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'.