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| How to Handle Negative Comments You Get About Keto |
Whether you're brand new to a low-carb diet or you've been around for awhile, you're bound to run into someone, somewhere, who doesn't believe you should be doing a ketogenic diet.
Especially, if you're a pre-diabetic or have diabetes itself.
When it's a negative comment from someone you don't know, it might be easy to just refuse to talk about it and walk away. But when you're dealing with co-workers, family members, or close friends on a daily basis who have strong opinions against what you're doing, it can be more difficult to cope.
The support of others is a huge motivator, when it comes to dieting, and carbohydrate restriction can become a huge struggle when that support isn't available.
In fact, having doubts about what you're doing or seeing the resistance from family and friends as a threat to your happiness can actually set you up biochemically to fail.
Elevated stress hormones raise blood glucose levels, and raised glucose levels raise insulin, so you're pretty much self-sabotaging your weight-loss efforts when you make the opinions of others too important.
You're not going to be able to escape negative comments about low carb. That's just a fact of life.
The nature of life is challenge, and challenge us she certainly does. However, how you react or respond to the people in your environment, the attitude that you create and maintain, can make a huge difference in the diet's success.
Dieting is a mind-game and handling the reactions of others is a mind-game as well.
You gotta know how to play the game.
So here are 7 essential tips that you can use to handle the negative comments you're going to get about Keto.
Tip #1: Don't Talk Without a Solid Commitment
Negative comments can't be deflected if you haven't made a solid decision that Keto is the way to go.
If you're feeling wishy-washy about it all or just in the experimental stage, if you want to see if Keto works or not, you're not going to have the backbone to stand up for what you believe is right.
And when it comes to bucking negative comments about ketogenic diets, you have to have a strong backbone.
A backbone isn't optional.
Sharing your wishes with others can sometimes blow up in your face, so it's a good idea to keep the Keto experiment to yourself until you have made a strong commitment to the low-carb way of life.
The fierceness with which the world resists ketogenic diets will most likely be more than you can bear. Guaranteed!
Tip #2: Examine Your Core Motivation for Going Keto
Along with a solid choice, you'll also have to have a strong motivation to go along with that backbone. Otherwise, when people start tossing the crap at you:
- Eating all that fat isn't healthy.
- No carbs will starve your liver and brain.
- Low-carb diets give you high blood pressure.
- Keto will clog your arteries and give you a heart attack.
- Atkins will damage your kidneys.
- You're going to gain the weight back.
- Low-carb diets are not sustainable.
Otherwise, you're just making Keto another weight-loss diet and what people tell you can honestly come true.
That's how the subconscious mind is built.
If you are susceptible to suggestion, which most people are, you'll begin to question your decision instead of standing firm.
You need to KNOW why you're doing Keto over something else.
Tip #3: Check Out Your Need to Please Others
Once you have a firm foundation, if the negative comments about Keto results in anxiety, worry, or an urge to run, then you are making the personal opinion of others far too important.
While it might be nice to be able to have some encouragement from the people in your life, approval and acceptance isn't going to happen all the time, and especially not if you're doing Keto.
Most of the world doesn't accept the Keto way of life as a valid weight-loss method, so the odds of being confronted with an opposing view, rather than lovingly embraced, are much greater.
If you choose to share what you're doing, then you have to be prepared for a large number of people, if not all of them, to not like it and tell you so.
This is how conditioning works. People have been taught to fear high-fat diets for decades now, and they are bound to react negatively when they hear the words Keto, low-carb, or Atkins.
There will be many times when others won't be pleased with what you're doing. That will feel uncomfortable, but being uncomfortable won't harm you.
If you perceive the situation to be a threat to your happiness because you want others to accept what you're doing, you're setting yourself up for a lot of unnecessary suffering.
You can't make others be pleased with you. Their programming is far too strong for that.
Tip #4: Don't Take Negative Comments About Keto Personally
Most of the motivation that drives dieters is based on some type of self-improvement need, so once you SEE that you don't need to please others, you'll also need to make sure that you are not seeing the negative comments about Keto as a personal attack.
Everyone does what they believe is right or justified, and those who are firmly against Keto really do believe that they are trying to save your life by standing up to your decision.
They don't see themselves as being argumentative or disrespectful, even if that's what they are actually doing. They see themselves as being right.
The same as you do.
So don't take the negative comments about Keto personally. See those who oppose you for what they are: strongly programmed human beings who believe they are doing the right thing by confronting you. And do it without judgment or criticism.
They are what they are.
People fight for what they believe and make things up when they don't understand. The need to be right is often so strong that it literally stomps respect for the beliefs of others into the ground.
But that doesn't mean you have to let their beliefs influence you. You don't have to disrespect their beliefs. Many people are stuck in the past or slaves to what the media and medical profession tells them to believe.
They honestly don't know how to be any other way.
Tip #5: Pass Out a Meal Example
I was reading in the Keto section at Reddit this morning, and someone recommended that you give out a meal example when confronted by people who are afraid of high-fat diets.
Instead of telling people you're doing low carb, Keto, or Atkins, simply give them an example of what you eat for breakfast, lunch, and/or dinner.
This can shut people down pretty quickly.
In fact, I did this at an old gluten-free journey blog I used to have. Instead of telling people I was eating low carb, I simply offered a lengthy list of gluten-free food ideas that just happened to be low in carbs.
For some odd reason, people can accept you eating roasted chicken, salad with raw veggies and avocado, and steamed broccoli with real butter -- easier than they can accept you eating a bun-less, juicy burger topped with bacon and cheese.
But that's just the way it is.
Take people's odd personality traits and use them to your advantage. Don't fight the way their mind is programmed. You're not going to win if you do that.
Tip #6: Teach Keto By Example
You don't have to stand there and defend yourself. Honestly, you don't. Explanations and low-carb theory are going to fall on deaf ears.
Instead, you can just listen to what other people have to say, smile, and go ahead with your low-carb day.
Defending is an urge that comes from the instinct aspect of yourself. You don't have to give into it. You're free to ignore it and teach by example, instead.
Talking won't do much for others who are afraid of what might happen if they go against the majority, so one way you can teach others about low-carb diets is to adopt an "I'll show you" attitude and just let the results speak for itself.
What better way to teach about Keto diets than to eat low carb, despite the opposition, and let the naysayers see the pounds melting off?
As your health improves, instead of deteriorating, and the excess fat disappears, you're bound to gain a few converts in a way that talking could never do.
This method does require you to ride the waves of adversity for a few months, standing firm in your conviction and not allowing your need for approval to get in the way, but in the end, example preaches a much better sermon than words do.
Tip #7: How You Respond is a Personal Choice
How you respond to other people's reactions when they talk negatively about Keto is a personal choice that you make. You can choose to react to their reaction, or you can choose to be responsible and respond in a loving way.
The stress that surfaces when others don't agree with you is of your own making. Stress comes from the way that you think. You can choose to worry about what other people think of you, and Keto, or you can decide not to care, smile at the doubters, and wish them a good day, anyway.
To help you do this, take the time to look at what your accusers are eating themselves. Don't just react to their reaction. Look at what they're eating.
While screaming about your cream cheese fat bombs and butter in your coffee, they are probably slathering the very same cream cheese on a dense, blueberry bagel or spreading a mountain of real butter on a slice of toasted white bread.
It's all a matter of perspective.
You're just skipping the bagel and bread, so there's no reason to allow others to punch your buttons.
When people react negatively to your Keto diet, simply pause, look over the situation, and ditch the need to defend or explain. You don't have to explain anything, even if you're confronted with lecture.
Be grateful for the Keto knowledge that you have, tell yourself that the other person has a bad sense of taste, and just walk away.
There's no reason to get into it.
There's nothing you can say that will change the other person's mind, so don't even try. It's not your job to get your co-workers, family, friends, or even your doctor on board.
Your job is to decide what you want to do then take whatever steps you can to make it happen. Life will take care of the rest.
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