My insurance company sent out a letter saying "hey, wanna diet? We'll pay for it" which is the second time they've done that. The first one was basically "chew your food more, bitch" but at least they sent a pack of peanuts. The second one was "pick from this handy smorgasbord of programs" and I went with the gut health one in no small part because they didn't advertise it as a diet, they played up "chronic disease" and I am still dealing with various'n'sundry post-COVID bullshit.

Also free Withings scale (which is kinda rad) and free Fitbit (which is a chunk of shit).

Their basic approach is eat hippie chow until you have "reset your metabolic base point" at which point you add foods back in slowly. I'm at the "add foods back in slowly" thing Monday. Me and their nutritionists have gotten in a couple fights because I refuse to say that I enjoy eating hippie chow. They called me unprompted on Friday to say "it's not forever! You can eat like everyone else soon!" and I said "okay how many 'items' am I going to have to add back in before I can have a grilled cheese sandwich" and they were all "those uhh aren't whole foods" and I said "yeah so a grilled cheese sandwich is on the never menu and you're wondering why I say your food is aggressively uninspiring and that I hate eating now."

On the plus side, I'm almost back down to the weight i was at when I finally beat the last nutritionist over the head with

Okay fuckers you consistently whine about how my BMI says 'obese' despite the fact that you keep complementing my muscle tone so here you go, fux, show me what you got

and they came back with

obviously Mr. Bl00 you need to eat more leafy shit and protein for your gut health

and I gained 20 lbs in 3 months.

There's maybe nobody I hate more than nutritionists. "Ohhh, it's not your fault, still you should definitely feel guilty for your lifestyle choices!" This last plan you take pictures of your food and they were all "uhhh you're only supposed to eat quinoa once a day" and I came back with "fuckers I've been shitting pesto for three days bakdafukup" and then they decided maybe I could have a slice of Ezekiel toast every now and then.

Meanwhile the eating habits I had as a teenager, which allowed me to drop 100lbs in three months, that were called "exercise bulimia" and, according to my insurance, have made me ineligible for anything but inpatient psychiatric treatment due to the health risks, are now called "intermittent fasting" and they're all the rage.