Use of 'Woo' reaction - negative reactions?
Replies
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That is exactly the point I was trying to make, it is a fact that vegetables are going to be better for you than cookies. Fresh food trumps processed food every day of the week. I am all for balance and my diet is by no means perfect and am certainly not a nutritionist or doctor and don't claim to be, however..... a calorie is a calorie yes, but not all calories are created equal...
Imagine a day full of food like this - Mcdonalds Breakfast 400cals, Greggs Pasty and cookie, 600cals, Pot Noodle 400 cals. total cals 1400calories
or this: Porridge with banana and honey 350cals, chicken salad with couscous and dressing/sauce 400cals, Homemade spaghetti bolagnese 500cals, snacks - yogurt 100cal, fruit 50cals total cals 1400
I know which one I would be going for. That was kind of the point I was trying to get to. Obviously it is difficult to put that across without a massive essay.
But from a deficit point of view they are the same, that'll be why the woo-ing6 -
quiksylver296 wrote: »
The reason you'll get woo'd is the bolded. Change that statement to "a calorie is a calorie, but not all foods are created equal" and you won't. A calorie is a unit of energy. It doesn't change from food to food. It is always a unit of energy.
Isn't that basically what I said? I am saying you can have 400 calories of Mcdonalds or 400 cals of a homemade meal. They are both equal to the same amount of energy, however one is better for you than the other.
but we can agree to disagree
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That is exactly the point I was trying to make, it is a fact that vegetables are going to be better for you than cookies. Fresh food trumps processed food every day of the week. I am all for balance and my diet is by no means perfect and am certainly not a nutritionist or doctor and don't claim to be, however..... a calorie is a calorie yes, but not all calories are created equal...
Imagine a day full of food like this - Mcdonalds Breakfast 400cals, Greggs Pasty and cookie, 600cals, Pot Noodle 400 cals. total cals 1400calories
or this: Porridge with banana and honey 350cals, chicken salad with couscous and dressing/sauce 400cals, Homemade spaghetti bolagnese 500cals, snacks - yogurt 100cal, fruit 50cals total cals 1400
I know which one I would be going for. That was kind of the point I was trying to get to. Obviously it is difficult to put that across without a massive essay.
Boy, have I got a thread for you! "CICO, still skeptical? Come inside for a meticulous log that proves it." by Dvdgzz This will probably explain why you were woo'd.7 -
To the OP, here's a recent post of mine that was woo'd:
"When I started and wanted a bit more structure and to make sure I had a satisfying and filling diet, I focused on protein (getting to my total and getting in a reasonable portion of them at each of my chosen 3 meals) and vegetables. Basically I built my meals around them. I also watched fiber until I was comfortable that I was getting plenty.
Now I just try to stay mindful and eat a generally nutritious overall diet. In theory I still watch protein and fiber and veg, but I just kind of naturally eat in a way that hits my preferences for them.
I don't watch carbs and fat since I don't really care how much I get of either (in theory you can be too low in dietary fat but most people would have to work pretty hard to get there, and I'm naturally nowhere near that level).
What really mattered more for me than any macros was figuring out that I do best eating 3 meals per day and not snacking, as I tend to snack mindlessly, and prefer larger meals but not so large that I want to split my calories up more. Not saying this is true for anyone else, but figuring out if you do have things like this that make it easier can be helpful."
I also got woo'd for saying the gov't nutrition recs are generally pretty decent. With that one, I can see disagreeing, but it's clearly not "woo" in any respect. So I wish the label would reflect how it really seems to be used.
However, it is true that when there are lots and lots of woos and not just one or two, it's typically something that really is "woo."5 -
That is exactly the point I was trying to make, it is a fact that vegetables are going to be better for you than cookies. Fresh food trumps processed food every day of the week. I am all for balance and my diet is by no means perfect and am certainly not a nutritionist or doctor and don't claim to be, however..... a calorie is a calorie yes, but not all calories are created equal...
Imagine a day full of food like this - Mcdonalds Breakfast 400cals, Greggs Pasty and cookie, 600cals, Pot Noodle 400 cals. total cals 1400calories
or this: Porridge with banana and honey 350cals, chicken salad with couscous and dressing/sauce 400cals, Homemade spaghetti bolagnese 500cals, snacks - yogurt 100cal, fruit 50cals total cals 1400
I know which one I would be going for. That was kind of the point I was trying to get to. Obviously it is difficult to put that across without a massive essay.
I think most successful people here fall somewhere between those 2 WOE, though, and to suggest that you can’t waver from option 2 has caused many a member to fall off the wagon. I haven’t been here nearly as long as some other folks, but you do see a lot of newbies thinking they have to eat nothing but lean protein and veggies or they won’t lose weight, when the fact is, as long as you eat in a calorie deficit, no matter what the food itself is, you’ll lose weight. This is also what people mean when they talk about it being a lifestyle. I need more variety in my diet. I’m going to eat the same way while I’m losing weight as I plan to eat when I’m at maintenance. There are no “good” or “bad” foods in isolation.
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witchaywoman81 wrote: »
In that case, it may have been “disagree” rather than “not true.” Personally, on most days I’d take the 300 calorie cookie over 300 calories of vegetables. Without being too graphic, 300 calories of vegetables would give me some serious bathroom issues. So I’ll have a 300 calorie cookie and maybe 25 calories of broccoli. 🤷♀️
Yeah, if you post an opinion about a food (including in the unpopular food opinions) it will usually get woo'd, I think in good fun.2 -
witchaywoman81 wrote: »
I think most successful people here fall somewhere between those 2 WOE, though, and to suggest that you can’t waver from option 2 has caused many a member to fall off the wagon. I haven’t been here nearly as long as some other folks, but you do see a lot of newbies thinking they have to eat nothing but lean protein and veggies or they won’t lose weight, when the fact is, as long as you eat in a calorie deficit, no matter what the food itself is, you’ll lose weight. This is also what people mean when they talk about it being a lifestyle. I need more variety in my diet. I’m going to eat the same way while I’m losing weight as I plan to eat when I’m at maintenance. There are no “good” or “bad” foods in isolation.
Exactly.
Isn't that basically what I said? I am saying you can have 400 calories of Mcdonalds or 400 cals of a homemade meal. They are both equal to the same amount of energy, however one is better for you than the other.
but we can agree to disagree
Which is why my response to the bolded is "it depends." But we're talking about woo, not woe. Back to your regularly scheduled thread...6 -
Isn't that basically what I said? I am saying you can have 400 calories of Mcdonalds or 400 cals of a homemade meal. They are both equal to the same amount of energy, however one is better for you than the other.
but we can agree to disagree
Again, it depends on context. If you were implying that a person can never eat at McDonalds to lose weight, or that a healthy diet can't include eating at McDonalds, that would be woo-worthy.6 -
Again, it depends on context. If you were implying that a person can never eat at McDonalds to lose weight, or that a healthy diet can't include eating at McDonalds, that would be woo-worthy.
Way to bring it back around to the thread, @try2again!
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Isn't that basically what I said? I am saying you can have 400 calories of Mcdonalds or 400 cals of a homemade meal. They are both equal to the same amount of energy, however one is better for you than the other.
but we can agree to disagree
Off topic, but this is a common confusion. "A food" and "a calorie" are not synonyms, and when someone says all calories are the same, they don't mean that nutrition doesn't matter or that all foods are the same. They are saying that calories are what drive weight loss. Food choice affects nutrition and how easy it is to keep a deficit. "Calories" don't have nutritional properties -- foods have both calories and other qualities.
I mention this, since otherwise you might assume people are saying nutrition doesn't matter for any purpose when of course they are not.12 -
quiksylver296 wrote: »0
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It's MFP's official position that they don't want an overtly negative response option. (Even though "woo" often creates more negativity, IMO.)
Ah OK. Thanks0 -
witchaywoman81 wrote: »
I think most successful people here fall somewhere between those 2 WOE, though, and to suggest that you can’t waver from option 2 has caused many a member to fall off the wagon. I haven’t been here nearly as long as some other folks, but you do see a lot of newbies thinking they have to eat nothing but lean protein and veggies or they won’t lose weight, when the fact is, as long as you eat in a calorie deficit, no matter what the food itself is, you’ll lose weight. This is also what people mean when they talk about it being a lifestyle. I need more variety in my diet. I’m going to eat the same way while I’m losing weight as I plan to eat when I’m at maintenance. There are no “good” or “bad” foods in isolation.
I 100% agree. Like I say I have balance in my diet and never deny myself any cravings. I drink beer on a weekend, I go out for meals with my boyfriend and have ice cream and chocolate. Within my calories (most of the time
).
I think my point has just been taken to an extreme and people think (maybe quite rightly if it has come across badly but personally I think we are leaping a little bit) that I am trying to say that is all you can eat. Rather than what I was tying to say of 'try and make a healthier choice'.
I know people are going to disagree with me again about what is a 'healthier choice' but I don't think my opinion will be much changed from fresh food > processed food, so the more fresh we can have, the better. In my opinion.
What I am taking away from this is...... we are here to express support and our opinions in order to help one another. As long as you are not suggesting unhealthy options like major restrictions to calories or extreme 'fad' diets then an opinion is an opinion. Take it or leave it to use in your own life.2 -
That is exactly the point I was trying to make, it is a fact that vegetables are going to be better for you than cookies. Fresh food trumps processed food every day of the week. I am all for balance and my diet is by no means perfect and am certainly not a nutritionist or doctor and don't claim to be, however..... a calorie is a calorie yes, but not all calories are created equal...
Imagine a day full of food like this - Mcdonalds Breakfast 400cals, Greggs Pasty and cookie, 600cals, Pot Noodle 400 cals. total cals 1400calories
or this: Porridge with banana and honey 350cals, chicken salad with couscous and dressing/sauce 400cals, Homemade spaghetti bolagnese 500cals, snacks - yogurt 100cal, fruit 50cals total cals 1400
I know which one I would be going for. That was kind of the point I was trying to get to. Obviously it is difficult to put that across without a massive essay.
If you post like this then don't be surprised to get disagreement and woos!
Would you like some examples in the context of a person's overall diet when a cookie is indeed better for them at that time? Come for a multi hour cycle ride with me and let me know if a salad or some high energy and easy to digest food hits the spot to fuel that ride.
Processed food includes a huge amount of extremely nutritionally valuable food. Some food is more nutritious when processed than when not. Try chewing on some unprocessed wheat...
There's very little food outside of raw vegetables and fruits that isn't processed in some way. It's naïve to think processed = bad.
All calories are indeed equal - a calorie is a unit of energy not of nutrition.
How about imagining a day when someone eats a nutritionally complete diet made up of whatever foods meet your personal approval and still has space for some treats and gets enjoyment from those treats?
Which approach do you think might be more sustainable not just for weight loss but for the rest of their lives?13 -
As I mentioned, I don't even use the woo button. But the thing is, if a person comes out and makes a bogus claim ("ACV accelerates weight loss!"), it would be a disservice to all the impressionable people who are reading these forums desperate for weight loss to just let that go unchallenged. "Woo" was actually provided as a way to respond to these kinds of posts without multiple users ganging up on people with the same response. Ideally, I suppose, one person could just craft a pointed, well-written response and everyone could just "like" it, but it just never seems to work that way.
When someone posts something totally woo-ful (like your ACV example), how I respond depends on whether the woo has already been addressed with a few factual posts or not. If it hasn't, I will post to counter the misinformation. If it has, I will woo the original post and then like or insightful the factual posts that follow. This, hopefully, sends the message I'm intending it to, without me piling onto the thread with yet another post telling the OP why they are mistaken.
And honestly? Because the Woo button is still so obviously misunderstood, (witness the multitude of threads and posts about it!) it's about as useful as the "If every day were like today you'd weigh___ in five weeks" thing that happens when you close your food diary for the day 7 -
Isn't that basically what I said? I am saying you can have 400 calories of Mcdonalds or 400 cals of a homemade meal. They are both equal to the same amount of energy, however one is better for you than the other.
but we can agree to disagree
You haven't seen me try to make a homemade meal
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Unfortunately, there have been multiple threads over the last year or so where we have all had IMHO very honest and enlightening conversations about the pros and cons of a negative reaction button, and it seems like the ambiguous woo is as close as we are going to get and not going anywhere. I'm not saying it's useless to continue talking about it, but folks should probably resign themselves to it being there.
I see no reason to get upset about one or two woos - they could be someone who thinks it's positive, someone could have accidentally hit it while scrolling on their phone, or maybe someone misread your post in haste. If you get a bunch of woos on a post and no one actually replies and you honestly have no idea why, I think quoting your post and asking if someone could explain why this post is getting all these woos because you'd like to understand is perfectly acceptable, assuming you are able to bear criticism and aren't going to turn it into an argument. In general though, I found spending a lot of time reading and learning before posting advice gave me a pretty good read of the room anyway. :drinker:7 -
If you post like this then don't be surprised to get disagreement and woos!
Would you like some examples in the context of a person's overall diet a cookie is indeed better for them at that time? Come for a multi hour cycle ride with me and let me know if a salad or some high energy and easy digest food hits the spot to fuel that ride.
Processed food includes a huge amount of extremely nutritionally valuable food. Some food is more nutritious when processed than when not. Try chewing on some unprocessed wheat...
There's very little food outside of raw vegetables and fruits that isn't processed in some way. It's naïve to think processed = bad.
All calories are indeed equal - a calorie is a unit of energy not of nutrition.
How about imagining a day when someone eats a nutritionally complete diet made up of whatever foods meet your personal approval and still has space for some treats and gets enjoyment from those treats?
Which approach do you think might be more sustainable not just for weight loss but for the rest of their lives?
Again, I totally agree, but my point is being taken to the extremes again.
Yeah, as I put in my previous comment, people are taking what I said to mean that no one can ever eat a cookie again in their life, which is not what I was saying.
I am going to stop defending my point now because I don't feel like what I said was extreme in anyway (my apologies if anyone took it that way, I tried very hard to put my opinion across in a way it wouldn't be misconstrued but I have obviously not done a very good job of that).
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Again, I totally agree, but my point is being taken to the extremes again.
Yeah, as I put in my previous comment, people are taking what I said to mean that no one can ever eat a cookie again in their life, which is not what I was saying.
I am going to stop defending my point now because I don't feel like what I said was extreme in anyway (my apologies if anyone took it that way, I tried very hard to put my opinion across in a way it wouldn't be misconstrued but I have obviously not done a very good job of that).
I think the bigger point is that one or two woos means nothing much, so don't worry about it. Sometimes people don't read that carefully and jump to conclusions. One common tactic in the "a calorie is not a calorie" debate is to mix up "food" and "calorie" and to pose a somewhat ridiculous hypothetical such as "what if you eat equal calories of donuts vs. a balanced diet with protein and veg and healthy sources of fat, is that the same?" Since clearly no one (or very few) would even think to eat only donuts, and no one recommends ignoring nutrition, people see that kind of argument as strawmanning, so it might be something that gets woo'd (not by me, I'd just respond).
But for a broader discussion of the nutrition/calorie thing, probably better for another thread -- there's a good one or two available in Debate if interested.4 -
Again, I totally agree, but my point is being taken to the extremes again.
Yeah, as I put in my previous comment, people are taking what I said to mean that no one can ever eat a cookie again in their life, which is not what I was saying.
I am going to stop defending my point now because I don't feel like what I said was extreme in anyway (my apologies if anyone took it that way, I tried very hard to put my opinion across in a way it wouldn't be misconstrued but I have obviously not done a very good job of that).
People can only form an opinion on what you type - they can't be expected to know if what you actually think is different from the words on their screen.
Maybe avoid universal or absolute statements?
Avoiding the use of strawmen arguments like people eating their entire diet in convenience foods to try and show why broccoli is better than cookies might be a good idea too? (In reality they are just different foods rather than good or bad).
What I think you mean isn't extreme but what you actually wrote wasn't well thought through - sorry!4 -
Again, it depends on context. If you were implying that a person can never eat at McDonalds to lose weight, or that a healthy diet can't include eating at McDonalds, that would be woo-worthy.
You are quite right. It does depend on context. So to be clear... no I am not saying that you can never lose weight if you eat a McDonalds sometimes.4 -
People can only form an opinion on what you type - they can't be expected to know if what you actually think is different from the words on their screen.
Maybe avoid universal or absolute statements?
Avoiding the use of strawmen arguments like people eating their entire diet in convenience foods to try and show why broccoli is better than cookies might be a good idea too? (In reality they are just different foods rather than good or bad).
What I think you mean isn't extreme but what you actually wrote wasn't well thought through - sorry!
I totally accept what you are saying (like I said I have tried to word it in a way that wouldn't be taken badly but have failed so I apologise).
I was simply trying to show what I meant by not all calories are created equal. My opinion would be that the person eating option 2 would be a healthier person than the one eating option 1.
My opinion is obviously not the popular one so I will keep quiet from now on haha lesson learnt
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I think sometimes people may preemptively woo. A person can make a completely factual statement- "300 calories of vegetables has more nutrition than 300 calories worth of cookies"- and be fine. Everybody pretty much knows that. But typically the poster is aiming to make the case "to be healthy, people should avoid cookies", and whether that is said in so many words or not, the post/comment may get wooed. (Just my observation- not speaking for everybody.)5
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All this talk of cookies makes me wish my Girl Scout Cookie order was in. Mmmmm, Samoas.4
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I was simply trying to show what I meant by not all calories are created equal. My opinion would be that the person eating option 2 would be a healthier person than the one eating option 1.
Excellent example of what we're talking about! Is a person that eats an overall healthy diet that includes cookies inherently less healthy than a person who doesn't eat cookies? No. Do people ever eat only cookies? No (well, highly unlikely). So that statement is basically "woo".3 -
Almost everything I post gets a woo. Even just a pic of my pets where other people were also posting their pets???
My hamster is pseudo-science. Or I've annoyed someone and got myself haunted by a lil woo-ghost
I do prefer forums where there are no reaction buttons at all tbh. I guess it makes sense for quick-question type forums where you might just need to look at the best or "most approved" answer but for discussion forums it makes more sense to me to have to quote the post and say why you agree/ disagree. Nit-picking here obvs.
Yeah I've heard people say that as well. I'm the opposite - I like having the option to click a button or the option to explain why I agree or disagree (or find something interesting or...). When I do click on the "disagree" posts (the "why do we have a disagree button?!?!" posts) the complaints tend to include people wishing people would explain why they disagree instead of "hiding" behind the buttons. From my experience, a lot of those same people don't actually like to read why someone disagrees with them. Especially when it ends up being tens or hundreds of disagrees - I mean I know I wouldn't want to read 73 posts of people disagreeing with what I said (I picked a number of disagrees that is on one of the posts in a thread I've been reading over the past few days).
The forums I'm talking about are on Ravelry. The developer based the buttons loosely off of Slashdot's buttons. There are definitely individual forums where they can easily serve as a "ok this person actually has the best advice" but I wouldn't say that that's the norm. It doesn't move the post up or down in ranking.2 -
quiksylver296 wrote: »All this talk of cookies makes me wish my Girl Scout Cookie order was in. Mmmmm, Samoas.
Ugh.
In the U.S. Keebler makes a cookie that is exactly like Samoas and you can buy it all year round.
I don't know if this will be good news or bad news. For me it was something I didn't really need to know.
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cmriverside wrote: »
Ugh.
In the U.S. Keebler makes a cookie that is exactly like Samoas and you can buy it all year round.
I don't know if this will be good news or bad news. For me it was something I didn't really need to know.
If I don't try them, they cannot be better, right? Then I can save my GSC binge for once a year. 7 -
Interesting!0
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Interesting...
Totally off subject, I thought I heard Girl Scout cookies are selling online? 😁0 -
nutmegoreo wrote: »
WTF is the reaction that comes with the vanilla software. It was overridden to make it woo. Same thing with hug overriding awesome. That's why all the awesomes became hugs when they made the switch.
I wish they'd bring awesome back.
And I seem to recall that Woo was indeed WTF for a few weeks.1
This discussion has been closed.
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