Knowledge is Power. Or is it?

I am a firm believer that knowledge is power. It is what has affected most of my decisions. If I don't know much about an upcoming decision, I will research it until I feel comfortable and confident in my decision.

Sometimes that's easy, sometimes that's hard and sometimes you just have to make a decision based on your gut feeling. I get that, but I still feel more comfortable knowing that I have found out as much as I possibly could before making a decision.

I of course applied this to losing weight, I have read up quite a bit, googled and read about various diets, weight loss programs, benefits of exercise, how to maintain etc etc I take what I read with a grain of salt, not only is there no fool proof diet, but everyone is different and so are the results. So I have taken what I think is valuable and applied it.

This belief has been going well. Until I was talking with one of my co-workers. She is a very bright and intelligent woman who is struggling to lose weight. She is also very vocal about her knowledge, opinions and excuses. Yup, excuses.

I have now come to the conclusion, that for some people, knowledge is NOT power, but simply fuels their excuses.

Take my co-worker for example, she is in her mid 30's with a child, works 4 days a week and is overweight, if not obese.

She wants to lose weight, so she has started on these diet pills, which have had some effect. Which is great, even though I personally dislike pills.

When I asked her what she was eating, or exercising, she said the usual (eating) and that she had (insert excuses here).. ankle problems, not enough money, too little time etc etc for exercise, hence the pills. Once of course she has lost some weight, it will be easier to exercise she says.

Upon watching her, I have realised a) she goes to Macca's several times a week before work b) eats out a lot for lunch c) drinks soft drink at lunch d) eats chocolate/sugary sweets regularly.

This is not the first time someone has come up to me and said, hey I'm losing weight too! and have actually done nothing. Usually this doesn't affect me except when people use their knowledge and twist it to suit their own purposes.

I was on training last week with her this is exactly what she was doing. We were eating lunch when she came in with chips, kebab meat and gravy with a 600ml Pepsi. Some of the girls wanted to know what she was eating and then they asked why she was eating that instead of something like a sandwich or salad.

Apparently she is allergic to raw foods or raw protein or some such. Hence always buying take out- because it is cooked. She went on about her various allergies and what she could and could not eat etc Thrown in were a couple of references to diets where high protein, high carb diets had worked and lasted for % percentage of women etc.. and she had them eating out of her hand.

I could not believe it.

All I could think was, she could have bought some steamed vegies and cooked them in the microwave and had them with some chicken or cooked meat from the night before if she wanted to eat healthy. Or soups, or something!

Not deep fried chips with gravy and meat. And all the girls just nodded their heads and sympathised and that was it, she could eat what she wanted and not feel guilty or judged.

And just like that she had used her knowledge to fuel her excuses, not to make better and more informed decisions as I was.

It infuriates me when people do this. Not only are they not helping themselves, they are making it harder for the rest of us who are doing the right thing, and are actually trying to lose weight.