Ive spent some time here, and on other sites, and I notice that people will try and tell me how their body works, while making the assumption that my body somehow functions the same as theirs, when we are dierent weights, heights, and have different lifestyles. It makes no sense but this happens often.

Well I think the best thing each person can go by is through personal experience. Sharing that experience with someone might help someone else, I do not believe it is meant to be taken seriously but sift through the advice and see what works for you.

Especially on a board like 3FC, people spend a lot of time asking for advice and feedback. So people respond, with the advice that has worked best for them.

I think of 3FC as "crowdsourcing" weight loss advice. As with any situation where you're taking in ideas and suggestions from a crowd, you're like to get lots of unique ideas and perspectives, and some of those may be very useful! The drawback, of course, is that not all advice received will work for you, your unique situation, etc. So an essential part of using boards like 3FC or any other crowdsourcing technique is developing the ability to filter out the things that are useful to you from among the many suggestions from a wide variety of people

To be honest, I love that people do this and often it is what keeps me going. No matter what type of body, or lifestyle, you have there are going to be many many similarities in this shared experience.

For instance...

I quite often get sore ankles and knees while doing the treadmill and it really keeps me going to know other people here can totally identify with that ... and they do not give up ... so I feel supported.

Or, I lose a pound and think I am not working hard enough but then someone else here enthuses over their loss of a pound and suddenly I feel darned proud!

Okay i am not going to ever belong or empathise with the jogging brigade or have a bullying personal trainer, though others are madly into that.

But over and over I read people saying ... you must do what works for you but, for me ... this works.

Anyone who is insistent or tries to impose their style is simply reinforcing their own determination and adhering to the gospel of what worked for them and that is absolutely fine and has my total support. Lord knows this is a hard journey for us all and any and all support is precious! They are celebrating goals that they have achieved using a tried and tested method that they, no doubt, worked hard at and want to share. Celebrate for them! Do your own thing, but cheer them on!

I am a defiant type... years of abuse and being dictated to resulted in my being spiky as **** and if someone tries to make me to any little thing I get as muscle frozen as an angry Jack Russel terrier. I fight that all the time and try to recognise the motive behind being told what to do is sometimes phraseology rather than some sort of malicious, bullying intent. So I figure that often it is me being spiky rather than someone being annoying.

I have no tried and tested thing to impose but if I was a true believer I would hope that outlining my method would encourage :-)

I'm currently going through this right now with a few of my friends. We are all completely different when it comes to our bodies, but anytime I mention food the comment is always, "Thought you were on a diet" or "That's not diet food".
So I've learned to correct them and let them know I never said I was on a diet, I said I was eating healthier.

So I just let it slide off and go with what I know works for myself. I come here for advice and support when i need it. I'm one of those that when I see I lose 1 or 2 pounds I jump for joy! Because for me, those are hurdles and I'm getting over them..

I've noticed the same thing. I don't mind when someone shares their personal experiences with me but there's a big difference between just sharing your experiences and forcing them down someone's throat. So far, I've been told that I'm blatantly wrong about how I'm losing weight by multiple people. Nevermind the fact that I've lost 14 pounds and feel fine. I'm just wrong.

And part of why I put on weight in the first place was because my now ex insisted that I was too obsessive with what I ate and how I exercised. So I cut way, way back. It then occurred to me later on that he's skinny, always has been, and likely always will be despite not really being terribly active or concerned with eating healthy. And when I tried to explain that to him - that we just aren't the same and not only does he not put on weight but we have entirely different figures (I would hope so...) - he argued. It took years to get him off my back and see things my way and yet he still doubts how I'm actually going about losing weight.

I'd just like a little breathing room. All the negativity I've received lately has really worn on my nerves to the point where I really was over-thinking things and panicking.

I think it's obvious when people are trying to shove their opinion on you as opposed to forgetting to pre-qualify their advice with the usual 'this may or may not work for you' line. That's why I really really appreciate the 3FC support policy where it says we can agree to disagree. Before I came here I was on another forum where members would gang up on each other if they disagreed with someone's weight loss plan etc. (you can tell which group I was in right? ). I was following medical advice from two doctors and yet these people would berate me about my calorie intake, with them all thanking each other's posts as if to give weight to their opinion that they were right and I was very much wrong.

Generally I take advice online as just that, advice. Nothing is written in stone and we know our own bodies better than most. It's really great to have somewhere to come and share experiences/fears and not be judged or dismissed.