Thoughts on Guilt

(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.

(squirrel-kissing paper tamer) #21

This is a notorious ProAna line made into memes with skinny women and girls to encourage people in that community not to eat. That’s probably why she caught flack for it.

#22

New thought on guilt arises when considering becoming a nutrition coach and how nutrition coaches should look.

#23

I am a woman and I never ever felt guilt regarding food. And I did do crazy things :D. I have regrets extremely rarely but real, troubling guilt? Never. It’s not good for anything for me, in the contrary and I lack something that makes it possible, it seems. I find this a good thing, people often feel so horribly guilty without reason! Not eating insanely unwell and damage themselves, that’s really serious and if guilt helps to change, great. But some people feel quilty just because they eat more than they think they should (it’s quite tragic if that amount is too low) or if they can’t stay on track for long.

Sometimes I wonder if it’s a cultural difference, I live under a rock or I am immune to such things. No one ever told me (until last week) that it’s wrong for a woman to eat a lot. I don’t know if someone ever personally told me I shouldn’t eat high-fat (I did that all my life, it was normal, almost everyone eats high-fat, maybe not in these modern times but everyone I knew, they ate much fat). It’s traditional here to eat fatty pork and whatnot, we have good food and hospitality, hosts and hostesses often try to make us eat A TON, well that can be a problem. I can eat over my daily energy need in one sitting but it wasn’t enough for some of my relatives when I visited.
It’s probably different at other parts of the world. Or if we have a different circle, I don’t hang with thin model gals or something, I hang with housewifes who loves good food and have some excess fat. Even if they do a diet, it’s rarely low-fat.

Some people find tasty food guilty. Sometimes I try to imagine I have a strange taste that I only find unhealthy food (whatever it means for me) delicious. I can’t. My healthiest food tastes the best. I am a lucky hedonist :smiley: But I do like the taste for my less ideal food as well. But as long as I can have 9-10/10 meals almost all the time, I can handle not eating everything (I can skip even some of my top favs for some years without suffering).
Actually, I’ve met people on the internet who tried to persuade me it’s very wrong that I have a hedonistic attitude to food (and everything else). I was confused, I explained I eat as well as I can but it wasn’t good enough. If I eat whatever I want and enjoy them immensely, that’s sinful, probably, for such people. It doesn’t matter I basically do that on every diet I am able to do. I almost never resist temptations but why it is a problem if I can make sure I eat well enough, I can’t comprehend. My goal is eating properly, not using extreme will power or whatnot. That’s stressful, not even healthy let alone enjoyable and joy must happen. I can’t work if I don’t enjoy it at all, I can’t eat food I don’t like. Very rarely, in great necessity I can but that’s it.

If someone feels guilt when breaking rules, I guess it’s advisable to use proper, easy enough rules, not too many or unrealistic ones. People do that, inevitably fail and feel bad.