Different strokes for different folks
 

Hello All,

I'd just like to start a conversation about a trend that I've seen that is (in my opinion) degrading the quality of our community. There is a tremendous amount of infighting occurring between people who advocate different ways of losing weight. There are people who have seen good results from going low carb, eating intuitively, eating low fat, high fiber, etc. ad infinitum. I've seen several threads derailed into fights between people advocating different ways of eating.

This concerns me for a few reasons. Firstly, there are many regulars around here who make posting a routine (and this post is addressed to you folks), but there are also people who come here to ask a single question or have a concern addressed. It doesn't serve them to have a thread turn into a food fight between people who are advocating different lifestyle changes. There are also people who come here who are new to health, fitness, and lifestyle communities. They may not know that much about healthy eating and it can be confusing when the very people who are trying to help them are bickering back and forth about calories and carbs.

I hope everyone who has an opinion will weigh in. Perhaps this is a non-issue, but I feel that our community will be better off if we think before we post about these issues in Weight Loss Support- one of the busiest subforums and the one that seems to be the biggest problem for these kinds of things. I for one think that everyone should be able to share what works or hasn't worked for them. Did cutting out sugar and grain products help your weight loss? If it did then it also might be helpful to someone else- but we need to pay attention to how we say what we think works.

Here is my idea: use language that encourages people to understand that there are different things that work for different people. Let's take a common example: Susie is a new forum member and her first post is about how she is sick and tired of being overweight. She asks for tips about diet and exercise. Instead of saying "You should not eat carbs" or "You should eat foods in moderation" try "Cutting down on my carb intake has worked for me." If we all speak in terms of our own experiences it won't be as confusing or open for argument. I can't argue with the fact that you feel better eating X way, just like you can't argue with the fact that I have lost weight eating Y foods.

Talk about your experiences and direct people to different forums. "I have felt so much better eating intuitively, we have a support thread about that at this link... etc." will direct people to the subforums for different lifestyles. The bottom line is that different stuff works for different people. We don't need to turn Weight Loss Support into a trench war.

Thanks for sharing this! Let's face it, in a world that's judgmental about a person's weight, the last thing we should be doing is "in-fighting". We all view food & exercise different, our bodies are all unique and react differently. My motto is "Find something that works for YOU and stick to it!" Good luck to all no matter what program you follow!

While I understand where you're coming from I disagree.

The "infighting" is important, in my opinion, because this topic of fat loss has a large number of facts that cannot be disputed but unfortunately people are incredibly misinformed and have bought into any number of the myths that surround this topic. People reading these threads deserve facts even if it gets a little ugly.

I think a good rule, I mean a rule that I try to go by in life and message boards is "take what you need and leave the rest."

It is no one else's job to make sure I'm comfortable with what they post or that they use the right words to not confuse me. It is my job to filter the responses to my post and see what makes sense for me to take in.

There will always be people on a message board who are sure they are right and feel the need to educate everyone, those who get upset at things and those who should take a break from the site but can't help themselves from posting.

Typically when I find myself getting upset at someone's post, I shut the screen get up and go do something else. On the rare chance it is still bothering me, I think about what is going on in my own head that is causing the upset. Because the only person I have control over is me.

I agree with both the OP & John. I'm new here, but have tried to be a pretty active poster thus far and in my opinion the range of others' opinions & perspectives have been wonderful. Some I've agreed with, others I have not -but for me it's still very interesting/educational to see a topic hashed out from two different sides.

Clearly there are more polite, respectful ways we can express our opinions and this should be something we all keep in mind when writing to another poster - but like John said, there's A LOT of misinformation out there and I think it's important to hear opposing views. If each party remains respectful of the other, why can't they debate the topic maturely?

OMG...I couldn't agree more with Locke! That is why I so rarely post here even though I have been a member for over a year. I don't need someone telling me my diet DR Pepper addiction is going to kill me or that the 100 calorie snack bag of cookies is bad!

As Ive said before, the bottom line to losing weight is one has to be in the right frame of mind for it to be successful. Any diet one chooses will work IF he is ready for the change. For example, even WW wont work if one isn't ready.

Yes, we should all be supportive and applaud each other's accomplishments - not degrade them because they didn't do it "right".

Again, kudos Locke for speaking for many of us!!

I suggest that people give an example of their own experience and then link to where else they have discussed the benefits of their approach.

As a newer member, I've been turned off the last couple days by the vitriol. I feel like it is coloring my experience and I have stopped recommending it to other friends.

I find that the ignore button is a lovely function. I ignore negativity that way. If it's a topic you are curious about that the user posted on, you can click view post if you need to. It's been working for me.

I have never come across any of these judgmental posts....Everyone that I have come across has only expressed their opinions when asked....

I think the problem is that one person's "fact" is another person's misguided opinion. There are so many gray areas and conflicting studies that one version of the facts may be more philosophical, logical, moral or opinionated than another person's version. The truth is that it is less about facts and more about trial and error. The study findings are often more about who funded them than finding the truth. I believe this forum is more about shared experiences than facts.

I am not disagreeing with any one here...just saying that dieting is less about facts than about what works best for any particular person. I do see a lot of "spreading the gospel" type of posts for carbs, calories, WW, IE and plenty of the in-fighting that the OP has mentioned. There are hundreds of legitimate ways to lose weight and the fact is the only best method is whichever one will work for you personally on a longterm basis. Whatever works for you may or may not work for someone else for a lot of different reasons not limited to metabolic, medical, hormonal, and philosophical differences.

I wholeheartedly agree. I myself have received some questionable responses, but luckily I'm not new to this forum, so I could easily move on. Someone who is new and uncertain probably wouldn't brush it off so easily and may even be discouraged from the process altogether. Besides that, I love the idea of this being a safe place for all of us to, yes, learn about new ways to be healthy, but also feel SUPPORTED. Hard to feel supported when people are chastising you like you are a disobedient pet.

Keep the peace! :P

My 2 cents:

Every woman on the planet has tried low carbing at some point in their lives. Works great for men. Women, it works a little, some it works a lot, but mostly you plateau sooner than you'd like.

IFing, the same story. Works great for men, but OK for women to maintain. In general.

Calorie counting works great for most people, but not for me.

Every BODY is different!!

If you think a new or old diet/lifestyle is For Everyone, I think it would be best if it was phrased "(Fill in the blank) might be of interest to you."

That's It!!

Thanks Locke for addressing this issue, it can at times get very ugly especially when the gospel is about science, gosh there is nothing like science to make people go crazy if they can't make their physiology match up to whatever science one is promoting. We are all so desperate to find the right solution to our problems that when we think we've found it we want to shout it from the rooftops and I don't blame anyone for that.

We all come from different places. Some of us want to lose weight. Some of us want to get fit and run marathons. Some of us want to cure our eating disorders or addictions, and build a better relationship with food. Some of us want to address systematic issues of our food supply and our views can be quite political about that. Some of us want to create better habits for our families. Personally I am dealing with an eating disorder so very naturally I am going to reject any diet, treating an eating disorder with a diet is like treating a broken ankle with a bandaid.

There is no one diet that will cure everyone of everything. Insisting on it does not and will not ever make that true. I think it's all well and good to blind yourself to only one set of facts, we all do it in some ways to keep our sanity, but I agree that insisting on it for others is not the best way to create a supportive community.

This

There are quite a few people who seem h-ell bent on "converting" others to their diet plan. Sometimes it feels like someone pushing their Religion. While I value everyone's experiences and advice, sometimes certain people can take it a post or 10 too far. To those people I just want to say. Take it down a notch ok? We are all thrilled that you have found the thing that works for you, but we are not you. Low Carb, WW, IP, IE, or Calorie counting, whatever it may be. I like where Karin suggested that people post links or direct to other threads where they have already stood on their respective soap-boxes so everyone else isn't continuously flooded with the same "preachy" posts over and over again.

I understand what Locke is saying and agree with her for the most part. In real life I also think that people should be polite and show tolerance to each other. But that often is not the case. :)

People feel passionate about what works for them. Especially if they have struggled for a long time and found something that eliminates that struggle.

As for agreeing on facts, the experts can not agree on the facts. For example, there is Dr Eric Westman (an MD) from Duke who says that low carb is the best way to lose weight. Then there is Dr. T. Colin Campbell (PhD) who advocates almost the opposite with a low-fat, whole foods, vegan (plant-based) diet. Both men have excellent credentials and have studies that back what they say. However, I think that it would be impossible to meld their opinions into one diet.

If the experts can't agree, how can we?

I really do think that it would be best to be polite but think that, for many people, it is just not their personality in real life or in an online forum. We have to take the bad with the good. I did not appreciate one person telling me in a post that what my doctor told me was "wrong". I thought that was pretty arrogant but I just dismissed their post and did not argue. I was not going to take a stranger's advice from an online forum over my doctor's advice. But there was no point in arguing.

As long as people feel strongly about their point of view, there is going to be some amount of argument. I actually think that it is a sign of an active forum. I would much rather see argument than have a dead forum. Our moderators do a good job of stopping a thread when they see it getting out of control.

Thank you, moderators!

Excellent points. I do think there is a danger though. Weight loss and health is not like religion or music or which TV show you like best. If you are heck bent on a certain way and it is just physically wrong, then you are going to be met with frustration and failure time and time again.

I hope everyone finds their way to success. But while you can like any type of music you like. You cannot, necessarily, find success with your 'preferred' approach to losing weight and getting healthy. A successful approach may be what worked for me, as just one example, or certainly may not. Someone may do awful on my approach.

I didn't necessarily want to do what I am doing. But I did want to do what worked and made me feel vibrant, healthy, and that is what I found and why I a continue to do it.

I try to always be careful to say "This works for me, but I can point you to about 16000 others who can tell you why something else works". If I forget to add that, I do mean it in spirit. Usually if I'm providing a "fact" I'll try to link to the evidence I'm using to back it up.

Lately though, I've heard my way of eating called "fringe" "zealotry" and I've even seen it compared to being a fictional video character, implying that no one in the real world would eat that way, it's only talked about on message boards. Come on. That's not helpful or even relevant on a "Support" board. A lot of this sort of thing seems to stem from a ridiculous defensiveness about one's way of eating, which usually stems from being ragged on about it. See? Vicious cycle. Live and let live you guys! No one is telling you that you're a lousy human being if IE/KETO/WW/3 pancakes a day works for you!

I do agree with Locke, I think that a lot of these new posters want to hear about your experience, and struggles, not have your pet set of facts thrown in their face as if you're the supreme diet diety.

If they ask about diet soda, tell them how it does or doesn't affect you. If they ask about exercise, tell them what you like to do. They're all capable of googling the rest.

Yes to this post. People who are willing to enter a forum called "3 Fat Chicks" have already demonstrated tolerance for stretching our envelopes of agreeability.

"Like"
I have to admit I was miffed when I saw someone refer to low carb folks (like me) as freakazoids. that said, I enjoy the diverse ways of approaching the problems we have in common that bring us to this forum. I've been steered to incredibly useful books and articles from 3FC posters.

Like mars735's "Like" - Wouldn't a "like" button here be great? :)

I don't know if the specific post but for someone who successfully incorporates carbs into their weight loss methods, I can see them thinking low carbers are freakazoids in a playful manner. Online communication isn't perfect and someone may take something some way when it really isn't meant that way.

Having said that, Weight Loss Support is a general area for supporting the weight loss of our individual members who post here. There are specific areas for specific groups such as the carb counter forum and subforums for low carbers. Generally, the view is that we ask users to not criticize specific diets within their specific subforums (like don't go into the carb counters subforums and say low carb is wrong). We do ask people respect that being a general forum, people may follow a method you personally don't agree with but that is ok. Be supportive and find common areas. If you criticize a diet method, you can while being respectful but also don't turn every post you have in the forum about a criticism of that particular method because that isn't support.

That is long winded but basically, we ask users to respect one another.

Newbie here. The debates I've seen so far have been very informative, IMO. Healthy, actually. People seem to present the information they have, and others reply in with well-worded responses of disagreement with the info to back it up. I appreciate healthy debate, and I've learned a lot from these kinds of posts so far.

I do agree it's important to remind each other that what works for one person won't work for the other, but it's also important to discuss, debate, and back up information with well-documented facts as much as possible, so that we can all more forward with our personal weight-loss goals in the most educated way.

I absolutely agree with you that debate is essential- it's how we learn from one another. I for one LOVE debating people on all sorts of subjects. I think it's entirely appropriate to have debates in certain threads about low carb vs. low fat eating styles. Then we can lob all the scientific studies we want at each other and really go at it. What my post was addressing is the derailing of certain threads into a fight about these things.

There have been some lovely comments on this thread- thank you all for contributing to the discussion. :)

Don't even get me started on the low carb bashing. But point out the religious tendencies of other diets, especially those that moralize and make ethical one's food choices, and you're mean all of the sudden. Point out endocrinology, especially where it may disagree with bro science, and you're a total heretic.

Where the sticking points come, and agreeing to disagree, is acknowledging the spectrum of nutritional options for omnivores, and that a reasonably healthy and active younger male just isn't functioning the same as a post-menopausal, PCOS stricken female. Or even that same female twenty years younger.

I do think community members need to develop a thicker skin and stronger BS detectors, but that applies to the whole of the Internet :D. Too many people take personal and take offense over things needlessly, and I know I've been guilty of that, too. Don't let one bozo on a message board dictate your view of self. And if you know your plan works for your body, then that's all there is to it. I do recommend a bit of research and some sources before you start recommending your personal plan to others though ;)

And don't forget the "ignore" option. As a MOD, I should not use it but sometimes to do just to get a break from proselytising.

(Hmmm - spellcheck doesn't like that word. Is there an American spelling?)

Maybe NAm English wants a 'z', Ruth.

Talking of 'z', I love that word 'bozo' that Taryl (Arctic Mama) just used.

Don't let one bozo on a message board dictate your view of self. So wise.

Well this isn't helpful but i have to agree with what EVERYONE has said, i'd only add that when it turns to zealousness which can be by definition, judgemental, then the board becomes tedious. But.. you can always just choose to brush it off.

Having taken a hiatus from another message board (not about weight loss), the infighting and snark on this board P A L E S in comparison. This board is actually refreshing and it's good to have debate so long as one is respectful that there are MANY ROADS to the end goal of weight loss (whether one is doing it "correctly" or not)

I agree with you in principle. Some notions are just wrong (e.g., you can lose weight by eating clean, no matter how many calories you consume). Just bear in mind that the approach you consider "physically wrong" (i.e., high carb, moderate portions, "mostly healthy" but nothing off-limits) has been successful for me time and time again, and leaves me feeling clear-headed and energetic.

F.

I agree that this place is low-drama compared to many other corners of the Internet. Also, I'm a very big fan of well-chosen deployment of the ignore button. Factually incorrect info should be corrected - but when the issue is repeat zealotry, that little button can do so much for sanity's sake without having to derail whole threads. :D

Freelance I am glad you brought that up. You probably aren't insulin sensitive. If you were and eating moderate/high carbs you would be putting yourself in a lot of danger for metabolic syndrome.

So within someone's particular metabolism and genes and how their body is functioning, e.g. mine because of my choices and genes was producing too much insulin, certain approaches were more appropriate for health.

I don't want to be overly dramatic, but given my family diabetes history I either would have died or had severe health complications with any other approach.

But no one else has the exact same combo I do. So in a way we are saying the same thing. Since I am insulin sensitive I virtually 'had to' go low carb.

If you aren't as insulin sensitive you have more leeway with carbs. For instance I seem to have less than Gary Taubes who says one apple can really impact him. But more sensitive than you most likely. Or for sure when I was eating my previous way.

You've all been busy having a great conversation while i've been sleeping. I agree with points made my so many people here.

So long as people are not abusing one another i don't see anything wrong with debate. I think its important.

Regardless of the arguments, most people will follow the course they are inclined towards regardless of what they hear, such as people do with religion. But for some readers the debate may be useful.

I also understand that a lot of people people coming to a board like this for the first time are particularly sensitive. And i don't think telling people to toughen up will enable them to toughen up. But i don't think telling them they are doing the wrong thing is wrong either.

If you see an injured person administering poison to their wounds, do you just let them continue without protest? Well you might if its a drug addict or alcoholic lolling around on the footpath but when someone comes to a site like this, they are effectively giving permission for people to express their opinions.

I also think its useful for people to give an element of the backstory to their choices such as wannabe and her support for IE. For my part, i say why i don't make exercise a key part of my weightloss program anymore. Not that i'm against it or think it would apply to all. I should say it again though - i find regular formal exercise unsustainable. I know many people can do it. I haven't yet been able to keep up such a practice and i always find upon reaching my goal weight and trying to come down from a period of much exercise to no exercise buggers up my continued low weight. I am not saying its the only factor but its a key one. I have just never been able to do it. I admire people who can keep it up for years on end. My sister is one such person and i see many people here are able to do it. But its why i suggest people don't rely on it for weightloss.

Where is the ignore option?

View the profile you want to ignore. Below their avatar picture is the ignore button.

You got it backwards. You believe yourself to be insulin resistant. (You're probably right) You believe Freelance is not.

Yes, you are being overly dramatic in my opinon. Why? Because the simple fact is that regardless of the method one loses fat with insulin sensativity increases. You may have not been as successful with another approach but even if you followed the twinkie diet your insulin sensativity would have increased.

Just a technicality, but I think you mean "insulin resistant." Insulin sensitivity is actually a GOOD thing. It means that the insulin in your body is doing its job. Some oral antidiabetic drugs are called "insulin sensitizers" because they increase insulin sensitivity. Insulin resistance, on the other hand, is associated with metabolic syndrome and diabetes.

F.

Again, that is why it is what works for you personally. I am insulin reistant but do well on a high carb diet.

So different folks, different strokes :)

I brought up facts first so I feel compelled to respond to this.

Facts are not the same as methods. Facts are things we know to be true. For example - calories dictate fat loss or gain. This is an indisputable fact. It doesn't mean all calories are equal or that all calories impact us the same way but the simple fact is if you're not in a caloric deficit you're not going to reduce your body fat.

I'm not one to argue methods, each to their own. I am one to argue facts.

By the way, Colin Campbell is a great example of confirmation bias in my opinion. His views are not supported by the data.

We agree on Campbell. Ancel Keys was also a good example of confirmation bias.

Freelance I've heard them used I interchangeably http://www.diabetes.co.uk/insulin/in...nsitivity.html

From the article you cited:

People with low insulin sensitivity, also referred to as insulin resistance, will require larger amounts of insulin either from their own pancreas or from injections in order to keep blood glucose stable.

Insulin sensitivity & insulin resistance are more or less opposites, and not used interchangeably in the article.

Everyone just needs to chill out, eat tons of salad, 5 cans of canned fish a day, drink beer and work out a lot.

Oh yeah. And eat oats and do squats.

Job done.