Diet Trolls: Avoiding the Negativity that Prevents Success

There is no right diet. Yep, I said it.

Despite infomercials, magazine covers, Facebook ads and so on, there truly is no right diet. What works for you, might not work for me. What works for the trendiest celebrity or top notch fitness blogger might not work for you. And it’s okay.

Yes, I am going to be releasing One Ingredient Diet soon and hope it helps a lot of people simplify their diet. However, I know it isn’t for everyone and won’t help everyone succeed. Unfortunately, there are a lot of Diet Trolls out there trying to put the horse blinders on you before stressing the many options there are.

What’s a Troll Anyway

A troll is someone who prevents others from succeeding.

They often feel as though they are the light and you should must follow them. They might look down upon you for not following their stringent ways. Trolls will often spread the word that you are supposedly wrong.

Difference Between an Informed Individual & a Troll

Trolls are not inherently bad. There are some intelligent folks out there that just happen to fall into the troll category as well. There are also a lot of informed people that are counter to everything a troll is, but often are mistaken for trolls.

An informed individual does their homework. They know more about your approach than you and have tested endless ways to accomplishing whatever it is that is being addressed.

Don’t confuse these helpful resources for trolls.

Trolls & Diets

How does this tie into diets? Well, some of the LOUDEST trolls happen to be in the diet world.

Let’s say you want to test out Mark Sisson’s paleo diet approach. Well, you might get a few vegetarians telling you that meat will only slow down your progress. Or, maybe you test out the Rich Roll/Matt Frazier vegetarian approach. You might get some meat-lovers telling you the only way you will ever put on muscle is via meat.

Now, I am not here to tell you which is right or wrong. Trolls do enough of that. I am here to stress to you that, once again, there is no right or wrong way as much as there are diets and there are trolls and sometimes, they clash in a battle that you don’t want to be in the middle of.

How to Handle Diet Trolls

You will meet a lot of trolls in life and when it comes to selecting your own diet, they will rear their ugly heads as well. They don’t have to kill any and/or all of your momentum towards success. You just need to know how to handle them

I used to be a troll and am still improving upon my previous troll ways. I have learned over the years that the best way to handle trolls like my previous self is to kill them with kindness and facts.

“This has worked for me, but it sounds like you have it quite dialed in for yourself with that approach.”

“That sounds interesting. Maybe I will implement that into my testing.”

“I’m impressed that diet worked for you so well. I will have to look into it some more.”

Most of these responses bring the troll convo from a me-verus-you level to a thanks-for-listening experience. Even if you know you will never ever try out their approach, there is no need to battle them over what has worked for them.

The other way I mentioned is through facts.

“Oh yeah. I’m glad that works for you. Using my approach, I have been able to finish a half marathon in 1:27:00.”

“Thanks for the advice. Lately my approach has led me to be able to improve the weight during my bench press by 15%.”

“You seem to know a lot about that. On the flip side, I learned from (insert professional name here) that adding 2 pieces of fruit after a workout leads to faster recovery.”

Besides the 1st one, I have no idea if these are true. They are just examples and you can insert whatever info you have learned for your response. Be honest and share what you have learned through these responses. They can start that convo off on the right foot and you both might come away with some new info to build from.

Trolls are Inevitable

You will run into trolls when building your diet. It is inevitable. Stick the course. It’s okay to disagree. You will find that the more trolls that enter your life, the likelier you are probably doing the right thing already. 😉

photo credit: .m for matthijs via photo pin cc

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