Just a frustrated post. Twice this week I've been trading recipes or ben present for a discussion about healthy recipes and had my contribution ignored (as in met with silence) when talking about healthy snack or meal recipe options. Really? I am overweight (I don't broadcast that I'm losing weight) and my thinner, yet not healthier counterparts, ignore my contribution (an obvious silence met my suggestion) and I think it's because they can't imagine that an overweight person has a good idea about nutrition.

At a play date a friend of mine was saying how she always ends up snacking at night after dinner, but hates that she blows so many calories after hitting the gym. Other moms chimed in with ideas. I suggested that if she's going to eat chip, she should sub in greek yogurt with the ranch dressing powder mix to make the dip instead of the high cal store-bought stuff for the same taste but healthier and less calories, or she could do that and also sub cut veggies for an even healthier option. You could probably hear crickets chirp. Really?

I'm frustrated and just venting. I may be over reacting, but I think I had a good idea compared to: trade her regular chips to kettle chips and dip or pretzels (she says she gets hungry due to an early dinner and the yogurt is filling and has protein) and pita chips with queso or just fruit. It happens when we talk about exercise as well. I am overweight, but that does not mean I never workout.

Have you run into this or is it just me? Or maybe I'm being to sensitive?

You're being too sensitive. In my opinion, what you're experiencing has very little to do with your size.

Even when you've hit your goal weight most people are going to ignore your good advice. Heck even when people ask for advice most are only looking for reinforcement of what they already think.

You'll see - as you're shrinking people are going to ask you "What's the secret" and hoping you'll tell them they can take some pill and magically solve their problems.

^ Oh. THIS.

It happened to me just this week. It is never fun losing 45 minutes of my time, that I was glad to offer to help at first, but to be rewarded by ''no can't do'' at ALL my suggestions of changes in her diet.

Some people want to know, but they don't really want to in reality. (OH YEAH, 10 000$ truth about life here!)

I always wondered why they bother asking, though.

I don't think you're being too sensitive. I do think the person complaining didn't really want advice though.

Hugs

John's right (as usual).

People blatantly ignore my advice even when actively seeking it, simply because it's not what they want to hear. Goodness, you mean I should eat veggies instead of junk? I should have less calories? I should push myself a little further with exercise? Screw that!

And people have been asking for a lot of advice after watching me lose steadily this past year. Apparently the results aren't worth the effort to them, or they have "better" ideas on how to lose weight, like eating nothing but mountains of bread and butter for dinner.

I agree with John. Anyone snacking on chips and dip is not really interested in how to make it healthier (and Greek yogurt with ranch dip and chips is still a pretty bad option LOL).

People ask me quite frequently how I am losing weight... which BTW is a very healthful way with delicious food... but without fail they say "Oh I could never do that." They want to have a magic pill to lose the weight.

The vast majority of people do not eat healthfully and are really not interested in learning how.

You guys are right. After getting over my initial huff, I think I am being sensitive in that my weight is on my mind so often that I assume it's so prominent on other people's minds as well.

I hadn't considered the idea that someone would be asking for advice but not actually want it.

Thank you guys for being the voice of rationality.

John is right to a point.

The sadder thing in my experience is that the larger I got, my opinion about ANYTHING never seemed to matter or even be heard. It was mentioned in another thread about larger people being ignored or unseen, it baffles me how someone could miss someone like me (either sight or loudness). I guess some people just have no respect for larger people. My weight didn't make me any less of a person in my heart and brain, I just wish everyone else acknowledged that. And just because I ate the wrong things and plenty of them doesn't mean that I didn't know the proper way to eat and where calories could be cut.

I'm sorry you had to go through your experience. And your recipe ideas and advice sound awesome.

Agreed.

Honestly, I don't think it's really constructive to tell someone they are being "too sensitive". We are all sensitive, emotional creatures inately. There's nothing wrong with it. We should embrace our sensitivity as it is honest and true and comes from a kind place.

A better way to put it would have been "you may need to change your perspective" as essentially that's the advice you were giving. And to prove this point, as OP later said, they didn't consider the person asking wouldn't actually WANT advice. Now, that's looking at it from a different perspective.

For me, telling something they are being "too sensitive" is telling someone not to be themselves and simply makes them feel bad.

Or who knows, maybe I'm being "too sensitive"

I notice this a lot with my family and people in general...people don't want advice (even when they ask for it), their mind is made up. I have a friend who is larger than me and trying to lose weight, and she has no interest in any of my suggestions. She thinks she can lose weight by going vegan but still drink several beers every night. She also thinks she can "eat as much as she wants" as long as it's vegan.

Don't take it personally- it's exactly what he said. People don't like to take advice even when it's good. I think it's the way a lot of people are wired. If they didn't think of it, it's no good.

This for sure.

I don't give advice ever, that typically can get as heated as politics because their method is always correct. Then when people DO ask me how I did it they hate my answer. Can't win.

I'm fat. That makes me an expert on food. Food is my life, I know everything there is to know about food. I've spent more time, money and effort on researching weight loss than anyone I know. I know exactly what it takes to lose weight.... I have the knowledge, but I fail at the application. I don't know why. It's really not that hard, just eat good nutritious food, not too much of it, and exercise.

People think overweight people are lazy and gluttonous. Sure sure, that's why I have a masters degree, run my own business and still run around after a toddler. Must be because I'm super lazy.

My advice to you is to stop handing out advice about food. Not only because your advice won't be taken, but it will be judged. One day someone will come scampering to you for advice and STILL they won't want to take it. Nobody wants advice for real, someone who wants to eat chips is going to eat chips and no amount of yogurt is going to take away that craving, cravings must be ignored, not catered to.

This happens to me as well. I do a lot of research about health and fitness. I am not in shape, but I am working on it. If I give someone a suggestion, I'm totally ignored. It irritates me because I know what I'm talking about.

This is me as well. Sometimes I just wanna smack my niece upside the head when she tries to give me advice like don't eat after 6pm then gets pissy when I ask why? I proceed to tell her that weight/fat loss is all about calories in and calories out and moving more and lastly if she lost because of the 6pm thing, then that means she is taking in less calories by stopping to eat at the time but nooo, it's the 6pm thing, not calories!

Wow, that was a bit of a rambling rant...