Why do people insist on giving (bad) advice?

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  • highervibes
    highervibes Posts: 2,219 Member
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    I'm part of an online weight loss challenge with people in my area. Some of them have received complicated (and downright gross) mealplans from a personal trainer and the misinformation is staggaring. I just keep my head down and keep losing 1lb/week while these poor ladies are cooking seperate meals for their families and probably eating 1200 calories and droppping 2-3lbs/week. I wonder how they'll do when the 12 weeks is over lol
  • randomtai
    randomtai Posts: 9,003 Member
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    I'm part of an online weight loss challenge with people in my area. Some of them have received complicated (and downright gross) mealplans from a personal trainer and the misinformation is staggaring. I just keep my head down and keep losing 1lb/week while these poor ladies are cooking seperate meals for their families and probably eating 1200 calories and droppping 2-3lbs/week. I wonder how they'll do when the 12 weeks is over lol

    Me too!! I am all types of last place in my challenge.. oh well. *eats ice cream*
  • panda4153
    panda4153 Posts: 417 Member
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    QUOTE:

    QUOTE:

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


    Oh, really? So not everyone is subject to the laws of thermodynamics and calories in/calories out? huh What an interesting world you must live in. *slowly back away*


    No its the law of cake dynamics...

    cake in...and more cake in....

    then bull**** comes out...

    I love cake :love:
  • sandwitchrs
    sandwitchrs Posts: 6
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    Congrats on losing the weight! I also lost weight by just simply counting calories, and I think it's effective for a lot of people. I fell of the 'losing weight' wagon when I started reading a whole bunch of stuff on the science of it all, and honestly, it just confused me and I felt discourage I didn't meet those standards and binged.

    Some people may mean well, but there are those folks who feel the need to 1 up others when they accomplish something!

    Just stay positive and do whatever works for you!
  • AmykinsCatfood
    AmykinsCatfood Posts: 599 Member
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    This is why I stopped telling people I'm losing weight. I get the "How did you do it?" followed by the "Oh, don't you think this *insert obnoxious theory/diet product here* would work better?" No. It's working for me so far, bugger off.
  • ttknowles01
    ttknowles01 Posts: 255 Member
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    Yep. I have a close friend who keeps doing these fad things. A few months ago, she was on a Soup Diet and proclaimed that the soups that were in the plan were all delicious and it was a very easy diet to stick with and she loved it. I think she lost 2 pounds and gained it right back. Now she's doing some sort of plan for 3 weeks that gives you a specific amount of carbs to each on each day with one day being a stuff-your-face day. She loves it, she's very proud of herself. Yet each and every day, she's made comments about "I'm not allowed to eat that" or "I'm going off my diet right now so I can eat this, and I'll start again tomorrow." She's lost nothing. Meanwhile, I've been doing this for a year and am happily counting calories and balancing my macros much better and eating foods I love and losing slowly but surely. Yet she brags that she knows the One True Way to lose weight and sort of rolls her eyes at me. I am honestly baffled by it.

    I know someone doing something similar to this for quick weight loss. She's always complaining about how hungry she is, and how she can't eat this or that. She looks and sounds so miserable
  • SNLover87
    SNLover87 Posts: 101 Member
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    I know what you mean. My brother-in-law always has to make a comment about how I'm eating when we're at a family dinner. Completely unsolicited, he'll say "how can you lose weight eating like that??" He may be getting the wrong impression, bc at family dinners I tend to budget my day so that I can allow for more calories at dinner. It's not a regular thing. But I feel like turning to him and saying "49 lbs down says it's working, so please mind your own business." Instead I end up trying to defend myself, "I don't do this everyday!" *sigh* If there's one thing that everyone has an opinion on, it's weight loss. Whether you're successful or not, people want to give you their opinion. The fact that I am losing weight steadily and I'm doing so in a healthy way means nothing to him, if I'm not doing it exactly the way he thinks I should.
  • richardheath
    richardheath Posts: 1,276 Member
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    First - great job OP!

    Second - Dunning-Kruger effect.

    From Wiki:
    The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their mistakes.[1]
  • EHisCDN
    EHisCDN Posts: 480 Member
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    Before I started losing weight I wouldn't discuss weight loss habits/techniques or people's weight loss. I still don't. I feel it's a common courtesy and I don't want to impose on them/be imposed on. Better just to avoid opening myself up to comments.
  • highervibes
    highervibes Posts: 2,219 Member
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    I'm part of an online weight loss challenge with people in my area. Some of them have received complicated (and downright gross) mealplans from a personal trainer and the misinformation is staggaring. I just keep my head down and keep losing 1lb/week while these poor ladies are cooking seperate meals for their families and probably eating 1200 calories and droppping 2-3lbs/week. I wonder how they'll do when the 12 weeks is over lol

    Me too!! I am all types of last place in my challenge.. oh well. *eats ice cream*

    I'm in last place too hahahah. Whatever, I'll still be losing long after the 12 weeks have gone by. Slow and steady.
  • highervibes
    highervibes Posts: 2,219 Member
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    ^ and delicious lol
  • Myhaloslipped
    Myhaloslipped Posts: 4,317 Member
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    The thing I love about math, although I much prefer teaching English, is that you can't really argue with it's simplicity. Calories in<calories out. Bam! This is usually my response to all of this advice. That or silence.
  • Myhaloslipped
    Myhaloslipped Posts: 4,317 Member
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    *its. I apologize for that. I am ashamed. Lol.
  • ShadeyC
    ShadeyC Posts: 315 Member
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    It is just indicative of just how widespread misinformation about weight and fitness management really is.

    This. That's why I chose to go into health education, but now I feel like i'm getting in way over my head with these people :laugh:

    Great job, OP. Just keep doing what works, and just nod and smile at all the broscience and keep on. :flowerforyou:

    THIS!
  • ShadeyC
    ShadeyC Posts: 315 Member
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    I've lost 50 pounds since I started my weight loss plan. I pretty much just eat what I want and count calories, although I do try to avoid processed foods and artificial stuff as much as possible. I feel like the fact that I am losing steadily, feel good and am rarely hungry says I am doing things the right way, at least for me. So, why then, does everyone who sees or hears that I have lost weight insist on giving me advice? I'm already losing the weight, I don't need their ill-informed advice!

    I've gotten where I really don't tell anyone what I am doing, but my mom insists on telling everyone and their grandmother.

    When I told my aunt I just count calories she said "well, they say it's not about calories, it's about fat." No, no one says that, not since like 1962.

    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.

    It's like I can't just say "hey, I lost 10 more pounds since xxx" and have people tell me "great job" or whatever. Everyone insists on telling me the "right" way to do it.
    Join the club on that one. :grumble: I've lost 123lbs in about 15 months and a week doesn't go by without someone insinuating that I'm doing it wrong and suggesting something they've read about on Facebook or seen on Dr. Oz. It goes like this generally:
    Random acquaintance/customer/half assed friend/family member says: "Wow, you've lost a lot of weight!"
    Me: "Why yes, I have. Just eating at a calorie defict and exercising, nothing fancy."
    Random Person: "But you cut carbs/fat/processed/gluten/chocolate/junk food, right? You eat clean/paleo/primal right?"
    Me. "No. I eat ice cream everyday."
    Random Person. *looking annoyed now* "Well, that's not possible. You should try cutting carbs/fat/protein/salt/processed/gmo's/gluten/sugar/aspartame.... and buy raspberry ketones/garcinawhateveryoucallit/shakeology/visalus/eat clean etc.... because what you're doing CLEARLY doesn't work."
    :laugh:

    :laugh: sounds so familiar!

    That just made me snort laugh :)
  • SteveStedge1
    SteveStedge1 Posts: 149 Member
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    I recently ran into a casual acquaintance in the grocery store.

    Her: Wow, you've lost a lot of weight.
    Me: Thanks.
    Her (as she eyed my shopping cart and pointed): You aren't going to eat that or that are you?
    Me: Yep.
    Her: You know you should be eating "clean". It's the only way to lose weight.
    Me: Interesting. Gotta run.

    Oh, this is just FANTASTIC. Great post. My favorite event is when you succeed (at anything) and other people tell you its impossible, you're doing it wrong, they know better, when youve done it and they havent. Cluelessness knows no bounds with some people.
  • Mish_78
    Mish_78 Posts: 7
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    Great job. I love seeing success stories like this one!!!!

    I have recently gone off track and put some weight back on.

    I now get comments like
    'See I told you that idea wouldn't work'
    'Counting calories was a waste of time wasn't it..Should've done Paleo'
    ' Told you to eat low carb'
    'You should really do this clean eating diet that I do'

    Pffft I shall begin counting calories again because that IS what works for me :)
  • Tigg_er
    Tigg_er Posts: 22,001 Member
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    So, why then, does everyone who sees or hears that I have lost weight insist on giving me advice?

    Because we're social creatures, and biologically programmed to stick our nose in other people's business. As should be evident by the fact that we're all posting to a bunch of strangers on an internet chat board. :)

    Gotta just let it all roll off your back, like water off of a duck.

    I vote for this one.
  • LoosingMyLast15
    LoosingMyLast15 Posts: 1,457 Member
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    I've lost 50 pounds since I started my weight loss plan. I pretty much just eat what I want and count calories, although I do try to avoid processed foods and artificial stuff as much as possible. I feel like the fact that I am losing steadily, feel good and am rarely hungry says I am doing things the right way, at least for me. So, why then, does everyone who sees or hears that I have lost weight insist on giving me advice? I'm already losing the weight, I don't need their ill-informed advice!

    I've gotten where I really don't tell anyone what I am doing, but my mom insists on telling everyone and their grandmother.

    When I told my aunt I just count calories she said "well, they say it's not about calories, it's about fat." No, no one says that, not since like 1962.

    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.

    It's like I can't just say "hey, I lost 10 more pounds since xxx" and have people tell me "great job" or whatever. Everyone insists on telling me the "right" way to do it.

    because everyone wants to feel helpful and also because most people cannot believe the old fashioned way of counting calories actually works. they'd rather believe all the fads and "doctors" and pills are the new magical way to loose weight
  • Sabine_Stroehm
    Sabine_Stroehm Posts: 19,263 Member
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    I've lost 50 pounds since I started my weight loss plan. I pretty much just eat what I want and count calories, although I do try to avoid processed foods and artificial stuff as much as possible. I feel like the fact that I am losing steadily, feel good and am rarely hungry says I am doing things the right way, at least for me. So, why then, does everyone who sees or hears that I have lost weight insist on giving me advice? I'm already losing the weight, I don't need their ill-informed advice!

    I've gotten where I really don't tell anyone what I am doing, but my mom insists on telling everyone and their grandmother.

    When I told my aunt I just count calories she said "well, they say it's not about calories, it's about fat." No, no one says that, not since like 1962.

    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.

    It's like I can't just say "hey, I lost 10 more pounds since xxx" and have people tell me "great job" or whatever. Everyone insists on telling me the "right" way to do it.

    because everyone wants to feel helpful and also because most people cannot believe the old fashioned way of counting calories actually works. they'd rather believe all the fads and "doctors" and pills are the new magical way to loose weight
    Agreed! and it's how I feel when I tell folks I lost weight by going back to the basics. Eliminating all the crap created in labs in the last several decades and bam. Good old fashioned food. :-)

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