When Men Diet

"The Silicon Valley execs who don't eat for days: 'It's not dieting, it's biohacking'", course it is, *wink*. Biohacking would be to find the right way to reverse weight, our bodies already know how to regulate their own mass. They're doing it NOW.

Back in the day men hardly made a fuss of dieting, maybe they starved themselves occasionally till they dropped whatever weight they could and carried on.

Now this is purported a new thing because certain people are doing it. Mmmokay. The entry of men into committed dieting duties has thrown women for a loop,

San Francisco-based eating disorder specialist Shrein Bahrami was concerned that extended fasting was another fad that could be used as a cover for not eating.

Ha, ha, ha, you don't say?

“The hyper focus on tracking vital signs and food has become normalized, so it’s difficult to know when it’s become obsessive,” she said,

Normalized eh? Of course, the influence of the 'obesity' cult. And "trracking vital signs" is right, you'd better do that and more. 

....but people with eating disorders typically feel a lot of shame and other negative emotions around food and body image, which doesn’t tally with the experience of people like Libin and Woo.

You want (mucho/macho?) shame? The subtitle; "it's not dieting, it's biohacking." Reahlly?

“There’s a mild euphoria. I’m in a much better mood, my focus is better, and there’s a constant supply of energy. I just feel a lot healthier. It’s helping me be a better CEO,” he said over a cup of black coffee – one of many that day – at All Turtles’ Soma office. “Getting into fasting is definitely one of the top two or three most important things I’ve done in my life.”

Lols. 

He’s lost almost 90lbs and describes getting into fasting as “transformative”. 

Gettin' in! Some of us are getting out and staying out!

Libin is one of a growing number of Silicon Valley types experimenting with extended periods of fasting, claiming benefits including weight loss, fewer mood swings and improved productivity.

Ode to the familiar.

However, Libin and others like him are pushing that idea further and with a focus on performance over weight loss.

Yeah, it's nothing to do with weight loss, it's the emeaushun no wait, it's all about the performance, so if these guys were gaining weight, they'd still be doing it, for the performance. Sweet honey on the rock....(in a few days obvs.)

They aren't pushing anything, that's what it takes. 

It all started with intermittent fasting or 5:2 etc., but that wasn't enough, as shown by the paltry few fatz who can get into the acceptable crew after having their stomach amputated to merely to aide being close to this extent of non-eating.

Yes, the world of ED's is butchin' it up.

If you do not alter function, as I managed to somewhat accidentally, you will have to starve around the function that is in place, how behind the curve this all is to women. Not very Silicon Valley seeming, or is it?

Are they just really a bunch of follow-fashions dressed up as the cutting edge? I wouldn't be too surprised.

As for the health benefits, those countries where people go to bed hungry are not well known for their longevity. Look at the poor people of Venezuela, do they sound like they're reaping benefits from their "emotional" disentanglement with the (apparently) unnecessary outer energy supply?

Even if we accept that circumstances make a difference, we must consider that for half a century now, fat people have been told to starve themselves not in the midst of peace and positivity but of self eviscerating self loathing which is still being enforced today, including by a sidle of both sides of their mouths-talking MF claiming to be "sympathetic" whilst telling you to part with your healthy organs.

Fasting is most conducive [not saying much] rooted in positive circumstances of privilege, prestige and peace, not internal war, pathology and a surround of palpable hatred. That is why fat phobia hurts starvation efforts, not because fat hating boo boos make fatz eat emeaushunally.

Well, denial that starvation is the only way to make CRIWL do what its supposed to do-make us slim- is still in effect. That's a hell of shame right there.

sssmokin'

A feature of the tendentious body-wrecking crusade that is 'obesity' is its virulent infection of false equivalence, i.e. when smoking is treated as if it is like weight.

Now if it need be said for the easily offended, I do not feel superior to smokers, I don't hate them, look down upon them-unless they come with their specific or general tired fat phobic shizz, m'kay?

I reject this because it is false. As we have all witnessed regardless of stance, the 'obesity' field *lols* lies with a feeling of impunity that would shame all but the most dishonest.  So I'm sure that all conquering fact will hardly suffice.

What this has played up about smoking is the difficulty of apt comparison with it.

Smoking is errr..... somewhat of an eccentric activity. Even those committed to it, I'm sure would admit, considering sucking smoke through a lit tuber into your lungs [or throat for you pussycat puffers] and exhaling it with varying degrees of artistry-would be dismissed as fanciful, if it hadn't already been invented.

I don't know why this hasn't occurred before, but a better comparison is probably with a taking-drugs-for-phony-disease habit. I'll be blunt because I can't be bothered to tippy-toe today [yes, I do try, usually].

Percentagewise, few people are truly mentally ill, which I'd define as having a malfunctioning nervous [or other] system leading to symptoms of psychosis, or neurosis at the point where it enters that realm.

Like virtually every diagnosis that isn't rigidly objective, mental illness has been expanded to the point where it diagnoses those who are either experiencing an apt response to emotional/mental/physical trauma or temporary complaint/condition that's mostly a product of their own self- mismanagement.

Given human ego, the latter is intolerable to many if not most people, especially if they think rather highly of themselves. Though there's much pompous moaning about treating mental like physical illness, virtually no-one has a problem with the idea that in their lifetime, they might injure themselves physically in a way that is mainly their fault.

I for example most definitely made myself way more depressed than I'd have needed to be for longer than I'd probably ever experienced through my long term commitment to a fight with my hunger function, plus the attendant playing 'obese'. 

One way people have sought to deal with this very interesting psychological conundrum i.e. vanity is to erm, insist their neurosis/mental illness is a disease, because mental illness/crisis can make you feel become quite dysfunctional.

You see where I'm going. This is felt by those keen on this to express and validate their suffering as well as express their frustration with not being able to throw off their particular issue/s.

The fly in the ointment is, insisting mental troubles are 'disease' is inherently a downer. In the worst kind of way, it boxes you in. It's a trap of despair. The urge then becomes to find a way to lift that gloom, by taking pills.

Though much touted as 'treatment' for mental illness, their primary power is in the belief that the person is treating-therefore not diseased [temporarily], not trapped in a snare of their own making. That is the kind of self-mishandling that make us fall into a pit of neuroses, along with susceptibility of course.

It could be argued that this cognitive dance is similar to the imaginative hook of smoking as described most famously by the late Allen Carr. I hope I'm not misrepresenting his central theorem that smokers dependence on snouts is a product of them having imagined/convinced themselves that they are hooked on smoking.

Effectively, they're smoking to relieve the anxiety caused by the belief that they need to smoke.

It's easy to snicker, but actually, I'd lay good money that every single human being on earth lives exactly that same trap in some way or context, probably loads of them. Affairs of the heart for example, are a minefield for this sort of cycle of tendentiousness. 

So when 'obesity' hucksters and medics pretend weight is disease, they are setting up that very trap. Whatever drugs they have on offer-e.g. Topiramate, an anti-seizure medication are there to lift the gloom caused by the disease pretence. In case anyone's thinking, how is 'obese' supposed give you seizures-not even 'obesity' quacks are pretending that one [give 'em a chance!!]. 

No, you're supposed to take anti-seizure medication because it has been noted that some people taking it for their actual seizures happen to lose a few pounds-and I mean a few-as a side effect. So brilliantly health-sensitive 'obesity' hustlers think that's reason enough for people who have no seizures to take it.

In conjunction with a "healthy lifestyle".

There's another similarity in that drugs such as these also give organs like your liver and kidneys extra work, rather like smoking.

And smokers can afford a certain superiority over the 'health' establishment because they are only accused of taxing their lungs-not removing them. Unlike the "life saving" 'obesity' crowd who like to remove healthy functioning organs.

Not only that, many of us have made the argument that health cannot be the simplistic, add a brick of pure healthy action take it away for a unhealthy action. It's more of a balance of competing and at times incompatible factors.

But no-one would go as far as bariatric surgeons stating that directly removing health increases it. A brand new health protocol.

In fact, those self-harmers who cut themselves can feel a certain validation, given those involved in health and medicine-45 agencies no less-think mutilation-not merely cutting yourself is a route to health.