What do you want/expect out of your MPF friends? (warning: r

FearAnLoathing

I think you should have taken the hint when she didn't change her behavior after you hounded her constantly about it.

For all you know, she has tried eating back her exercise calories and didn't lose or gained. Some people are not able to eat those calories back and being hounded about it isn't productive or wanted. I would have defriended you, too. I do not comment on diaries unless someone asks me to.

to each his own, we all have our own reasons were on here and expect different things. If i didn't want my diary viewed, I wouldn't make it public. What's the point of it being public then? Constantly hounding would be saying the exact same thing on every diary entry, on every post. I explained the importance of eating exercise calories on one, linked her to the forums on another, and explained net calories last one. If you ask me, that information is productive. And I hardly believe by eating her exercise calories and netting more than 120 calories she would be gaining weight.

Well everybody does have their own reasons for being here,she chose not to take your advice and deleted you.You might find that info productive but obviously she didnt

engineman312

i want my friends to look at my diary and comment on how i did good, or bad. thats why it's public. i recently went over by almost 1000 calories. got a few comments, but explained it was because i had a race the next morning. i like a lot of my friends, and they tell me the truth, because i'll tell them the same. i will say something about an over indulgence, or poor choices. i do my best to be supportive, not all high and mighty. but if its a constant thing, i'm going to call them on it.

as far as exercise, well, all my mfp friends will tell you that i put up huge numbers, and i love it. part of it is because i want to impress and motivate others. and i comment when people do well in their exercises. i have also had private conversations with friends and helped them out with strength training, running, and other aspects of their fitness.

but i don't comment when people log things like cleaning. i won't be able to hold back the snarky comments.

teeley

I explained the importance of eating exercise calories on one, linked her to the forums on another, and explained net calories last one.

We all know how this debate ends...I don't eat my calories back and if I had a friend always telling me it is unhealthy I may unfriend them too. For this reason alone I simply do not enter my burn calories....I have unfriended many people due to not being as similar as I thought we were. My diary is open and I am always open to suggestions and yes even cold hard truth. If a friend ever post information to me for advice because they were concerned and it is a post from MPF I would probably unfriend them on the spot!!

jonzo21

That's another thing, the longer I'm here the more I realize that there are many different ways to go about losing weight so telling people how to do it the way you are doing it can actually be contradictory to their method and rather unhelpful. Telling someone on a no-carb diet that they need to eat more carbs won't go over well. Telling someone who's had BS that they're not eating enough calories when some days they're barely managing to keep food down -- not so helpful. Telling one of my friends that she's eating crap while true only makes her feel worse about the fact that she can't afford fresh food (she feeds a family of 5 on $75-100 ever two weeks).

If you're not a health professional and you're not intimately familiar with this person's plan, history, medical condition and psychology, what makes you think that you actually know better how to do this than they do?

Granted netting under 1200 a day is unhealthy but for someone trying to come back from an eating disorder maybe just getting themselves into a positive net number is a HUGE accomplishment and then you go and raise the bar that much higher making it seems that even their best efforts are horribly insufficient.

Something to think about.

I understand some people may have medical conditions or other issues. I wasn't telling anyone what to do, I was simply explaining the importance of increasing the calorie consumption and linking forums for her to read about it herself. I mean, There are ways for the issue to be fixed if she cannot eat that many calories due to health issues etc. Why exercise so much everyday? Why not cut down the exercise a little bit, so that her body could get used to more calories, little by little? there's ways. But I guess you have to figure them out on your own. Not everyone will gladly accept good advice like I would, oh well.

rml_16

I think you should have taken the hint when she didn't change her behavior after you hounded her constantly about it.

For all you know, she has tried eating back her exercise calories and didn't lose or gained. Some people are not able to eat those calories back and being hounded about it isn't productive or wanted. I would have defriended you, too. I do not comment on diaries unless someone asks me to.

to each his own, we all have our own reasons were on here and expect different things. If i didn't want my diary viewed, I wouldn't make it public. What's the point of it being public then? Constantly hounding would be saying the exact same thing on every diary entry, on every post. I explained the importance of eating exercise calories on one, linked her to the forums on another, and explained net calories last one. If you ask me, that information is productive. And I hardly believe by eating her exercise calories and netting more than 120 calories she would be gaining weight.

She didn't respond to your first two messages. The third was overkill. You didn't get the hint, she defriended you. She has her own reasons for having her diary open. They may be different than yours. Mine is open for my own reasons, but no to attract unwanted or unrequested critique.

Thankfully, my MFP friends mind their own business. I would have let the first comment from you go, and possibly the second. But I would have defriended after the third, too.

jonzo21

We all know how this debate ends...I don't eat my calories back and if I had a friend always telling me it is unhealthy I may unfriend them too. For this reason alone I simply do not enter my burn calories....I have unfriended many people due to not being as similar as I thought we were. My diary is open and I am always open to suggestions and yes even cold hard truth. If a friend ever post information to me for advice because they were concerned and it is a post from MPF I would probably unfriend them on the spot!!

the whole eating exercise calories back is definitely a huge debate on this website. Aside from getting advice from a doctor, I've come to the conclusion that as long as you're in a healthy calorie range, you shouldn't need to eat them all back. People need to do what's best for their own body, yes.
But when you are giving your body 120 calories to use throughout the day, outside of exercise,... I hardly think that's healthy.

teeley

We all know how this debate ends...I don't eat my calories back and if I had a friend always telling me it is unhealthy I may unfriend them too. For this reason alone I simply do not enter my burn calories....I have unfriended many people due to not being as similar as I thought we were. My diary is open and I am always open to suggestions and yes even cold hard truth. If a friend ever post information to me for advice because they were concerned and it is a post from MPF I would probably unfriend them on the spot!!

the whole eating exercise calories back is definitely a huge debate on this website. Aside from getting advice from a doctor, I've come to the conclusion that as long as you're in a healthy calorie range, you shouldn't need to eat them all back. People need to do what's best for their own body, yes.
But when you are giving your body 120 calories to use throughout the day, outside of exercise,... I hardly think that's healthy.

I agree, sorry to have played the devils advocate there...I do eat enough calories and don't burn 1000+ everyday...:)

rml_16

We all know how this debate ends...I don't eat my calories back and if I had a friend always telling me it is unhealthy I may unfriend them too. For this reason alone I simply do not enter my burn calories....I have unfriended many people due to not being as similar as I thought we were. My diary is open and I am always open to suggestions and yes even cold hard truth. If a friend ever post information to me for advice because they were concerned and it is a post from MPF I would probably unfriend them on the spot!!

the whole eating exercise calories back is definitely a huge debate on this website. Aside from getting advice from a doctor, I've come to the conclusion that as long as you're in a healthy calorie range, you shouldn't need to eat them all back. People need to do what's best for their own body, yes.
But when you are giving your body 120 calories to use throughout the day, outside of exercise,... I hardly think that's healthy.

That's nice that you don't think that's healthy. But you are not a doctor and I assume not a nutritionist or dietician. She was doing what worked for her. She may change that on her own eventually, but three times bugging her about it after she didn't respond twice already was not welcome. She has a right to not want to deal with that.

jonzo21

I think you should have taken the hint when she didn't change her behavior after you hounded her constantly about it.

For all you know, she has tried eating back her exercise calories and didn't lose or gained. Some people are not able to eat those calories back and being hounded about it isn't productive or wanted. I would have defriended you, too. I do not comment on diaries unless someone asks me to.

to each his own, we all have our own reasons were on here and expect different things. If i didn't want my diary viewed, I wouldn't make it public. What's the point of it being public then? Constantly hounding would be saying the exact same thing on every diary entry, on every post. I explained the importance of eating exercise calories on one, linked her to the forums on another, and explained net calories last one. If you ask me, that information is productive. And I hardly believe by eating her exercise calories and netting more than 120 calories she would be gaining weight.

She didn't respond to your first two messages. The third was overkill. You didn't get the hint, she defriended you. She has her own reasons for having her diary open. They may be different than yours. Mine is open for my own reasons, but no to attract unwanted or unrequested critique.

Thankfully, my MFP friends mind their own business. I would have let the first comment from you go, and possibly the second. But I would have defriended after the third, too.

Noow you are assuming things. I never said she didn't respond to my messages. She actually did. In one, she said it was hard for her to eat all her calories because she's not hungry enough to eat that many calories. I think I may have suggested some calorie rich foods that may help her increase her intake. she also thanked me for the link I gave her and read it and did some research about it on her own, made a forum post for herself and situation specifically. But yes, I'm guessing the 3rd time was overkill, otherwise I wouldn't have been deleted. Doesn't matter, if someone cant take helpful advice, I don't need them as a friend. They are then just a useless name in my profile.

jonzo21

We all know how this debate ends...I don't eat my calories back and if I had a friend always telling me it is unhealthy I may unfriend them too. For this reason alone I simply do not enter my burn calories....I have unfriended many people due to not being as similar as I thought we were. My diary is open and I am always open to suggestions and yes even cold hard truth. If a friend ever post information to me for advice because they were concerned and it is a post from MPF I would probably unfriend them on the spot!!

the whole eating exercise calories back is definitely a huge debate on this website. Aside from getting advice from a doctor, I've come to the conclusion that as long as you're in a healthy calorie range, you shouldn't need to eat them all back. People need to do what's best for their own body, yes.
But when you are giving your body 120 calories to use throughout the day, outside of exercise,... I hardly think that's healthy.

That's nice that you don't think that's healthy. But you are not a doctor and I assume not a nutritionist or dietician. She was doing what worked for her. She may change that on her own eventually, but three times bugging her about it after she didn't respond twice already was not welcome. She has a right to not want to deal with that.

again, I may have forgot to mention it, but she DID respond. Therefore its not like the comments were going ignored. If I get ignored, I tend to just not respond anymore because I assume the person doesn't need to hear what I have to say, and thats not a big deal. But she did.

Sunny_Lexie

My diary is public because it makes it easier to point someone in that direction when someone asks for ideas.

So you are offering ideas even to people who don't ask for them, since it's public.
Don't really see your point, sorry. I rarely look into people's diaries for ideas, because I don't live in the US and I may not have the same tastes. I look at the repartition of the calories and nutrients; that's the only idea I could get but even then (no offense!) I don't think I need someone's diary for that.

If someone tells me I'm doing something wrong I will consider their opinion. You make your diary public and only want people to look at it for ideas of how *they* should plan their day. Well sorry but it's not a one-way road, if I am making myself clear.

Obviously, the person in question wasn't looking for critique or she would have responded the first apparently several times it was offered.

I don't know that person and I don't know her motivations for a such small net calorie intake per day, but as a friend and a supporter memeber of MFP I would worry too. If the person does not want critique, she can simply explain it or even tell she doesn't want any further comment on her *public* diary. I don't think that defriending people for that is constructive, and it's sad if she felt offended because someone cared.

engineman312

Sunny_Lexie

+1 :laugh:

ElizabethRoad

Doesn't matter, if someone cant take helpful advice, I don't need them as a friend. They are then just a useless name in my profile.

Clearly it does matter, or you wouldn't have posted this.

You want friends who will accept unsolicited advice; she is not one of those people. Move on.

rml_16

My diary is public because it makes it easier to point someone in that direction when someone asks for ideas.

So you are offering ideas even to people who don't ask for them, since it's public.
Don't really see your point, sorry. I rarely look into people's diaries for ideas, because I don't live in the US and I may not have the same tastes. I look at the repartition of the calories and nutrients; that's the only idea I could get but even then (no offense!) I don't think I need someone's diary for that.

If someone tells me I'm doing something wrong I will consider their opinion. You make your diary public and only want people to look at it for ideas of how *they* should plan their day. Well sorry but it's not a one-way road, if I am making myself clear.

Obviously, the person in question wasn't looking for critique or she would have responded the first apparently several times it was offered.

I don't know that person and I don't know her motivations for a such small net calorie intake per day, but as a friend and a supporter memeber of MFP I would worry too. If the person does not want critique, she can simply explain it or even tell she doesn't want any further comment on her *public* diary. I don't think that defriending people for that is constructive, and it's sad if she felt offended because someone cared.

I'm a vegetarian. It is not rare for people who are trying to go veg to come here and ask for ideas. It's a lot easier to say, "check out my diary" than to type out a list and try to remember everything I eat. That was my point.

I think that not changing what she's doing after TWICE being told to do so by the OP was her way of saying "back off." The OP did not take the hint. She got defriended. She claims she's OK with that, but then she posted this long rant about it on the publc message board.

DottieNewton

I have friends for encouragement. I have my food diary open because it makes me accountable. I NEED both those things. I would not comment on someone's diary unless they ask. IF they post on a message board or blog--I would think they would expect comments. Though, I don't think rudeness is ever acceptable. and name calling or belittling are never okay. I know when I have messed up. and if I need or seek advice I will ask for it. I, as an obese woman do enough of chastising and be-little-ing myself in my mind.It only leads to further over eating.

i_love_vinegar

My diary is public because it makes it easier to point someone in that direction when someone asks for ideas.

So you are offering ideas even to people who don't ask for them, since it's public.
Don't really see your point, sorry. I rarely look into people's diaries for ideas, because I don't live in the US and I may not have the same tastes. I look at the repartition of the calories and nutrients; that's the only idea I could get but even then (no offense!) I don't think I need someone's diary for that.

If someone tells me I'm doing something wrong I will consider their opinion. You make your diary public and only want people to look at it for ideas of how *they* should plan their day. Well sorry but it's not a one-way road, if I am making myself clear.

Obviously, the person in question wasn't looking for critique or she would have responded the first apparently several times it was offered.

I don't know that person and I don't know her motivations for a such small net calorie intake per day, but as a friend and a supporter memeber of MFP I would worry too. If the person does not want critique, she can simply explain it or even tell she doesn't want any further comment on her *public* diary. I don't think that defriending people for that is constructive, and it's sad if she felt offended because someone cared.

I'm a vegetarian. It is not rare for people who are trying to go veg to come here and ask for ideas. It's a lot easier to say, "check out my diary" than to type out a list and try to remember everything I eat. That was my point.

I think that not changing what she's doing after TWICE being told to do so by the OP was her way of saying "back off." The OP did not take the hint. She got defriended. She claims she's OK with that, but then she posted this long rant about it on the publc message board.

Exactly my thoughts. I also agree with those that said there are various reasons for keeping diaries open...

I do not keep mine open to be told, "OMG WTF BBQ you are gonna STARVE" or something. I keep it open because I know some of my friends simply like to see what I am eating and compare.

While I understand the OP had good intentions, not everyone diets in the same way...so pls understand this and maybe don't bug friends 3 times if they obviously don't want you to ^^

AlsDonkBoxSquat

I don't expect a pat on the back, as I am self motivated, but it's nice. I try to return the favor. I'm busy, I expect my mfp's to also be busy . . . between work and family the interwebz should take a back seat. I expect mfp's to log in on a semi regular basis and remove anyone whose account is over a month stale. I expect mfp's to make the occassional comment as they seem fit, and to respect my response because this is all about me and what works for me. I also expect them to do what's right for them, and if what I'm doing doesn't fit into their comfort zone I expect them to remove me as I do the same. I have removed mfp's because I cannot reconcile their lifestyle and they bring nothing additional to the "relationship" and kept others because I really enjoy the interactions so I put aside the other stuff.
I do have to say that if I was regularly receiving pm's from someone about my lifestyle balance I would feel harrassed and drop them like a bad habit. They've provided me documentation, the assumption is that since I'm using a computer I can actually read, I have to respect what I think works for me. I'm open to suggestions, not everyone is, but even I can only take so much of the same thing.

umachanxo

I suppose that it would mean different things to different people. I genuinely care about the success of the people I have met on MFP, and I do comment on their successes. Because, to me, any success is a success. Be it burning 600 calories doing a hike, or only burning 20 from washing windows.

But that's me, and that's how I see it. Not everyone sees it the same way, and I can understand your point of view. My suggestion to you is to be wary of who you add.

I appreciate any tips friends give me on here, and I appreciate every word of encouragement.

em9371

I dont have many MFP friends and I am just fine with that, my friends have similar goals to me or live nearby, I joined to track my eating not have 1000's of 'virtual' friends that have nothing in common with me!
If I see an update for a friend that they have achieved a goal / weighed in / need motivating I would reply, but I don't see the point of saying well done to every single post, I dont need to be told well done every time i go to the gym or fill in my diary so hopefully my friends are not offended by me not replying to everything!