I appreciate this sub's commitment - even though I am rarely so committed

Recently, I’ve seen a number of post in which users begrudge the intensity of the modding and message of this sub. To some extent, I understand. It sucks to have your responses taken down when you feel like you might really have something useful to share on the subject.But I also feel the need to defend how strict the rules are here. This is simply my experience of this subreddit and I don’t expect anyone to change there minds necessarily. Just to share my gratitude for this sub’s dogma.This is a fringe way of existing, regardless of why you are here. Don’t know about y'all, but I constantly feel the pressure to eat plants. As an ex-vegetarian, I love plants! I love cooking with plants! Unless I protest (and, boy, do I), they give me plants on my burger, they give me plants on the side of my steak. The inclusion of ~some~ plant material is our societal norm. Even though I personally do at times include more plant material in my meals than what this sub dictates, I greatly appreciate this space where people can bring up issue and not have someone say, “maybe you should try adding this non-animal sourced food.” To me, this is the same as someone going to a vegan sub that has strict posting rules and suggesting they eat meat. It being a valid suggestion does not negate it’s inappropriateness in the context.The main reason I appreciate the dogmatic way in which this sub presents zerocarb is because I didn’t realize how sick I was when I first came to this way of eating. I understand that not everyone comes here for auto-immune issues - I certainly didn’t. I ended up at zerocarb when the high fiber of my keto diet started to mess with my digestion. I was then fairly shocked when my life-long allergies and asthma went almost entirely into remission and I saw my anxiety and depression disappear when I followed the strict protocol. I thought, “Great! I’ll soon be able to test which plants I can still eat!"I spent about 3 months trying to add back in specific plant foods to no avail, many reactions and cravings. Which was fine, that was the result for me. What made it easy to deal with was that there was an entire online community saying, "yeah, that happens. it’s okay, just eat meat.” Without hearing the unrepentant “NO PLANT” chorus of this sub, I doubt I would have eventually found myself as confident in this way of eating as I feel today. I do use herbs and seasonings, but I don’t care that that’s not supported by this sub - this sub is for no plants. This sub taught me that if I start reacting, I should think first on the plants I may have consumed. It made me realize that a single blueberry could take my mood from 100 to 0 in 30 minutes.Some people need the extreme and it’s hard to get it if you are comparing yourself to normal plant usage. People who don’t require the extreme should feel comfortable self moderating. But it’s not like everyone realizes which box they are in at first.

from Zero Carb Zebras https://ift.tt/2E8HbEY
via IFTTT