A community of humans
There is a special group of people achieving some special things, and it is something to behold!
There is a group on Facebook, called Banting 7 Day Meal Plans. It is a group of more than 1.6M people, who all have the same thing in common.
Taking responsibility for their own health.
What is Banting?
Banting is the proudly South African name for a low carbohydrate diet/lifestyle. It was named after William Banting, who was the first to popularise weight loss by way of carbohydrate restriction.
Everywhere else in the world, people do keto or low carb, in South Africa, we bant!
Its origins
The group was started 5 years ago by Rita Venter, just a “tannie from Melkbos”, as she told me conversation once. The story of how she started the group, leaves me both with senses of admiration and Schadenfreude.
Her reasons were altruistic, but her motivations were vengeance for injustice. In short, when the founder of another Facebook group was trying to bully a state pensioner into paying R200 for diet advice, she decided to undermine her value proposition, by giving away the secrets for free.
A few weeks later, her new group with free 7-day meal plans, was bigger than the original group, and it just kept growing, with over 1.6M people to date.
The Facebook group gets deleted
A few weeks ago, out of nowhere, Rita is bombarded with people asking her what happened. Her inbox is flooded with messages from a community, without a home.
Facebook, without notification, deleted the Banting 7 Day Meal Plans group and rendered 1.6M people without support. One of the many confusing reasons for the group being deleted referenced the violation of community standards, but to date, no clear reason has been provided. Political conspiracy aside, the group was reinstated a few days later in response to a massive public outcry.
CrossFit suspended and placed under review its use of the Facebook marketplace as a response in order to pressure Facebook into reinstating the popular low carb group.
The response was simply massive.
A change of perspective
After studying a conversation between Rita and Geoffrey Woo, on the HVMN podcast, it struck me, just how incredible this community really is.
This community has over 1.6M members.
It grew by 100,000 members last month.
It has 3M interactions per month.
It is the largest nutrition group on Facebook.
It is the biggest South African group on Facebook.
As a former startup founder, I cannot even fathom how that happens.
What is her secret?
The community philosophy
I have since, spent several hours in conversation with Rita, and I still remain awestruck by what she has accomplished. It tried to understand this incredible feat, by analysing and obsessing over it, over her methods and her thoughts, how she has helped assemble a group of 27 admins that all donate their time for free, for the love of what they do.
Today I made my first post in the group conversation, and I get what makes it so special. You simply have to experience it to understand it.
I made a post about how the Banting diet helped me get my blood pressure under control, after 10 years of struggling, with and without medication.
I posted a picture of my blood pressure reading from this morning. In the last few weeks, I have consistently seen my blood pressure retreat to a healthier daily reading.
Within the first hour, I received 32 congratulatory comments and 500+ likes and responses. It is like Instagram on steroids, for a picture of my improving health!!
And then I realised where the magic is.
Rita kept explaining to me, and I kept missing the point, that it is the human factor, the incredible feeling of being connected with other people, who, just like you, are merely trying to take control of their health.
It is a community of people that have the very same things in common.
We all want to be comfortable in our bodies, feel attractive.
We all want to be healthy, and more importantly, feel healthy!
The science and the psychology
I have known and understood the science of banting for a long time. I have practiced my beliefs, progressively obsessively, for more than a year now.
I have tried to convince others to do the same, to find their own solutions, to try the low carbohydrate lifestyle, using science and logic. The science is sound. A low carbohydrate diet allows you to take control of your appetite.
Today I realised, that how it feels, is everything.
When you find complete strangers that echo your success and express their own anxieties, you realise that you are not alone, and it makes you want to take control of your own health, all over again.
Rita has created a community of humans.
She has taken science and she has given it a soul.
She asks the questions.
How do you want to feel?
How can I help?
