Dear Dietary Advice,
I regret to inform you that your services are no longer required. You've been an integral part of my journey—guiding me, persuading me, and occasionally leading me through existential crises—but it’s time to part ways. Let me explain why.
First, you convinced me fat was the villain in my story. So, like a dutiful follower, I stocked my pantry with those weird low-fat Frankenfoods, packed with sugar and mystery chemicals. “No eggs,” you said. “They’re little cholesterol grenades!” you warned. Dutifully, I turned my chickens into freeloading lawn ornaments and swapped breakfast omelets for bowls of beige sadness.
Then it was meat. “Meat is the root of all evil,” you proclaimed. So, I proudly joined the vegetarian club—well, a version of it. Egg whites? Fine. Dairy? Non-negotiable. Fish and turkey? Welcome aboard! I was a proud lacto-ovo-fisho-gobblo vegetarian with a peanut butter addiction and the occasional sprinkle of kale for appearances. I earned that title because, as my vegetarian neighbor assured me, “If you’re not killing cows, you’re one of us.”
But then grains were the enemy. “Grains are poison!” you screamed. “Even centenarians who eat rice and bread are somehow defying all logic!” So, out went the bagels, tortillas, and pasta. My life became a sad montage of lettuce-wrapped despair, with quinoa side-eyeing me from the pantry. (Is it a protein? Is it a grain? Who knows.)
And then—oh, the drama—you turned on fruit. “Too much sugar,” you said. “It’s practically candy!” Goodbye apples, bananas, and oranges. I was one watermelon away from ruining my life, apparently.
But the pièce de résistance? Your mid-life crisis. Suddenly, fat wasn’t the enemy, anymore. “We need fat! It’s natural! It’s essential!” you declared, barely choking out an apology for decades of cholesterol slander. Eggs were back, and bacon was the new kale. “Eat fat to burn fat!” you insisted, as if my body were a temperamental teenager refusing to clean its room unless properly bribed. “If you’re not losing weight, you’re not eating enough fat—or maybe not the right fat—or maybe fat doesn’t like your vibe?”
And just as I was getting comfortable with my bacon-wrapped avocados, you decided vegetables were trying to kill me. “They’re full of toxins!” you wailed. Excuse me? We’ve been farming them since 10,000 BC, and if this is an assassination attempt, vegetables are the worst hitmen ever. But fine. I’ll be a carnivore. Roar.
“Humans are natural carnivores,” you claimed, pointing at my canines and forward-facing eyes as if they were smoking guns. Never mind that gorillas, camels, and hippos also have canines, or that koalas stare straight ahead while munching eucalyptus leaves. You doubled down: “Our ancestors only ate meat. They scoffed at apples dangling temptingly from trees because, obviously, meat is superior.” Sure, because starvation has always been the cornerstone of survival.
At this point, Dietary Advice, I’ve come to a conclusion: you’re the unreliable narrator of my health journey. You’re the friend who says, “Trust me,” only to drag me through a revolving door of contradictions. I refuse to keep playing your game of dietary Twister.
So, it is with a heavy heart (and possibly slightly elevated cholesterol) that I must let you go.
Please clear out your desk. Don’t forget your spreadsheets, dubious charts, and smug superiority on the way out. And as you leave, remember this: your replacement isn’t a person. It’s intuition—the quiet, unassuming genius who knows when to enjoy a salad, when to savor a steak, and when to eat chocolate simply because it makes life better.
Yours,
Kristen
P.S. If you see kale on the way out, tell it I’m sorry. It’s not you, kale. It’s him.
Comments