I'm new here but have used a lot of the resources for years. It was this site which initially pushed me to lose weight. Through hard work and perseverance, I lost 30 pounds!! 147.6 pounds baby haha. (my scale is digital)

The reason why I'm posting is because I'm frustrated by the pressure to be on a special diet. I'm not talking "I banned cake diet." Recently I had a friend try to talk me into becoming a vegan because it "cured" a lot of her problems. A relative of mine is also vegan and said the same thing. A few of the women I've talked to through social groups told me they became vegetarian, vegan, or went super low carb. I'm not against others following these diets. I've met bodybuilders at the gym who do keto when they're going to a show. I've met women with insulin issues who eat low carb. I get it. It's their body. How do they know what's best for ME?

The problem I have with these diets is can I do this when I'm 50? Can I keep it up when I'm 70? My confidence to main those are low.

It bothers me is when people get borderline insulting. They like to use diet celebs to tell me how the diet is greeeat because it's working well for them! One person lately had the nerve to say I had no right to be skeptical because those people are in perfect health and shape, but I have my host of health problems and I'm a fatty. It's like a fat doctor telling their skinny patient to stop working out. Hey, former president Clinton went vegan! Wow, not a great selling point. I know I'm fat. That's why I lost 30 pounds, stupid.

Does anyone else experience this?

Hi arabesque,

My attitude toward the whole vegetarian/vegan thing is: No one has ever had a quarrel with a vegetable LOL! I keep my diet plant BASED, yet I don't forbid foods, either. Meat, carbs, dairy and sugar might be supplements, but it's never the main event. This way I can go out in the world and not be one of Those People!

I let crazed vegans go on and on. I let them talk themselves out like I let my neighbor talk about Jesus. When they ask, I broadly agree with them. "Yes. I am on a plant based diet." Satisfied, they move on.

Good Luck Out There!

Inky

Did you ask for their advice, or imply it in some way, or are they just offering it unsolicited?

I made a pact with myself years ago not to ask others for weight loss advice. A lot of what I want to know is on the internet and good books.

What happens is people notice my current progress. They ask "how I did it." I tell them the Jillian Micheals way-- eating less and moving more. Then they say "well if you want to keep losing weight you should blahblah..." It goes downhill from there.

There are a lot of people who insist I did something special, or needed something special. I didn't, and I have no idea how to convince them otherwise.

The diet mentality is very systematic. This is what I have found out about dieters - diets are hard and people need company when they're miserable. They think that if they convince you that their diet is the best then that validates their choices. We're all guilty of it at some points of our health journey. Like sometimes I really wish I could convince dieters that diets don't work and IE is the only sane way to make peace with food but they'll never buy it so why try? Dieters always argue with me about it so it just becomes frustrating. But when I mention IE to normal eaters (people who have never dieted, are a normal weight, and have a healthy relationship with food) totally get it and recognize that they were born as intuitive eaters.

So my point is, don't get into discussions about dieting. Do as I do and say "I'm really happy with my body and I like how eat, so can we maybe talk about something more interesting than diets?"

Such a simple response, gosh I can't believe I didn't think of it before!

I think you're onto something when you say dieters are convinced their way is best. It's part of the reason why the only "diet" I've been on is to eat less, healthier, and be more active. Once my manager took my team out to dinner and when I ordered food from the "lighter side" menu, she took notice and asked if I was on a diet. I said be healthy and eat like a normal person diet. She laughed at me and my coworkers scoffed. I don't get why she laughed because she was a super thin lady who worked out. Oh well.

Another reason why this irritates my craw is because there's so much conflicting data on diets. A google search can show pro-low carb diets but there are studies on high carb diets. There are studies on ketogenic diets, vegan diets, high fat, you name it.

At the end of the day, I'm left with asking who is right and who is wrong? Then, I'm reminded it's very simple. Calories in must be less than calories out. If that means I get to eat chicken in my stir fry, or ice cream and cake at a birthday party, I'm for it.

It gets SO unbelievably frustrating when people try to insult me. Like telling me I can't say no until I've tried it, and who am I to be skeptical because I'm overweight. On the other hand, I lost the weight without a diet.

GAH!

Palestrina makes a good point. If you don't want to hear diet advice, say so. Life's too short to be upset about receiving unsolicited advice when you may be able to stop it completely simply by letting your feelings be known.

Of course, if you're not happy with your body, don't say that you are. But I can't help but notice that you're not all that heavy. Unless you're under 4'10" you're probably not even medically obese. But even if you are under 4'10", you're likely not all that far into the obese category that you'd be necessarily compromising your health at your current weight. If I were down to 147 (I'm 5'4) and given unsolicited diet advice, I'd probably jokingly say something like, "So what are you trying to say? Are you calling me fat?" and I wouldn't even be offended or bothered by the advice in the first place. I would just find the advice kind of odd, considering I wasn't even that heavy anymore. Right now, I'm fitting into a size 10, still in the 160's, and want to lose about 20 more pounds. If somebody told me to try vegan or some other way of eating, I'd listen, because I am sincerely interested, but what I'm doing right now is working for me and that's how I'd respond to them.

Unfortunately, a lot of the advice or comments come from people who believe they're being helpful. It's family and friends. I have a male relative who had to be on a special diet years ago to resolve his heart disease, and he lost a lot of weight. When he noticed I lost weight, he said I was on a special diet and how I was "too young" for it. I downplayed it by saying no, I wasn't and then he and his wife went off on me about my weight. They said I was "too skinny," and why did I lose weight. LOL, too skinny. At the time I was 7 pounds heavier at my height. How can that be too skinny.

When you're 4 years old, your parents put food in front of you and you either eat what they make or you go hungry. Your choices are quite limited (though they still existed). When you're an adult, you make all of your own choices. That's such a base level freedom, and anyone that tries to take that away from you is just trying to infantilize you to make themselves somehow superior. I don't think they really know on a conscious level what they are doing, to be honest (so, I wouldn't react in anger per se), everyone just likes to control. It's what most of us know best! Control is just another addiction people fail to recognize for what it is. On the flip side, you also can't control how people approach you. All you can do is recognize your true freedom, dwell in that, and focus on yourself - not on anything outside of yourself. You cannot fix the world (unfortunately - lord knows I've tried and failed!)

I couldn't disagree more. How we speak to ourselves makes a drastic impact on how we feel about ourselves. There is no such thing as a bad body. Therefore we must love our body. How can you take good care of something you don't love? Do only thin bodies deserve to be loved by their owners? What does it say about me that I am capable of loving my overweight body?

I don't know Treasa why you feel the need to assess the OP's body in such great detail. It's really none of your business. And more importantly it doesn't matter what category you out her body in, what matters is how a person feels about their body and again this comes right back to how a person talks to themselves or allows others to talk to them. I've met rail thin people who can't stand to look at themselves in the mirror. I've seen overweight people who like what they see in the mirror. And everything in between.

The fact that people are talking about diets so much and making comments on people's weight is more indicative of harassment and discrimination. Weight discrimination is the only type of discrimination that is legal. One would never talk so demeaningly to a woman about an illness or a delicate matter of her relationship. But a woman's body is public property in every sense. And we as a society condone it by contributing to it. M
My body is off limits to public discussion. I do not engage in discussions about how I'm eating why I'm eating why in eating and what I weigh and how much I should weigh and how I should lose weight.

I think Treasa's comment might have been misunderstood. She was simply saying my measurements aren't actually that bad. Which, she's right.

When you think about it, I'm actually not doing all that bad. A lot of people where I live are overweight or obese. People find it difficult to believe I'm a size 12, barely a size 10. I think that's part of the reason why people think they have to scrutinize me and give me unsolicited advice.

It's been worse before. I was talking to a coworker at work one time and we were discussing how much of the catered food to eat. I mentioned to the coworker I'm watching my weight and was going to limit my portions. Then another coworker chimed in saying "why bother? you're married you don't need to watch your weight."

I've also been told other things similar to the comment. If people aren't telling me I need to be on a special diet, they're convincing me I'm already on one. Or they're upset because I'm "too skinny." A lot of people are like "why are you bothering? You're married and pretty. I'm not."

I eat and workout, the things that work for me.

I don't care what anyone else does.

I am not them, and they are not me.

People are so good at giving advice when you don't ask for it! It's fine if they are vegan. It's their choice. Just like it is your choice to eat how you eat. Fine, they want to help you and have good intentions. But once they've made their point, they need to respect you and your ability to make your own choices. "Pressure" them back to respect your own choices.

The problem is they are SO convinced their diet is the "cure," they won't stop. How do you respond to people who point out all of the healthier thinner people on their diet, and then note how I'm overweight and should try it instead of being skeptical?