Why do people insist on giving (bad) advice?

I think a lot of people have had one bit of success with a certain weigh loss program or tactic and that causes them to believe it is "the only way".

How many people do you know who say "LOW CARB IS THE ONLY WAY!" and stuff like that...

When I am asked how I'm losing weight and mention MFP most people irl have the reaction of "OH that won't work for me..."

Like others have said, I think those people honestly think they are being helpful. What makes it so frustrating is that what you are doing is obviously working, so why do they think you need to do anything differently?

My dad is the worse. He should know better because he was a nurse, but he's always giving me unsolicited, unwanted, and unsafe advice. My favorite was when he told me the best way to lose some weight was to get some laxatives and then take twice the recommended dose each day. He seriously told me that, but thankfully I knew better.

Another part of this really boils down to personal responsibility. When you tell someone that all you've done is to watch your calories and made sure to exercise more, they don't want to think it could be that simple. If it were that simple, then they no longer have their excuses to hide behind that something other than what they ate and their activity level led to their current weight. I know I was like that for a long, long time. It wasn't until I accepted that my decisions had led me to this place that I was able to start making changes.

Good work Posh! :flowerforyou:

different things work for different people......

It is saying things like this that leads most people down the wrong track. It is at best a half truth.

Different things work for different people usually only in terms of sustainability. If someone needs to avoid certain foods to avoid binging, then I'm all for it. But telling people that this is the only way to lose weight and calories don't matter is laughable.

^^ This +1

People are misinformed, that's all.

For a long time my aunt believed if you don't eat after seven o'clock at night you will lose weight. Turns out her daughter told her she doesn't eat after seven seven at night and she'd lost weight. The logic behind that was the my cousin ate healthy during the day but if she ate after dinner she went for the brownies and other sweets in the house, therefore either eating to maintenance or overeating and gaining weight.

Being fat my entire life, I grew up being told I could not eat "fattening" foods, or that certain "diets" would help me lose weight. I tried them all and they worked just fine until I went off of them and started eating normally again.

Egg diet, cabbage soup diet, slim fast, just everything under the sun.

Yep, what I've been doing the last several months works just fine--eating at a calorie deficit and adding in that wonderful exercise each day/ It works just fine for me.

When people try to tell me about diets that work, I just tell them I don't diet and I don't believe in them at all. They just look at me like they've got the answer and I don't. Oh well.

I Had to travel with a "family friend" who I hadn't see in a while and she was complaining about how hard it was to lose weight (She is easily 80 lbs overweight) . She said she was going to hit it every day with P90x!

I said "Cool... go for it. By the way I have lost 20 lbs and it has taken me about 8 months to do it and I just log everything I eat and try to burn more calories than I take in). I told her I have proabably 20-30 lbs to go depending on my bodyfat and the first thing she said was "better do it safe; you don't want to get too skinny". WTF - When I get to my goal weight I will still weigh 30 lbs more than when I graduated high school (I had no LBM!)

People are mostly clueless...

I know I was clueless as recently as 8 months ago I actually took Raspberry Ketones - (WTF directed at myself in the mirror LOL):drinker:

With quacks like Dr Oz distributing information it really is no surprise this is happening. All I can say, is keep doing you, and forget everyone else.

This.
My boyfriend got me some freaking "Acai berry" pills, those things made my stomach hurt. I threw them in the garbage. I told him how I'm going to lose the weight myself by eating healthy, he's a believer in Dr Oz, I honestly don't care who this... Person is, trying to sell all this garbage to people that are trying to lose weight.
I only tried it because I promised my boyfriend, but never again.

I could never understand why people are so ready to believe everything Dr Oz says.

Maybe so many people are searching for that miracle cure for fat they're willing to believe anything?

I think they honestly just want to be helpful, but unfortunately most people get their dietary information from magazines and Dr. Oz.

Pretty much this. My brother and father would constantly ask me "Why are you eating ice cream when you're trying to lose weight?" or "you shouldn't be weight lifting, you need to eat only salad and run!"

My father saw me after like 6 months and now won't offer his suggestion. He admits that I might know what I'm dong and am doing it the healthy way so I got that going for me

I find that the people who are willing to give the advice and shove information down your throat are the ones who think they know everything but do nothing themselves, it's one of those things that make themselves feel better but it's a false sense of security as they think they know what they are talking about. Keep going regardless, I also don't inform people of my weight loss journey as I get people throwing 'opinions' to me too.

That's why I am not adding people as friends ..pointless.. after 100 lbs lost I don't need their little advices and daily drama...Another thing is when people ask you @how on earth you lost so much?@..and the moment they hear about eating less, they are insulted...it's crazy.

This is the reason I keep my plan and progress private at work/social areas.

I don't diss anyone doing any diet unless it's dangerous. If low carb/low sugar/low fat/no meat/organic and so forth works for you then great. If it doesn't - then you need to make some changes. If mine is working - leave it alone. When it stops, I'll consider some tweaks.

OP: If what you are doing works - keep on keeping on. Lead by example. That's my plan.

Pretty much this.

Congrats on your 50 lbs !! Awesome work .

I too think people want to be helpful . I have only had one person tell me( when I was in a plateau) , that I needed to eat less than 1,000 calories a day to break the plateau. I just politely thanked him for his advice and changed my exercises and increased my intensity and bam it started falling off again. He asked me about three weeks later if I had taken his advice and broken through-I said no and explained what I did while continuing to eat like I normally do ( 1,200 to 1,600 cals a day) He was shocked that I started losing again he said he always thought you had to eat less than a 1,000 calories a day to lose weight.


I do talk about my diet and weight loss all the time . I can't help it I'm obsessed in a good way . I get bad advice all the time lol I just ignore it or say well if My way stops working maybe I'll try your way ?

If I post on facebook that I have lost weight a bunch of people ask how and when I say that I just count calories a bunch of other people chime in to inform me that I should be cutting carbs.

congrats on your loss!

Other than what everyone has said, if you don't want unsolicited advice on Facebook, don't humblebrag on Facebook. It is the nature of the beast, to some extent.

Well let me just say this. In my country we used to go around and if we needed to know anything we just asked people for advice.

Then somewhere between the seventies and the eighties some bright sparks appeared who started saying that giving advice was wrong. In fact in the end people were victimised for giving the wrong advice. You would think that this was good - but no it was not. Companies were hounded out and prosecuted for giving the wrong advice they said.
Then people appeared who said that you could not acll a ballcock a ballcock. So what was good for our parents, who brought us into the world and stood up and fought in the war - was not good enough for these people. No - they had to change the world by pointing their fingers at the least thing and declaring it wrong. Meanwhile we went form a first class power to a nobody - our toilets are stinking or non existent. Councils are allowed to turf sick people out of their homes and our pensions are not worth the money that they were printed on. It is simply a total lack of social responsibility where we disrespect our elders. You would not like to live in our country.

So I say listen to all the advice that you can - some of the advice is sound because it opens our eyes to all of the crappy things that are going on - all of the shilly things they are putting into our food because there is no monitoring going on anymore.

We are descending into the slough of despond and we can only save ourselves and our loved ones - and the first thing to do is to start caring for people. People are just lost in the absence of good advice and shackled to a silent government with no strength or leadership to guide us with our nutrition and how to preserve our health. So they believe that they are right but in most cases they just do not know what real food is anymore and just eat the junk that is peddled.