I don’t tell anyone really. Don’t want to hear their thoughts on fasting when they weren’t saying a word as I ballooned to 350. And I think there is another group of people who their whole worth is based on this 5 meals a day and you are weak and have no will power crap.
There are multiple factors including the archaic (and often disproven) food standards that have been touted for the last 40 years like how people have to eat 6 small meals a day to lose weight ‘healthily’. This includes the careless throwing around of the buzzword “starvation mode” and misinformation about the role of fasting and metabolism.
Diet businesses hate the idea of fasting because it makes them no money so they invest a lot into making sure people who are dieting believe they need to eat their shady diet food more often.
People dying from anorexia is a real concern but people have grown to associate ‘not eating’ with anorexia and they don’t know that anorexia has little to do with not eating to be healthier and a whole lot to do with distorted body image and control
There is so much money to be lost if people just realize they can fast. Society has convinced people that you need 3-6 meals. Imagine not having to stop at a gas station and/or McDonald’s when hungry and buying crap food. Imagine not having to buy weird and junk meal replacement shakes to lose weight you’ve put on eating that crap. Instead you can fast and wait to buy some food to prepare yourself. There’s no incentive for any companies to convince you fasting is good. Furthermore fasting is essentially a more extreme version of a ketosis based diet (keto diet, carnivore, and fasting are all pretty much the same school of thought- burning fat by ketosis) there’s a lot of big name companies that have to convince you that grains (veganism) and carbohydrates are the optimal source of fuel for the human body (most health supplement companies, big grains like cereal brands, oatmeal, etc) a lot of these “whole grain” foods are bland and so if they are not considered healthy they would go out of business. Just my two cents.
Two things come to mind: they are fearful for the persons health, as fasting is NOT in most persons healthy vernacular (instead we believe the lies we’ve been fed [pun intended]); also, hearing that FASTING is good requires someone to face the idea that what they’ve been doing/are doing/will do, (eating so much so often) can be fundamentally wrong/unhealthy is challenging their understanding, and it’s often easier to fight against change than embracing it.
Like my friend, who firmly believes metabolism is like a car engine you turn on in the morning, and that’s it’s healthier to eat ANYTHING than nothing, to, ahem, “start your metabolism”.
We were made to believe that we really gotta have a meal every 3 hours (and never skip breakfast!) so the idea of not eating for long periods of time usually scares people. There’s absolutely nothing wrong. Human body is amazing, it can work without food
People don’t like change. It goes against the three square meals a day, this has been the nutrition “standard” for decades.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a majority of doctors still believe you’re putting yourself at major risk if you fast over 24 hours.
I don’t tell people anything about it anymore. I used to let it be known quite a bit. I stopped because people did not want to be informed about it but to joke and make a lot of silly ass remarks. Now,I don’t have the time or inclination to get into it
Mark Twain said something like”it is easier to fool someone than to convince them they have been fooled. People were taught about the food pyramid and eating three meals and two snacks to maintain their metabolism. Now they can’t be convinced otherwise, even as they get fatter every month, and the evidence for limiting carbs and meals becomes more widely available.
Many people are defending the position they currently have , because they interpret that you are selling it to them by telling about it.
I get in so many small conflicts because of that. Both at the fault of my own and others
for most people not up to speed on that , will find it VERY unappealing
My husband and I deal with this from my mother in law. Constantly telling us it’s not healthy and her doctor told her to eat 5 small meals a day, etc. She struggles with diabetes, weight gain, and high blood pressure but still tries to convince us her way is the healthy way. I’ve sent her articles and research on fasting and she still just says something doesn’t seem right about it and there’s no way it’s healthy. It’s infuriating.
I think that it’s an understandable reaction in some ways. Eating disorders injure and damage people. Someone doing a 10 day fast and an anorexic person starving themselves for 10 days can look the same at first glance. Goals and methods behind it make the difference, but those aren’t very tangible things to an internet stranger.
Anyone who has struggled with disordered eating or loved someone who has is going to understandably read the worst into a story about fasting. Unfortunately those two groups include a lot of people.
A few things.
Combine all this together and you see why Rule 1 of fasting is Don’t Talk About Fasting.
It’s not because it’s a secret club and you’re the only one allowed in. It’s because unless you’re talking to someone who fasts, the conversation is more or less always the same.
Why do most people react so aggressively to others being fat?
Because people can’t keep their own business to their own selves. Because people have put moral value on shit that has no inherent moral value.
Because not eating sounds crazy, to be quite frank. If you’re going to do an extreme diet such as fasting it’s best to keep that to yourself and those who are if a similar mindset unless you are really interested in seeking out others opinions.
A lot of people think fasting is going to provide some benefit that it just doesn’t. There is a lot of BS in the health and fitness space. And people seem to get very emotionally attached to their particular way of eating. You see the same thing in the Vegan, Keto, Carnivore, etc. spaces as well.
A lot of people seem to take it as a personal attack if someone points out any negatives to their preferred method.
I will never know for sure, and I don’t have to. But in my opinion, those people seem to be rejecting and denying something within themselves. Maybe the whole things they used to believe and live by would suddenly collapse and they fear it.
But can confirm. They do get offended.
IF goes against everything we’ve been indoctrinated with taught about nutrition therefore, some people just can’t accept that what we’re doing actually works better than modern conventional wisdom.
This is the fastest nation in the history of the earth. People love to hold on to their delusions and pain. They need it to be hard, they need it to cost money, they need the excuse, they need to explain how why they can’t change. Fasting is the easiest, freest, healthiest thing people can do to change their body. It will be attacked an ridiculed because the whole culture is partially built around selling you solutions to a problem that’s free to solve.
They didn’t do a thorough research on the subject from specialists that are experts on the subject. I’ve been doing it my whole life without even realizing it and I was the fittest/athletic and had the best form during that period. The moment I followed the expected western diet of 3meals a day, that’s when the weight gain and other unhealthy ideas about food and other issues started to pile on too. Fasting is ordered by Dr before major surgery, for combating obesity, even for blood and urine test.
Most Americans have far more exposure to eating disorders (in their own families, in the media) than they do to the idea of healthy fasting. So they think that this person is harming themselves for clicks, and react accordingly.
Additionally, most Americans [hereinafter: oooA] are overweight or obese, which at some level they realize is unhealthy. But they tell themselves that it’s normal, unavoidable, etc. So by losing weight the faster is attacking oooA’s self image, which generates a visceral response.
Can you post a link to the AMA, or DM me? I’d love to read it. Thanks!
Did you check the dates? Posts made 8+ years ago are more hostile towards the idea of fasting than recent posts. It has become common knowledge now that fasting can be a good practice for one’s health.