar, because she's actually not stupid, so other than not being high fat, avoiding the most prevalent grain in our food supply makes this new wrinkle a large step toward changing her diet to lower carb.
I am waiting for her to realize there are now no more pizzas in her meals; no Taco Bell (they have some kind of 300 calorie item that she likes a lot), no sandwich wraps, etc. What about her 'favorites'? Also, she already knows to avoid vegetable oils, so she uses olive and coconut oils only. This just cracks me up. I'm wondering if, when bread drops off the menu, she'll find herself eating more fat. lololol. Well, at least she won't be doing 'Low Carb'. :lol:

I think that a lot of people find the thought of such a radical change in their eating patterns too overwhelming. I was one of them: I didn't do Atkins Induction, I cut my carbs to 50 a day and had success.

Now I'm at Induction levels of carbs and a very restricted food list... and, loving it. But if you had shown me that when I first started? I don't think I'd have handled it very well :lol: :lol: :lol:

Baby steps for some. And she'll most likely be eating lowER carb.

I like the alternate names. LOL

Yeah, I do think she just can't face it. Also, she cooks for a house full of people who would be too attached to their favorite foods.

Yes, I see it as baby steps. Also, I finally got under 200 this morning and the other low carber/faster lost five pounds this past week. She's ten years older than young Hannah. That's really an incentive.
Oh, and on the alternative names, I swear they need to switch to Intermittent Eating. :lol:

Well if she doesn't call it that she won't have to defend her choice to naysayers. Pretty funny though.

How about "Scheduled Eating"?

As an engineer, I tend to focus on substance and not nomenclature. I don't care what something is called, I care about what it is. I definitely prefer it to be named something that is accurate to what it is, but that is secondary. Above that is a disdain for something being called something that it is not, because I find that deceitful.

On top of that, I've developed a strong distaste for this craze of renaming things just to rename them, particularly since I find that most of the time that is out of a deceitful motivation.

For me, I'm eating LC. I don't characterize it as LCHF because the focus is to get the carbs down. At a given calorie level, that means proteins and fats, combined, go up. But I'm not targeting having high fat (some do), so that is not an accurate label for me. If anything, I would call what I'm doing LCTP, low-carb, targeted protein. I'm trying to hit a target protein level, but that level is intended to be neither high nor low, just adequate. The fat is what the fat is, be it high or low. I expect that, as my calorie limit moves up, the percentages will shift toward more fat, but not because that is a goal, it's a consequence.

When I think of the absolutely amazing effect that eliminating lectins from my diet had on a severe flare of my autoimmune, I get mad all over again that there's so little support online expect for the Dr. Gundry and Mark's Daily Apple.

When someone searches for "lectin and autoimmune" most of the articles are warnings about eliminating whole grains and beans and soy because they are so HEALTHY and full of nutrients! lest people eliminate them from their diets and die.

The plant-based thing might just be the driver behind the rise in autoimmune disorders in the US.

Lectin free diet is what it IS (which also eliminates gluten) but they've flooded the field with fact-free scolding which confuses people trying to deal with a life-threatening issue.

I prefer TRE - time-restricted eating.

I think a lot of us have had that reaction just from saying that we eat low-carb. It's getting better, but old myths die pitifully slowly. I've often warned people, particularly back in the day when a solid majority of LCers were following the Atkins plan, "don't use the A word." If anyone you don't trust to be supportive (including your doctor) asks what you're doing, tell him/her that you used to eat a lot of junk food and you've given it up. You stick to mostly plain foods that you cook yourself. It's not a lie, but if you tell them you eat low-carb or Atkins or now keto, suddenly that roasted chicken and green beans you had for dinner is going to kill you.

Yes, as someone who first went LC, with Dr. Eades and PP, in 1999, we used to give similar advice. I find more people who are like "If it's good for you, go for it", but if you point out something that they are dealing with, and gently, respectfully suggest that lc or Keto is worth looking into, forget it. There will suddenly be a line of ignorant, half-assed reports of when they tried it, or what their dietician-cousin told them, etc. And you're just left trying not to feel insulted. (for about three mintues, before you shrug your shoulders and write them off.)

Another way to look at it.

The simplest explanation I've ever come up with is that I just don't eat sugars or starches.

That leaves non-starchy veggies, proteins, and fats - which is LC, or Atkins, or Keto, depending on just what proportion of each of those you eat.

I agree so very much with you! I have celiac/gluten sensitivity, but on top of that I can't tolerate dairy or corn, and a boatload of other things like beans and other lectins, and nightshades. So many of these things travel together in sensitivity, and accidentally through my first experience with Atkins in 2003, I learned how great I could feel without all those things in my diet. I go nuts when I hear vegetable/grain evangelists go off on how that's the only healthy way to eat. Well, they aren't healthy for ME, that's for sure!

When I started with Atkins (back in 2003) I worked backwards; dropping down to 50 carbs a day, which was less daunting and also worked wonders for me. Over time and a couple of serious health challenges, I began the Wahls Protocol.

Only instead of stepping down as her plan had it, I just went to nothing-but-meat and stepped up very gradually :lol: And not for very long, either: I have to stay away from gluten, fiber, and lectins, and if someone's brain is asking "What's left?" I can tell you it's not that many categories :agree:

Those whose diet is more flexible and "normal" can see the plant-based brainwashing process happen in articles like this: 6 Foods That Are High in Lectins written by the usual Registered Dietician.



Easy peasy! Eat those plants! Cooking and processing makes the lectin content looooow so eat up! Sure, that doesn't work for peanuts, but the article reassures:



Likewise, potatoes:



So really, by the time you reach the end of the article, a person has absorbed "processed food GOOD and lectin dangers ARE NOT SCIENCE."

And they go eat a can of red kidney beans.

***SIGH***. Yes, these dietitians are real evangelists for their religion! Well....I wonder what THEIR digestive systems are like! :)