• MouthyHooker [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        17 hours ago

        It was hugely popular for a minute there, diet industry grifters have written books and made influencer cOnTeNt about it, it is less popular now but still talked about, it’s repackaged old advice, will probably fall totally out of fashion when enough trendy “new” diets replace it. I’d certainly call it a fad diet.

        • Verenata [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          17 hours ago

          See you’ve described the keto diet there but I’ve known people practising intermittent fasting of just skipping breakfast or having a yoghurt drink and saying they feel great.

          Doctors say it’s fine and unlike keto it provides consistent results provided you keep up with it vs dropping weight and then gaining it straight like most fad diets do.

          I think intermittent fasting feels more a dietary routine/choice vs a intentional diet focused on specifically losing weight and I certainly don’t think it’s a fad just cos some infulencers jumped on it.

          • MouthyHooker [she/her]@hexbear.net
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            14 hours ago

            Plenty of doctors say keto is fine. Doctors frankly give shitty dietary advice and will in fact praise disordered eating behavior in fat people if it results in weight loss.

            IF does meet the criteria of a fad diet. Agree to disagree there.

            It works for some people. It triggers disordered eating in some people. Some people find it difficult to stick to longterm. These statements are true of all diets. IF is no exception.

            Edited to add: you said unlike other diets, IF keeps working provided you keep up with it. You have in fact just described all diets. They all work until you stop doing them. And most people stop doing them because they aren’t really sustainable long-term. IF is not an exception here. It is perhaps easier to sustain for longer than keto, but having strict rules about what times you can eat is not sustainable for most people long-term.

              • MouthyHooker [she/her]@hexbear.net
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                8 hours ago

                Yes I am American. If you are fat and lose weight via literally any means, doctors here will praise you and tell you to keep it up. This is never about actual health and always about anti-fatness.

                • Verenata [she/her]@hexbear.net
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                  6 hours ago

                  That sucks, so if american doctors are anti-fat which tbh i assumed anyway and say keto is healthy because of that, I don’t understand why you pushed back at me when I said it was unhealthy? I mean it sounds like we are both agreeing keto and fad diets to encourage weight loss due to body standards is bad so I’m not sure where the disconnect is happening.

                  Edit: im guessing it’s because you see intermittent fasting as the same as keto or in the same vein, I don’t and my friends and bf who do it like it because it works for them (nothing to do with weight loss) and I think just deciding on your own vibe check that it’s a fad because of fat-phobic broken American healthcare isn’t very fair especially when america isnt the center of the planet. Different folks different strokes I guess.

                  Edit to your previous messages edit i guess: people have been doing intermittent fasting for decades, it it literally not the definition of a fad like keto, also please stop bringing up only one side of eating disorders to make your points, like multiple comments now and your just rooting the argument around your personal experience, I’m trying to give examples from people around me for variety. What you have going on clearly sucks and i will listen to you vent all you want but stop vibe checking stuff thats fine for others just because it doesnt sit with you. Finally I’ve been bulemic and I’m at a good point now and I’m on the border of doing intermittent fasting (I have no hard rules like you insist apart from trting to not eat 6 hours before sleep) and I feel a lot better and it has helped me. Unlike fasting I like to have three meals out of habit/ritual/what other do and now and I’m not throwing them up. It annoys me how eating disorder discourse online is always centered around weight loss and fat-phobia from doctors and never about weight gain. Loosely following intermittent fasting for me gave me MORE freedom as long as I made sure to have two full meals. That’s how I got to eating and retaining food, by having structure but also the freedom to eat when I wanted. I don’t even consider it fasting, just ways I’ve tricked myself to eat and I’m now just below my heaviest ever hence I don’t really have any hard rules. Sorry if that sounds harsh i think i got a bit triggered, clearly I’m very privileged to have found the diamond in the rough doctor and I do acknowledge that and other stuff. I hope you are okay and I’m sorry if I’ve triggered you.

                  • MouthyHooker [she/her]@hexbear.net
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                    6 hours ago

                    Intermittent fasting is a fad diet. People have been fasting for various reasons for millennia but the current packaging of specific windows eg 16:8, 20:4 and the touting of this as some type of cure-all for any number of physical/mental ailments is pretty textbook fad diet shit.

                    Yes people have been fasting for decades or more. People have also been doing various repackaged low carb diets for decades. People have heavily restricted calories for decades. People doing something for decades doesn’t make it healthy or unhealthy.

                    The concept of fasting is not a fad. “Intermittent fasting” is definitionally a fad diet. Again, we can agree to disagree.

                    There is a lot of insidious fatphobia and promotion of disordered eating in these conversations and that’s not just my personal opinion. I’d recommend the “Maintenance Phase” podcast to anyone who might be interested in unpacking some of that.

                    I’m glad intermittent fasting works for some people and think there are people who can do it in a healthy, beneficial way. It can also be done in a very disordered, unhealthy way. I don’t think the benefits should be discussed and promoted without also acknowledging the potential for creating disordered eating habits.

                    Dietary needs are complex and bodies are weird. I would generally agree that keto is unhealthy and it’s not a diet I would ever do myself or recommend to others. However, it has been shown to control seizures in epileptics to the extent that they’re able to stop taking anti-seizure meds as long as they stick to a strict keto diet. There are studies that corroborate the anecdotal evidence around keto and epilepsy, but doctors really have no idea why it works like this.

                    So again, I think a “healthy” diet is very individual. This is why I find diet evangelism concerning. What works for you might trigger anorexia in someone else. What works for me might make someone else anemic.

                    And all diet conversations are rooted in anti-fat bias, but that’s not a conversation most people are ready to have.