One day I'm going to bite my tongue clean off

Need2Exerc1se

Unless I thought what they were doing was actually dangerous, I'd let them tell me about it and wish them luck. The fact is that gimmicks do work for some people. And if this gimmick is what the person needs to help them obtain a calorie deficit, then I genuinely hope it works for them. If they asked my opinion on it, I'd give it honestly, but politely.

helenarriaza

I say, I've lost over 35 pounds eating the stuff I love.

When they insist and turn rude: If you want to drink artichoke pills, eat cabbage soup and hook yourself to random *kitten* to bounce back, rock it out.

willrun4bagels

sofaking6 wrote: »

Same way I deal with friends who talk about astrology or religion...smile and nod and then just give 'em a blank stare until someone changes the topic.

^So much this.

tracie_minus100

I don't say anything unless I'm asked for my opinion.
Sometimes it's hard not to say anything though. I was at a party for this makeup/skin care company that also has a line of "health food" type stuff. They do a 28 day detox and the consultant was selling it hard. Talking about how you have to get your body into an "alkaline state" to "get rid of the toxins that hide in our fat cells". In order to do this, you have to cut out sugar, wheat, vinegar, alcohol and a long list of other foods. And if you don't flush the toxins out, your body will create new fat cells to store more toxins in.
It was a little painful.

bulbadoof

if i know they're just blowing smoke or trying to advise me on my own efforts from a place of general derpery, i like to ask them how much they have personally lost on that diet

4 times out of 5 the conversation goes:
'omg you have GOT to try this it worked WONDERS for my friend and dr oz said blah blah'
'oh thats cool. how much progress have you made so far following it?'
'<insert excuse here>'
'i see... well, good luck with that.'

JoRocka

i often will say
"that's not the way that works" but good luck with it. And hope to god they stop talking about it

sometimes I just literally walk away.

levitateme

Beyond a friendly "you should start lifting bro, come to the gym with me some time" to some of the dudes I'm friends with, I don't talk about fitness or weight loss at all unless specifically asked for my advice.

rbfdac

Tongues are good sources of protein

SLLRunner

rabbitjb wrote: »

or my sweetly nodding head will just keep nodding until it falls off and rolls away

How do you deal with friends and colleagues telling you their latest weight-loss gimmick, fad, fool-proof way to lose x pounds in x days that they've just embarked upon without screaming 'it's just about calories' at them?

Sometimes no response is the best response of all. If you feel like you must say something, an "I understand" would suffice.

It's not up to me to correct so.e one else's notions about weight loss unless they ask if it sounds safe, or works, etc.

SLLRunner

Cryptonomnomicon wrote: »

lol I got flagged, guess some people are easily offended.

Here is an interesting insight into fad diets.

Diet books; too many frankly. Most follow a fairly standard organization (the first chapter always explaining that YOUR FAT IS NOT YOUR FAULT) and, with very very few exceptions, most will tell you that ‘calorie restricted diets don’t work for weight loss’ and that whatever magic they are selling is the key to quick, easy (and of course permanent) weight loss.

Whether it’s insulin, dietary fat, the protein:carbohydrate or insulin:glucagon ratio, partitioning or whatever other bs, they will make it sound like caloric intake is not the key aspect in whether or not someone gains weight.

In almost all cases, the idea that food intake must be restricted in any fashion is dismissed; if it is mentioned it is generally as a short aside late in the book that nobody pays any attention to.

This is purely a psychological ploy; it sucks to have to consciously restrict food intake and this causes mental stress. Simply knowing that you can’t eat what you want when you want it blows; I hate it as much as the next person. Many people will feel hungrier simply because they know that they can’t eat what they want when they want it.

Yet the fundamental fact is that the body will NOT have any need to tap into stored body fat unless the individual is burning more calories than they are taking in. Of course this means that either energy expenditure has to go up, caloric intake has to go down, or both have to occur.

So how can these books make this claim? It’s simple: they all hide basic caloric restriction in whatever they happen to be proposing. Basically, this is Lyle’s Rule #1 of Diet books:

All diet books tell you that you won’t have to restrict calories, and then trick you into doing it anyway.

All of the rules, the food combining, the elimination of carbs, the elimination of fat, don’t eat XXX at all (where XXX is something that contributes a lot of calories to the diet), don’t eat YYY after 6pm (where YYY is something people tend to overeat in the evenings), etc. are all just ways of tricking people into eating less without having to think about it.

Source: http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/all-diets-work-the-importance-of-calories.html/

Well, five people were offended. I was not one of them because I have no idea what you wrote cause that response has disappeared.

WalkingAlong

rabbitjb wrote: »

or my sweetly nodding head will just keep nodding until it falls off and rolls away

How do you deal with friends and colleagues telling you their latest weight-loss gimmick, fad, fool-proof way to lose x pounds in x days that they've just embarked upon without screaming 'it's just about calories' at them?

They probably feel equally as repulsed about the idea of calorie counting forever. Weight loss may be "about calories" but there are a lot of ways to create a deficit without counting them. Or are they trying something that claims to cause weight loss through some other mechanism?

Abby2205

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

The fact is that gimmicks do work for some people. And if this gimmick is what the person needs to help them obtain a calorie deficit, then I genuinely hope it works for them.

Yep. Even if they believe calories in<calories out, some people simply do not want to count calories and would rather have rules or gimmicks. Suzanne Somers' eating plan was like this, many years ago. The food combining "science" was complete nonsense, but the practical effect was to restrict calories. Worked great.