"Give me advice!"

Recently I've started having the experience where my friends are asking me for advice on how to lose weight.  They're not obese, just overweight with 20-30 pounds to lose.  It is proving to be a strange experience.  I'm certainly happy to give them suggestions but clearly my portion sizes won't work for them and I'm learning that most people don't want to hear, "Well, it's all about diet."  Which makes sense, after all I never wanted to hear that it was all about diet!  I think that my friends see that I'm exercising all the time and believe that they just need to exercise more.  They ignore the fact that I'm eating less than 16 ounces of food a day :P

And, you know?  There's that part of me that feels I don't have a leg to stand on to give people advice for weight loss.  I'm still obese!  And I had surgery because I couldn't do this without it!  So I feel like I'm a hypocrite if I give people advice on weight loss.  Even if I do keep it simple with "focus on dense proteins, healthy fats, and skip the processed carbs and liquid calories."

Have any of you had this experience?  

I tell people I'd rather not discuss what worked for me, because it worked for ME. And if I've learned anything in 40+ years of dieting, what works for one doesn't work for another. If one thing worked, no one would be overweight.

So far none of my friends have asked what works for me.  They just want my advice on what could work for them and what they should try.  Heh.  They know that surgery isn't an option.

(Aside from the friend who quizzed me about my portion sizes yesterday.)

I get that a lot now too.

My answer is usually "I eat a protein-forward diet and try to limit carbs - and of course portion size is key...and you know I have help with that part"

My main advice to them is protein first, carbs last.  I also share my NUT info and remind them that the portions listed are for the tiny tummy and "regular" people would eat more than that.

I had a conversation with a friend on Sunday who was asking about my portions and I told him the same thing, "these are for my own stomach, you wouldn't be able to eat the portions I eat!"  And he said, "But I'd lose weight if I ate that way, right?"  

UGH.  Yes, yes you would.  But you'd be miserable.  :P

I've had the same situation too - nobody wants to hear "eat low carb, no rice, sugar, pasta or flour".   I tell them I don't have the magic answer because I still struggle every day to stay within my comfortable-weight range.  

When I showed a friend the Bariatric diet, he decided it wasn't for him.

I think you give great advice on here and you're very smart and you keep it real. I don't think there is anything wrong with giving your friends advice. I'm not married and my married friends ask for advice about their relationships. Obviously your friends trust and value your opinion!

What about suggesting they meet with a registered dietician to help them develop a plan that is likely to work for them?  Many people won't want to take that step, but really, that might be the best thing for them to do. 

Your simple advice about dense proteins, healthy fats and skipping processed carbs and liquid calories is good advice and is likely to help them - except people may need more information about things like what fats are healthy and how much protein they need and stuff like that.  And of course their portions would need to be different than yours - even if they could limit themselves to tiny portions like you (and yeah, they'd be really miserable) they shouldn't, not unless they are under the supervision of a health care professional, because of the risk of developing nutritional deficiencies and stuff on such a low calorie diet.

Surgery or the diet you currently follow isn't an option for them but maybe the diet you followed prior to having surgery is?  (not the pre-op diet)