Why don't people looking to loose weight just ask?

[Demant0]

This may upset people, but here goes...

I often find myself in conversations with my friends about their latest diets or weight loss aspirations but would never instigate a weight based conversation because - as a slim person - I don't think it'd be appropriate (don't want to seem like a know it all).

Yet lately I'm feeling quite proud that I've lost 8lb in the last few months taking me to 8 stone 4lb. I feel very slim and healthy for loosing this weight and many people have notice and commented. (It can get a bit derogatory however, 'skinny', 'getting too thin', 'scrawny' etc, but there you go. I don't care.)

Because of the fact I have made some changes that has led to this weight loss, I am always keen to join in a conversation with my friends because it hasn't just fallen off me. I've taken a few measures to do it that have worked.

The thing is no one EVER wants to know how I loose and maintain my weight and never asks me what I eat, how I live, how I exercise etc. It's always really one sided.

It's like my friends and colleagues think I have no idea about weight loss or calorie counting or whatever because I'm thin. It doesn't make sense - I'm the one who DOES bloody know, obviously!

I think if I struggled to loose weight I would find someone slim and then shadow them and practically adopt their lifestyle. Surely that's got to be more effective than WW that clearly doesn't work very well - for long term anyway.

For example. I've just been talking to my male colleague at work who is morbidly obese - dangerously overweight at about 22 stones with a huge stomach - and I sat there for ten minutes with him telling me about the best way to loose weight and that his wife (also overweight) is doing this and that and this is obviously the way to do it etc. Not once did he ask, 'hey you seem to know what you're doing. What can you suggest?'

This is after being out with friends last night and listening to a lady telling about the delicious food you can have at WW and how great it all is that you can eat sugar etc, but that she put 8lb back on because of Easter and has since lost half a stone again and ain't that bad because now she's going to have to pay again because she can't get to her target weight. She's one of many - I wish I had shares in WW.

When I voiced a couple of concerns that I have about the WW approach to loosing weight, I was emphatically told that I was wrong, implying I can't possibly have the faintest idea what I'm talking about WTF??

So why is it, that as a slim person, no one EVER wants to know my take on weight loss? Why is it they'd rather spend money and time listening to either other overweight people, or experts who want their money?

Is it because the assumption is I am 'just lucky' or 'have a good metabolism'? Or do they just not want to know what it really takes to be thin because they think the truth would be too challenging?

This has been going on for so many years now that I'm genuinely getting very curious.

[Ginfiend]

grabs popcorn

[Justmuddlingalong]

Hang on while I make a cuppa...

[ShatnersBassoon]

I think you'd be a wonderful ambassador for loosening weight.

[Stormtreader]

"I had a puff on a cigarette once when I was in uni. Why doesnt anyone ever ask me for advice on quitting smoking?"

[Destinysdaughter]

So g'wan then, what's the secret?

[TheGrumpySquirrel]

They are too fat to notice that you've lost weight OP

[HarrietKettleWasHere]

Ooh please spill OP your wondrous diet tips!

[EivissaSenorita]

There is a massive, huge difference in making a lifestyle change to lose a few stones than reigning things in bit to lose a couple of lbs. The reasons people end up so overweight in the first place are too numerous to go into. Maybe write a book OP

[bloodymaria]

Haha! Love it OP. Gosh, isn't everyone so self -involved?!

[HarrietKettleWasHere]

Unless you're Rosemary Connelly OP and are doing this to make a living if just get in your your diet/life/slimness and let others get on with theirs.

[AmayaBuzzbee]

I have about a stone to loose (to my ideal weight) and would love to hear what you did/how you maintain OP!

[ifeelcraptonight]

You have lost a smidge of weight you have no idea what it's like to have to lose a lot with the associated difficulties.

You need to have a dose of reality. Me who needed to lose 10 stone and had associated health problems including those that made me put the weight on in the first place, what exactly do you think you could tell me that I don't already know?

[PortableVirgin]

You've lost eight pounds and were presumably already within a healthy BMI. Some of these people, including the 22 stone colleague, are obese or morbidly obese, are dealing with the physical signs of a much more problematic relationship with food, and in some cases obviously struggling with losing eight stone -- more than the total weight of your body. Now is it clearer why your eight pound loss is totally irrelevant to them?

[PortableVirgin]

It would be like someone who is attempting to climb Everest asking someone who walks the dog for fifteen minutes around the park for advice.

[Trampire]

OP, please give me your advice/tips. Honestly. No sarcasm.

I'm currently about 5 stone overweight. I've dieted up to this weight. I'm 45. I've done all the diets. I'm currently not dieting and just trying to eat less bread, chocolate, crisps and more veg etc. I feel so exhausted, unhealthy and unfit (although I walk the dog for an hour each day)

Help me

[Maverick66]

1 have you ever been overweight?
2 have you ever been morbidly obese?
3 have you ever yo yo dieted?
4 have you struggled to loose weight only for it all to go back on with extra.
5 were you heavier than your siblings since birth?
6 do you come from a slim family of girls who eat what they want when they want and never gain an ounce but you just have to sniff something like chocolate and fat goes straight to your hips?
7 have you ever been continually compared to your slimmer siblings.
8 have you ever had PCOS or depression?
9 has society/fashion retailers ever made you feel worthless because you don't conform to size 8/10/12 slim ideal body?
10 Have you ever been overlooked by someone in authority think school, peer groups, members of opposite sex because you weren't slim.

No?

I rest my case

[UserThenLotsOfNumbers]

Well done OP! Please do tell us your secrets. Your next challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to spell "lose" correctly.

[FaFoutis]

I cut out my weekly glass of wine, why don't alcoholics just ask me what to do?

[MovingtoParadise]

Ok. I would like to ask

Please tell me what you've eaten today so far and if you've done any exercise.

Any chance you log your food on mfp and can say roughly how many calories you eat a day ?

[Loubilou09]

Probably cos you sound like a dick and secondly can't even spell "Lose" correctly - hope that helps

[Reow]

I think you'd be a wonderful ambassador for loosening weight



Do you deliver your advice as a lengthy sanctimonious essay in real life? If so that's probably why they don't ask you.

[PickAChew]

Perhaps they just don't give a shit about your opinion?

[SenoritaViva]

Maybe because different bodies react positively to different things.

If it was me though I wouldn't ask because I'm simply not interested and would find it incredibly dull.

[Reow]

@FaFoutis I cut out my weekly glass of wine, why don't alcoholics just ask me what to do?

Comment of the day!

[Floggingmolly]

Lose, not loose. If you're such a font of all knowledge nutrition wise, how come you were once one of those errant creatures who carry too much weight?
Who did you ask for this divine inspiration?