OK not every, you can diss the rest below.

Paleo

The return to monke diet. This is one of the most popular. The entire rationale behind it is just wrong and silly although the diet itself is accidentally not absolute trash. The main idea is that you should eat more like paleolithic humans because our body never evolved to eat the stuff that became available with farming, such as dairy, legumes, grains, processed oils, etc. This can have some advantages over the diets of the average person who eats trash, mostly because it avoids some really garbage processed foods and sugars etc. However there are several things wrong with it. First of all the whole "its what the cavemen ate so it's better" is basically a refined form of naturalistic fallacy and it's not supported by any scientific data. But even if it was true that it's best to eat like our ancestors did, it would still wouldn't say much at all because there was incredible variation in what paleolithic humans used to eat, according to location. Additionally, modern research shows that they did eat grain and wild legumes etc earlier than previously thought. Also, obviously humans evolved to adapt to changing diets pretty fast, which is how so many of us have lactose tolerance. So the thesis is just wrong on every level. But nonsense rationale aside, how good is it? I for one have no idea why you would want to specifically exclude legumes from your diet. I can maybe understand the rest (although if you're not vegan and don't have lactose intolerance excluding dairy altogether is not very smart either) but why the fuck would you exclude fucking legumes? There is no good reason. Legumes are major components of diets which have demonstrated to have health benefits, like the Mediterranean diet. Legumes are a good way to get protein and other important stuff without having to eat meat all the time. Legumes don't destroy the environment either, at least compared to other stuff we eat. Legumes are good. Eat legumes. It's 2021 ffs. You're following a restrictive diet already, at least have your restrictions be reasonable instead of nonsense. So it's mostly a grift but at least not a terrible one.

Carnivore diet

Similar rationale to paleo, but more wrong plus more fragile masculinity, and actually very bad for you unlike paleo. Basically everyone who follows this because they read about it on the Internet or whatever ​and not out of necessity or tradition ​is not to be reasoned with and should be rounded up and either put into a zoo or released into the wild, far from human society.

Carnivore diet sickos who eat rotten meat

Same with vanilla carnivore diet except its practicioners should be shot on sight before they bite someone and give them some fucked up disease that was thought to be extinct.

Keto/zero carb diets

Restricting carbs can be good for weight loss sometimes, again mostly because the average person in the west gets their carba from the shittiest sources possible. The "I must avoid all carbs at all costs" psychosis is weird and funny and just not very good, especially when it leads to people skipping on stuff that's actually important for them jsur because they have some carbs. The funniest thing is when gym bros obsess about carbs. Anyone who knows athletes knows that they eat truckloads of carbs. Gymbros avoiding carbs at all costs are hurting themselves and their muscle growth because carbs act to preserve tissue protein because your body uses them for energy isntead of the protein. If you don't eat enough carbs you strain your muscle protein levels as well as your kidneys, because they have to excrete the nasty byproducts of protein breakdown. There are diets which are low in carbs but not so criminally low that they have adverse effects like that, however they haven't been demonstrated to have particularly beneficial effects either. Still, it may be a good idea for weight loss, mostly because it is more straightforward to follow it practically for some time. Not so much for the long term. Again, mostly a grift.

Fasting diets

Another one of the "why the fuck are you doing this when you can just not do it" sort. Just eat ffs. A good diet is one you can comfortably follow for the rest of your life. No one but the bad kind of sickos can stick to eating every second or third day or whatever for the rest of their lives, and you'll probably completely mess up your body in the process of the diet anyways. Stop torturing yourself, jeez.

Breatharianism/sun diet/Inedia/prana

OK this one is by far the dumbest. Yes, even worse than the rotten meat one. Breatharianism is kinda like intermittent fasting etc, except you also fast the rest of the days too. Yeah. "But if I do that I'll just starve and die" you say. Correct. That's exactly the problem. And yes, people have done that and they died. Why? I don't know. They believe they can survive by "feeding" on sun's energy and the air like a fucking lettuce. Newsflash, people aren't lettuce. I don't know why this is lost on some people. Apparently a lot of grifters in places such as India and weird American hippies pretend to have been living like that for years, but obvious bullshit is obvious. I rember reading a dumbass times of India article which said some stuff along the lines of "well, a pure sunlight diet is bad for you and you will probably die, but it's good to combine a normal healthy diet with the sunlight diet and find a healthy mean, because sun is good for vitamin D etc". Yeah, that's not combining prana with a normal diet, it's just a normal fucking diet but also maybe get out every now and then.

Bottom line, here's my epic health tips for the day: eat something every now and then because otherwise you will starve and die, that something should be something other than rotten meat, touching a bread crumb won't kill your gains and don't be the bad kind of sicko.

  • JoesFrackinJack [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Calorie counting and limiting sugar intake especially. If you're in the US just maintaining a small amount of sugar intake will be challenge within itself unless you're already or prepared to start meal prepping a majority of what you eat

    • EmmaGoldman [she/her, comrade/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      I'm Canadian, so same thing. I already do meal prep almost everything I eat. The main issue is that I binge eat a shocking amount every time I do eat.

      • JoesFrackinJack [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Yeah that's a tough one tbh, I'd recommend when you do feel binging you just gotta force yourself to eat healthy as possible. I had a lot of success with baby carrots, broccoli, edamame, apples, or just salad with an stuff like olive oil or a vinaigrette.

        It takes awhile to get both into that habit and maintaining it. Not saying this about you, but the other part was accepting I have an eating disorder and a damn near toxic relationship with food and finding support in other avenues than just diet. I made small goals and mostly stuck to them. It's hard in a lot of ways, especially when you're going through other shit and regular stress. The key with this and quitting anything is it's always one day at a time, if you fuck up one day and binge bad it's not the end of everything, it's best to make yourself work out a bit more the next day because of that but like you also can't beat yourself up over it. It's not the end of anything and most people have that issue when dramatically changing diets

    • WhatDoYouMeanPodcast [comrade/them]M
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      I want to add that, in my experience having lost 15kg recently, that calorie counting doesn't need to last forever. I think the diet needs to be easy and sustainable or you start cutting corners, stop counting, get discouraged, and fuck off. If you take a month to count calories, I think you'll make every conclusion you need to on your own. I like a month because you might eat extra clean under fear of scrutiny for a week or two. More than that and you begin to see what your normal habits are like and those are the decisions, strategies, and indulgences one ought to critique when the desire is a more restricted diet.

      After that month, take some time to think of what you want to do differently and ways to effect that change. An example might be, "I get so hungry in the afternoon and reach for something greasy. If I meal prep a 3pm snack, I might avoid that habit. I'm going to keep half a baked potato and a cheese stick around." Something like that. You can stick 3 potatoes in the oven, cut them in half, and keep them in Tupperware for $2 and 3 minutes of effort.

      Edit: also, I went into a lab and got my BMR tested and I found that even with a history of athletics and lifting that an online TDEE calculator is basically correct

      • JoesFrackinJack [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        That's a great point, planning ahead is a big step in better controlling both how much and what you consume.

        Definitely everybody is different too, like if you're at a certain higher weight it's very likely you do need to eat more than what a lot of people recommend, but setting the goal over time to keep reducing it at a safe and comfortable rate can help immensely maintaining weight loss. A lot of people try to essentially starve themselves and that is dangerous and will probably fail in the long term. Actually maintaining weight loss takes a lot of time, which can be super discouraging. But it's a journey and not a race, this stuff can cause a lot of stress which could essentially backfire on you. Finding your comfort level when cutting food is very important.