Why Do We Ask for Weight Loss Advice and Then Ignore It?

I think a lot of the people who are serial starters / serial asking for help and not following it, fall into this category (what you said basically):

“I had to completely retrain my thinking around food. It took time, patience, and a lot of unlearning.”

Losing weight by lowering your calories is incredibly simple. But it isn’t incredibly easy.

It takes effort, a willingness to make changes and keep going, and it takes time. I don’t blame people for looking for the easy way out, when SM is full of “quick fixes” and so-called-influencers saying they lost weight with this one weird trick.

I suspect a lot of people are also in denial about their eating habits - it’s easier to believe there is something wrong with metabolism or somehow big pharmaceutical are poisoning food, rather than accepting they just ate too much. Because that feels like a personal fault.

Sadly, eating in today’s society is tied up with wealth, self worth and emotion.

For myself, I don't think I did ask for weight loss advice then ignore it . . . once I committed to losing weight. Yeah, I had some silly illusions about my status, like assuming I must have a "slow metabolism" because I was old, menopausal, athletically more active than average for most any people my age even while obese, severely hypothyroid (though properly medicated), and "ate healthy" (vegetarianism is healthy, right, even with carrot cake? 😆).

I think I didn't lose weight as I started to slowly gain once I had a desk job and a pseudo-grown-up lifestyle, because I thought that was normal. It was common among my co-workers, friends, relatives.

Post cancer, my selection bias in reading articles/research let me believe my athleticism and actually pretty decent fitness was healthy (it is, but it's not enough). Also, I'd increased veggies (varied, colorful) post cancer, so on top of vegetarianism, that's healthy, isn't it? 🙄 Also, I thought - still think, honestly - that constant significant weight yo-yos are more destructive of health than staying moderately fat. (I was more than moderately fat, but in denial as per above.)

I didn't believe most of the diet-culture nonsense (other than that "metabolism" thing etc. as noted). In adulthood, I didn't do any fad diets. I knew it was about calorie balance, and that one way or another calories burned had to be cut below calorie needs, basically a science-y orientation.

But anytime I claimed I wanted to loose weight, I was lying (including to myself), and knew it, because I didn't materially change my behavior and keep the changes. Until I did.

Then, once I got to MFP, one of the first things I did was read, read, read - especially the "Most Helpful Posts". There's gold in there. In general, I believed people who'd succeeded, and back then the whole Community was more science-y than I feel like it is now, which was helpful.

I hope you'll be patient with the rest of this answer, because it's going to seem like a digression, and y'all know I'm horrifyingly wordy. I promise it connects up.

For me in my past, and for other people in my social circle, I think there's a social bonding dimension to all of this. We think we "ought to" want to lose weight, so are inclined to say we're working on it, and make periodic vague jabs in that direction, but not seriously mean it.

I see that in a different context, among rowers. There are people who want to row, and there are people who want to "be rowers" but don't really like rowing all that much. There's a person I know who is like a classic case of this: Multiple times, I've met people who say they talked to one of my fellow rowers at a dinner party or something, and it turns out to be her. Obviously, she talks about it. But she rarely rows. When she does - even though she's a smart person who masters other subjects - she's pretty much forgotten 70% of the necessary information - information, like which oar goes where or which side is starboard, not just physical skills which of course rust with lack of practice. I'm convinced she likes the cachet of "being a rower", but only slightly likes actual rowing, if at all.

I think many of us - me included - approach weight loss like that much of the time. We want to talk about diets, share our "knowledge", bond with others about how hard it is, blah blah blah. But we don't really want to do the activity of losing weight. I takes cognitive bandwidth it's more fun to spend on other things, food tastes really good, we'd have to change habits and pretty much no one likes changing established, comfortable (not even necessarily positive) habits.

Many people claim it's common for folks to posture on social media about how cool their life is, how accomplished they are, etc. I think some of the social culture around weight loss is like that. It's common to "want to be (whatever)" but not really, truly want to put in the actual effort and attention needed to accomplish it.

I'm still like that about some other aspects of my life, honestly . . . even though I know I'm doing it.

All of that leads me to one piece of my philosophy: If I say I want something, but I don't invest effort/attention that I know is required, I don't really mean I want it. I just want to be cool, like the people who achieve it. And I shouldn't lie to myself about that.

Not sure. I know No person irl who was quite overweight, who actually lost and kept it off. These people seem to always be trying, with the next trending diet idea.

I know a lot of people who were a normal weight or maybe a little overweight who seem to keep it reasonably in check with various strategies and diets.

Why do some manage and others persistently struggle and keep gaining? My guess is that is complicated to the individual and may be knowledge, social customs, core beliefs, emotional dependence issues and for some also a driving appetite/chemical/hormone response in the body.

I don't have any definitive answers, receive all sorts of conflicting input from all sorts of sources and a resistance/aversion to anything that is rapid and a 'diet rule' - so calorie counting to eat at a maintenance to keep weight the same is actually the most flexible eating approach. Eat less to lose is bonus. Choose foods to nourish the body is bonus. Choose foods you enjoy is bonus. The tracking is just a little bookkeeping and pretty easy.

Actually ending the overeating for any reason is the hardest part - for whatever reason, but most particularly if/when there is a strong appetite.

What I have difficulty is with posts when someone says… but… I can't (so I don't or won't) - but tell me 'how to' then the person disappears or bats away every idea… and I wonder 'why?' Maybe they just want to whine? That I totally get - sometimes it is hard, does suck. Feasts and dinner out with friends and drinks is way funner!