The “I Did It, So You Can Too!” Phenomenon

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If there’s one meme that makes me particularly nuts about weight loss gurus, it’s this one:

gwyneth paltrow quote about weight

Yes. I'm sure having two slim parents and millions of dollars has nothing to do with your physique. (Image from pinterest.)

“I lost weight, so you can too!”

This concept is so ludicrous, but we all believe it.  In a weird way, it makes sense to us.  We think, here is a fellow human who is thin and/or lost weight.  I’m a human, so it should work for me too!

But we forget that being human may be where the similarities end between us.

Here are some things to consider:

1) Genetics — About 70% of weight variation is based on genetics.  [1]In other words, fatness is incredibly hereditary.  If no matter what you do, you still have your mom’s thighs or your dad’s double chin, that’s because genes have a huge effect on relative fatness, and where it shows up on our bodies.

2) Circumstances — This should be pretty obvious too, but people lead really different lives, with varying obligations, stress levels, health concerns, work schedules, access to food, access to workout equipment, access to sunlight, etc.  And these circumstances all play a huge role in how one’s body might respond to whatever “plan” is being pushed on it.

3) Metabolism/Bodily Differences  — People’s bodies are really different.  The calories in/ calories out model that is so cheerfully touted is not based on reality.  People’s metabolisms, their ability to lose weight, gain weight, gain muscle, etc. is all highly individualized.

4) All Weight Is Not Created Equal — People lose weight and gain weight for a lot of different reasons, and sometimes even they don’t know why.  Some folks who obsess about losing their “baby weight” may have lost it anyway because they’re genetically predisposed to do so.   A lot of us know that guy who lost a few pounds after he stopped drinking soda, but that doesn’t mean that will happen for someone else.  And the “stopped drinking soda guy” may have drunk more soda in a day than you do in a month.  Sometimes following Health At Every Size principles results in weight loss for some folks, and it may result in weight gain for others.  And it’s hard to predict what will happen to whom.

5) The “I Did It” Folks Are Outliers — Only about 5% of folks who lose weight actually keep it off past the 5 year mark, and usually they didn’t lose all that much weight to start.  The huge, vast majority of people who lose weight gain it all back, often plus more, within 3-5 years.  So these “I did it!” folks usually fall into 1 of 4 categories (a) statistical anomaly, (b) still in the honeymoon phase before hitting the dreaded 3 year mark, (c) didn’t lose much to begin with, and (d) totally lying.

Basically, everyone is really different.  Remember this the next time you start to fall for the “I Did It, So You Can Too” Phenomenon!

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Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a program designed for plus-sized women who are fed up with dieting and want support to stop obsessing about food and weight. Go to http://www.bodylovewellness.com/free to get her NEW free gift — Golda’s Top 5 Tips For Loving The Body You Have Right Now!

 

  1. [1]Linda Bacon, Health At Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight (Dallas: Benbella Books, 2008) 137↩

37 thoughts on “The “I Did It, So You Can Too!” Phenomenon”

  1. I usually respond with something like “I can hit the A above high C. If I can do it, you can do it!” (OK, I can’t NOW, but at one time in my life I could) or “Roger Bannister broke the human speed record when he broke the four-minute mile. If he can do it, you can do it.” or “Petar Stoychev swam the English Channel in less than 7 hours. If he can do it, you can do it!” or “Madame Curie won two Nobel prizes in the sciences. If she can do it, you can do it!” The more rediculous the claim “you can do it” is (e.g. use the Madame Curie example to someone who can’t get the concept that vinegar and baking soda fizz), the more successful the retort becomes.

  2. Thanks for this post! It’s very inspiring and I wish I could get all my weight obsessed friends to read it too… It’s so easy to get sucked into the diet fad mentality, without knowing all the right facts. Everyone should just focus on living life to the full… We only live once so let’s focus on loving ourselves the way we are today!

  3. Golda, awesome post as always! The weight-loss companies’ bread-and-butter is the phrase “If I did it, so can you.” It’s irritating, insulting and like you say up top, totally inaccurate. (BTW, Paltrow’s quote is all those things as well!) Thank you for this.

  7. Yes, Gwyneth, you’ve done so well to go from your previously obese self into the sylph-like creature you are today. Your hard work has truly paid dividends. Good job!!

  8. Thanks for posting this – for saying this! Just recently I said something on facebook about my total inability to lose weight no matter what I’ve tried and I got BOMBARDED with “I did this and it worked for me”, and “if you’d just do this, or give up that….” You know, we’ve all heard it. And to top it off, there wasn’t a thing people threw at me that I HADN’T ALREADY TRIED! Grrrr. And then you see these celebrities doing this weight loss commercials and I feel like throwing a shoe at the t.v. Yeah, if I had their money, I could afford to have someone fix my meals, hire a trainer….
    This needed saying. I just wish the rest of the world could “get it”.

    1. Ugh. You make a good point — so many people, not just the famous ones, use this meme too. 95% of the people who are bombarding your FB account will feel silly about it in just a couple of years. It’s so insidious.

  9. I was just thinking about this – two posts before I saw this in my FB someone else had sent me a BEFORE + AFTER weight loss photo and story. I used to work in a fitness club where they had weight loss contests and did those photos. I can’t stand looking at them anymore. The way they are presented, they might as well be captioned “gross, awful, terrifying, embarrassing, miserable” + “fantastic, glorious, beautiful, happy, never-sad”. The attitude is that someone who looks like the “before” can’t possibly have anything good going for them. Once you get looking like the “after” photo everything in life is better. I’m so tired of this two-dimensional attitude about life.

      1. Jeanette I love that idea. I’m a veritable camera show pony but even the odd unflattering shot will catch me off guard. I will think – this is how I look now (and remind myself that a photo can’t really capture my true fabulousness anyway)

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