Thoughts on Guilt

(Hyperbole- best thing in the universe!) #1

I have always thought of guilt the same way I think of physical pain. It is a useful warning sense. It tells us we are breaching something dangerous. A signal to stop and reassess what you are doing and make a change to keep safe, healthy, and happy.

But sometimes something goes wrong. An illness will damage nerves so that you feel pain even when there is nothing else wrong. The pain is the illness. The guilt is the illness.

So I pour myself a glass of cream. I make myself a plate of bacon. Add some mayo. This can’t be right.

But it so clearly is.

The pain is wrong. And knowing that is the cure.

(Eric - The patient needs to be patient!) #2

Ruina

This is very deep and very true. Sometimes guilt is cultural or even religious. Fat guilt has melted and been transformed into salted starch guilt.

(Jack Bennett) #3

It feels so frustrating to realize that we were officially misinformed for so many years with the low-fat and high-starch guidelines.

And that so much food advertising exploited that emotion: either “guilt-free” nonfat cookies or cakes (that taste like powder and cardboard) or else “sinful” and “decadent” rich desserts (because you deserve a treat, don’t you?).

I try to steer away from moral language around food. It’s not good or evil to be obese, just like it’s not good or evil to eat carbs. Nor are there good and evil foods. It’s just science: causes and effects and observations and generalizations.

If there’s any “evil”, it’s in the impersonal and bureaucratic system that’s unable to assimilate and disseminate correct information that might save lives.

(squirrel-kissing paper tamer) #4

I rely heavily on self forgiveness after I’ve done all of the real life things to alleviate guilt. Brains do mysterious things behind the curtain, sometimes very unhelpful things. Guilt and regret live in the past. It’s only useful up to a certain point.

(Murphy Kismet) #5

I wonder if the guilt comes from some long-buried deep emotional (religion-based?) desire to please our parents, and eating this way goes against our parents’ and thus our religious-based guilt rears its ugly head and berates us for not being “good loving children”.

(Ken) #6

Guilt is based on Subjective Morality. That’s why it’s important to be able to analyze the specific morality and determine whether it is based on Fact or Dogma. In the case of Nutrition it’s really a matter of understanding Evolution and Biochemistry.

#7

I think I lost a sense of guilt about food when I found satiety.

(Edith) #8

Is it really guilt or fear of going against what’s been drilled into us for soooo many years?

(Jack Bennett) #9

Speaking personally, I don’t really feel guilt around food. As a teenager and young man I mostly ate what I wanted and figured that I’d burn off whatever I ate. It was somewhat of a macho athlete attitude. I’m more humble now as time has gone on - in my 40s I can’t eat like I did as a teenager.

I don’t feel “guilt” if I eat junk food or high carb food, but I do want certain outcomes (175 lb body with lower body fat instead of 220 lb body with higher body fat). I want to eat what is more likely to cause healthy body weight, high energy, good biomarkers, lower disease risk, etc.

(Hyperbole- best thing in the universe!) #10

Ah! So I take it you are not a woman.

(Jack Bennett) #11

Correct! I think most of that sin/guilt/virtue messaging is aimed at women (and unfairly so). Women hear it from their families, advertising, society, etc.

The messaging I received was that it was manly to eat big (buffets, big meals, etc), As a high school athlete I would participate in competitive eating with teammates (“you only ate four slices of pizza? I had six!”) It’s a different form of baggage - I would say it’s unhealthy in a different way.

(Hyperbole- best thing in the universe!) #12

Absolutely. A twisted culture doesn’t only damage half of society.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #13

Praise the Lard! :grin:

(Susan) #14

I feel mega guilty if I eat anything that I consider a cheat, since beginning Keto.

Some of the things that I consider a cheat are things that people on the forum would not consider cheating for them personally at all.

Some of these things are: if I have any alcohol at all, I feel like I have cheated, or any form of chocolate, (I mean dark, sugar free or any cacao powder even), or a piece of sugar free gum or any form of sugar substitute. Even though all that is still Keto by many people’s opinions, all those things still trigger a feeling of cheating and thereby a guilty feeling, if I consume any of them…

I realize this is not really logical, but I blame my decades of eating disorders for the psychology behind it.

(squirrel-kissing paper tamer) #15

Eating seems to come with guilt attached. I ate too much, I’m a glutton. I didn’t eat enough, I’ve wasted food. I ate a poor animal. I ate junk food. I spent too much on this food. Etc and so on. Too bad my feelings can’t just stay out of it!

(Eric - The patient needs to be patient!) #16

Remember if you eat too much it may go to your waste. So wasting food is better than going to the waste. Just a thought.

(squirrel-kissing paper tamer) #17

Nice play on words, Eric!

(Hyperbole- best thing in the universe!) #18

A moment on the lips, forever on the hips! It either goes to waste or to waist!

(Edith) #19

What’s that saying that some model got a lot of flack for saying, “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.”

She obviously didn’t try keto.

(Jack Bennett) #20

That seems to be part of the “expected” dichotomy of dieting:

  • either I’m “good” and I suffer and eat food that tastes awful (and/or not much food), or

  • I’m “sinful” and I eat food that tastes good (and/or as much as I like) and then I’m “punished” with a fat body or disease.

A lot of the emotional reaction to keto, both positive and negative, seems to play off this polarization. Some people don’t like that it’s possible to lose fat and weight while eating lots of bacon, and others like to rub those people’s faces in that reality.