It Worked for Them. Will It Work for You? How to Actually Use Anecdotes

James Hill:
Welcome to Weight Loss And, where we delve into the world of weight loss. I'm Jim Hill.

Holly Wyatt:
And I'm Holly Wyatt. We're both dedicated to helping you lose weight, keep it off, and live your best life while you're doing it.

James Hill:
Indeed, we now realize successful weight loss combines the science and art of medicine, knowing what to do and why you will do it.

Holly Wyatt:
Yes, the “And” allows us to talk about all the other stuff that makes your journey so much bigger, better, and exciting.

James Hill:
Ready for the “And” factor?

Holly Wyatt:
Let's dive in.

James Hill:
Here we go.

Holly Wyatt:
Today, we're going to talk about something that I hear all the time from my friends, from patients, from clients. They come to me and they say, “My friend swears by this. You should see her. She lost 30 pounds. This really works. It's amazing.”

James Hill:
Oh my gosh, Holly, I see that all the time. You're sitting on the airplane with someone. You have to be careful when you tell them what you do because you get all kinds of stories. And you know, it's not just online. It's actually from people you trust, friends, coworkers, family, very rational people.

Holly Wyatt:
Exactly. It's someone real. We're not, this isn't AI. We have issues with AI, but this is someone you know. You've seen the change and you're thinking, “Should I be doing that too?”

James Hill:
Because it worked for them. And that part is true. It did work for them.

Holly Wyatt:
Right. And that's what makes it so convincing is you've seen it. You know it's real.

James Hill:
Yeah. So today, kind of the question we're asking is when something works for your friend, what do you actually do with that information?

Holly Wyatt:
Right. Should we use it at all?

James Hill:
Yeah.

Holly Wyatt:
You know, what are we going to do with it?

James Hill:
Do you ignore it? Because it really did work for them.

Holly Wyatt:
Because most people aren't making decisions based on clinical trials. We talk about clinical trials a lot, but, people make their decisions based on stories of people they know more often than the data that's out there. And those stories are powerful stories. They're personal. They're visible. They're real.

James Hill:
Yeah. But Holly, on the other side of the coin, it's also a big reason why people may get pulled off track.

Holly Wyatt:
Right. Not because they're wrong, but because they don't tell the whole story. And that's really what we want to talk about today, the whole story. And I think a lot of times those people come to you and want to tell you what's going on. And I always say they're trying to help you. I think it's not, you know, they're wanting to lead you astray. They found something that worked. They feel better. They want you to feel that way too.

James Hill:
Yeah, Holly. So today's episode is about breaking down why anecdotes are so convincing.

Holly Wyatt:
Yes. And to define that, when we say anecdotes, we mean a real story about what happened to a single person. Usually someone you know, someone you trust, you know, someone tried something and got a result.

James Hill:
And that's what makes them so powerful. They feel real because they are real.

Holly Wyatt:
But one real story is not the same as a pattern. And that's where people can start to get pulled off track. So let's talk about how to think about this a little bit differently.

James Hill:
So today, we're going to break down the six ways, we love numbers, but we didn't have 10. We only have six today.

Holly Wyatt:
We only have six, yes.

James Hill:
Six ways these stories can quietly mislead you, maybe starting with the most common one.

Holly Wyatt:
Right. So we organize this. We do love numbers. Maybe we should probably maybe get away from that. I don't know why we love numbers so much. But the six traps, of the anecdote. And remember, the anecdote's a real story that happened to one person. We're calling that the anecdote. So we want to, I thought we would look at this, Jim, like a scientist. We're going to use some of the terms we use when we look at data.

James Hill:
We're going to get scientific about this.

Holly Wyatt:
Right. We know how we like to take science and then apply it to hopefully something that people use, these anecdotes. They're very powerful.

James Hill:
I'm anxious to see what we come up with, Holly.

Holly Wyatt:
All right. So the first one we're calling the sample size of one.

James Hill:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. My friend lost 30 pounds doing fill in the blank.

Holly Wyatt:
Yeah. A single person's result. And we start to say that feels like proof. One person.

James Hill:
That person probably did lose 30 pounds. And it could be something reasonable. It could be something out there. It's a real happening, but it's an outcome of one person. And that's not what science looks at. Science looks at what happens across many people. And we've talked over and over about variability. Any sort of study, we've done a zillion studies. And guess what, Holly? Not everybody responds the same way. We do a weight loss study. Some people lose a lot of weight. Some people gain weight. So if we pulled any one person out of that, we would get the... Wrong answer.

Holly Wyatt:
And that's why we don't use N of one, meaning one single result, one single person in science. I guess we could, we report a case report, but basically we don't use N of one in science.

James Hill:
No, we want to do hundreds, maybe even thousands of people to see what happens. And even if you do that, you're going to get a mean result versus you get some variability. So you can say, for example, you put people on a low-fat or low-carbohydrate diet. You can say the average weight loss was X, but guess what? There are people that are going to lose less and people that are going to lose more. Taking one person out of that is not helpful. We have to understand the average, and we have to understand that some people will vary from the average, but as a whole, here's what that treatment will do.

Holly Wyatt:
Right. So the trap is your friend's experience matters, but it's not the whole picture.

James Hill:
Right. Right.

Holly Wyatt:
That's the trap is you start to think it applies to everybody. It shows the whole picture. It's all the data you need. And you think about it now as one single person.

James Hill:
Yeah. And you know what? If you think about it, you probably know some person that tried the same thing and didn't lose 30 pounds.

Holly Wyatt:
Exactly.

James Hill:
You tend to key on the positive result. You don't want to think about the person for whom it didn't work. You want to think about the person for who it did work.

Holly Wyatt:
And I think we'll be talking more about that in a minute. We all tend to fall into this trap because the person is sitting next to you is real. You know them. They've had a big effect. They're happy with it. A lot of the times they're talking about it. So we all tend to kind of fall into this trap of the sample size of one. I tend to then bridge back when I catch myself even doing this. If a hundred people did this, What would happen on average? And you've already talked about that's an average.

James Hill:
That's the average.

Holly Wyatt:
That's how to kind of start to think about this, I think, when the sample size of one happens.

James Hill:
Sample size of one is important for one person, but you have to be very cautious in doing much with that.

Holly Wyatt:
All right, let's move to the second trap of the anecdote.

James Hill:
Yeah, the second one is survivor bias. And this is logical. You hear the success stories. You don't go out and post on social media. I tried this diet and nothing happened or I gained weight. You don't post that. You post when you get a positive result.

Holly Wyatt:
The winners talk. The winners talk.

James Hill:
The winners talk. So you're hearing the winners. And what you don't know is how many people didn't respond because these people aren't out there shouting from the rooftops. It didn't work.

Holly Wyatt:
The non-responders are quiet.

James Hill:
They’re quiet.

Holly Wyatt:
You're seeing just the one side of the story.

James Hill:
You see the highlight reel. You don't see the everyday full data set as we talked before. If you look at everybody who's done that, not everybody is going to have that degree of success.

Holly Wyatt:
So that's a trap if you don't realize that. The question to ask is, I wonder who's tried this and didn't get that result. And also you don't see that. If someone's lost 30 pounds, you can see it. You're like, oh, and you may ask them or they may tell you. Someone sitting next to you or your friend hasn't lost 30 pounds. Is exactly the same weight, you don't tend to ask them what's gone on and they don't tend to tell you.

James Hill:
And they don't tend to speak up because it's not a success. They don't want to talk about failures.

Holly Wyatt:
Exactly. All right. So we're on to number three, another trap of the anecdote. Oh, this is a good one. We've talked about this in other podcasts. Confounding variables. And we deal with this in the science world too, in studies.

James Hill:
Yeah. And so what you have to be careful of is that person is attributing their success to one thing. But guess what? They may have done several things together. So they may have gone on a keto diet, but they may have started exercising and they may have really worked with a dietitian or a coach. So you have to be careful and attribute it to one thing that gets the credit when, in fact, it might be a series of behaviors. Maybe along with the weight loss, you stopped drinking or started walking or started sleeping better.

Holly Wyatt:
This is a true story. This just happened the other day. Someone was saying they went on a keto diet. They lost a bunch of weight. And so I had to really dig in to say, okay, what are all the things that changed at once? in this person's mind, the diet was the only thing that changed. You know, they were focused on eating a keto diet. And to kind of get past this, I said, okay, so you started eating this diet, but let's go through other things that changed when you started eating that keto diet. And she mentioned, well, I did start walking with my best friend. I was like, oh, really? Okay, let's talk about that. And then she also said, and because I've been feeling better, I decided to cut out alcohol, and I've been going to bed a little early. And I'm like, okay, wonderful.

James Hill:
All three of which contribute to weight loss.

Holly Wyatt:
Great. But now we've got a lot of different variables. And so that's why we call that confounding variables, because you tend to translate this caused the result. And in reality, multiple things work together. And I think this is how it happens in real life. Almost even in clinical trials, we have problems. We try to control out these confounding variables. But, Jim, a lot of times we're not able to do that.

James Hill:
Right, right. Because you can't just take control of someone's life. You live your life.

Holly Wyatt:
And you lose weight. You feel better. Other things change sometimes.

James Hill:
So here's one where the diet gets the headlines. but when you dig down, it was a series of behavior changes. Diet was involved, so don't get me wrong. We're not discounting that the diet may play the role, but there were other things at work.

Holly Wyatt:
And maybe for this person, you don't know which of those played the biggest role, if they all played equal roles. Maybe for this person, cutting out alcohol was really the critical piece. You just don't know from this anecdote.

James Hill:
Yeah. So number four is the failure to appreciate individual biological variation. Holly, we've talked over and over about the concept of precision approaches to things, precision nutrition, precision weight loss. We know this. We know that different people respond differently. Why is that? Maybe due to genetics. It may be due to cultural or historical things. But we're doing a whole big NIH study on that to understand why one diet has X effect in a person and Y effect in a different person. So we have to appreciate that if we were all exactly metabolically the same, the N of one might be more impressive than the fact that we vary biologically.

Holly Wyatt:
That's true. The trap is we think this worked for her. It should work for me.

James Hill:
Right. But you might have a different metabolism. You almost certainly have a different metabolism, a different appetite response, a different life context. I mean, how you respond is your whole history, your childhood. What did you eat? What did you believe? How did your weight vary over time? So many different things that can affect your response to a single intervention.

Holly Wyatt:
I'm going to say something people don't want to hear, but I'm going to say it anyway.

James Hill:
Uh-oh.

Holly Wyatt:
Two people can follow the exact same plan, One person can lose 20 pounds, and one person can lose nothing.

James Hill:
We've seen that over and over, haven't we?

Holly Wyatt:
We have. And part of that explanation is this variability, this biologic variation that you're talking about. So recognizing that and not thinking one size fits all, is a trap we don't want to fall into.

James Hill:
So maybe, Holly, if it's your identical twin who does that, you can believe it a little bit more. But for anybody else, the likelihood that your body is the same is just not true.

Holly Wyatt:
And even with an identical twin, environment and life context could be different.

James Hill:
Right.

Holly Wyatt:
Because it's not just about the genetics. Genetics are a huge part. So your appetite may respond the same way. But there can be still even other things that one of you is, you know, married and has different responsibilities and a different type job and all of that could even change the results.

James Hill:
Oh, the old nature versus nurture argument.

Holly Wyatt:
I had to just bring that up just to.

James Hill:
But the bottom line is, what makes you think your body is going to respond the same way that your friend's body responded? Because she probably doesn't in any other way.

Holly Wyatt:
Right. It might, but…

James Hill:
Be careful. Be careful.

Holly Wyatt:
All right. The next one, and this is one I love that we use these in the big science data sets that we, you know, look at. It applies in so many different ways. We call this one regression to the mean.

James Hill:
Oh, that's a good one. Scientists love that, regression to the mean.

Holly Wyatt:
Yeah. So what this is about, when people try something, usually when they're kind of at their worst, They've gained some weight or they hit their highest weight and then they did something. And so they're going to get some improvement, but it also usually improves from maybe an extreme point. And the new thing gets a lot of the credit. So the timing can be important because you make that change at your worst and then things get better and it feels like the cause, but a part may have happened anyway because you were at a high point.

James Hill:
Yeah, in science, when we look at, say, we do a study with a thousand people and we look at the distribution, it's probably a normal distribution. It has a mean and variation. So one person goes on this diet, loses 40 pounds. The next time they go on it, they're likely to lose less just because the outliers in multiple measurements come back to the mean. The idea is you may see these outliers, but they're not going to continuously be outliers. If they're measured again or if they go through the intervention again, they may come back closer to the mean.

Holly Wyatt:
Well, isn't it also that if they're an outlier, and I think people who maybe go on a diet have maybe recently gained some weight, a lot of times there's a reason. And even if they did nothing, might they come down a little bit? They come toward the mean, right?

James Hill:
Yeah. Yeah.

Holly Wyatt:
Okay.

James Hill:
That's why we want to do a lot of subjects in a study, and we want to repeat that study over time. Because again, we know there's this variation, and we want to do enough people and do multiple measurements so that we know we're getting a good sense of what the distribution looks like. And again, in any study, not everybody's going to lose the mean. The mean tells you something about the group, but the individual variation is important, too. And the extremes are likely, over time, to move back toward the mean.

Holly Wyatt:
Yeah, so I think that's it. The extremes naturally will move toward the mean without even an intervention.

James Hill:
Right.

Holly Wyatt:
Okay. All right, there's one more. I added this one at the very end, Jim. It's a little bit like confounding variables, but a little bit different. And I do think it's important. I'm calling this trap misattribution. Misattribution.

James Hill:
Yeah. And so the idea is, you're the one with the story. Do you really know why it worked? Are you attributing it to something you think worked? Was it the keto diet or was it that you were actually eating fewer calories or was it that the increase in protein occurred or less snacking. So anytime you do this, I mean, it's a natural tendency to want to oversimplify things. This is the one thing that worked, Holly. If you just do this, it worked for me when in fact I may not be attributing my own success to the thing that was most important.

Holly Wyatt:
And I think people take it to the next level with this misattribution. It's like keto worked because carbs are the problem for me.

James Hill:
Right.

Holly Wyatt:
So it's not just that keto worked and there could be a lot of things plus keto that worked. It's like, okay, I'm gonna even take it to the next level and I'm gonna say why I think keto worked and I'm gonna talk about it out there. It's because carbs are bad or carbs are the problem for me. And the mechanism isn't clear at all, but you attribute it to a mechanism. So the real mechanism might not have anything to do with carbs. It might be that you ate fewer calories or there was more protein or you snacked less or, you know, any of these things. But the person, there's a tendency to want to say why, the mechanism, and we cannot get mechanism out of an anecdote.

James Hill:
Okay. So those are six reasons why an anecdote might be something you have to be a little careful with. But you're sitting there and saying, okay, Holly, what do we do with this? How do you turn confusion? And I think we talked about potential confusion and anecdotes. How do you turn this confusion into better decisions?

Holly Wyatt:
Right. Do we just ignore it?

James Hill:
Are anecdotes useless? Do you just say, ah, my friend lost 30 pounds, but it's not, who cares?

Holly Wyatt:
I can't get anything out of it. It's not, that's gonna be hard to do.

James Hill:
What do you do with it?

Holly Wyatt:
What do you do with it? So we wanted to have this next section, basically to put some pie in the plate. Say, okay, first of all, you recognize there's some traps. You're aware that there's these traps that can happen when you have these anecdote stories happening. Now, how could you be aware of those traps and how could you think about it? What could you do with an anecdote? And I think the first question we wrote down are, are they useless? Should we use them at all? And how might we use them?

James Hill:
Yeah, I don't think they're useless. I think many times they can give you an idea of maybe where to start. So my friend lost 30 pounds on X diet. Well, maybe, go in and explore. What else do we know about that diet? I guarantee you almost any diet now has some information behind it. So have there been studies done with that diet? Who does it seem to work for? It's a good place to start. It doesn't tell you what works overall, but it can maybe raise a question that you want to pursue.

Holly Wyatt:
That's how I like to think about it. So it gets me thinking about what's going on, what might be going on. Do I see a pattern, you know, not falling into the trap of just one person, but are there multiple people that are thinking this way or this has happened to? It gives you an idea to start instead of giving you the answer.

James Hill:
So, yeah. So, for example, maybe you know three people and they said, you know what? We started eating more protein and we just feel fuller. Okay, now what you might do is to say, I want to dive a little deeper into protein and satiety and food intake. It doesn't tell you exactly how to structure your diet, but it says, hey, higher protein intake, maybe something I want to explore and learn a little bit more about.

Holly Wyatt:
Right, right. I like this. I think the second question then, when you're trying to figure out what to do with these anecdotes is, when should you pay attention? So is there may be a time that you should pay more attention to an anecdote.

James Hill:
Yeah, I think that's a good question. And maybe think a little bit about patterns. Is this one person you've heard it from, or do you say, you know what, I heard that last week from so-and-so. Are you seeing a pattern here? And what about the person that lost 30 pounds? Are they able to maintain it? Did they lose 30 pounds and regain it? So look a little bit more for patterns, but I keep coming back to investigate the science. You've got an idea, you maybe see a pattern where two or three people did it. All the more reason to say, what do we know from scientific studies?

Holly Wyatt:
You know, a lot of my ideas or our ideas for studies or for looking at comes from anecdotes, comes from people talking, you know, think people coming into clinic. And then when I start seeing a pattern, when I notice I file it away. I'm aware when someone says I think this is what worked for me. And then when I start to hear several people talking about it, Jim. Then it kind of raises up a little bit for me in terms of how I wonder what's going on because there may be several people. There may be a pattern and that's where you get some of your your new ideas. So anecdotes aren't necessarily bad. It's how you use them how you think about them.

James Hill:
Right. Is there one dramatic instance? Are you beginning to see a pattern? And there are plenty of one-off impressive stories, and they're true. But are you beginning to see a pattern? And when you see a pattern, maybe that tells you that's something you want to investigate a little bit more.

Holly Wyatt:
When should you be cautious?

James Hill:
Oh, man, when it sounds too good to be true, it's probably too good to be true. You know, someone that loses 30 pounds on the cookie diet, I don't know. I'd be a little bit suspicious on that one. Is the story too clean, too fast, or too certain? The more dramatic the story is, at least I think, that's a red flag, and it should cause you to pause a little bit and maybe be a little bit more critical.

Holly Wyatt:
I know. I remember turning on my TV one night when I couldn't sleep and it was like exercise while you sleep or they had this lose weight by breathing oxygen. And I was like, oh, my gosh, no, you know, just no. That's a little bit different than an anecdote because that was late night TV. But still, when it's too good to be true, when it seems too simple, just need to breathe and you're going to lose weight. Definitely. I think a red flag.

James Hill:
Yeah, any story that sounds like I did one thing and everything changed. My life just suddenly became wonderful. Slow down a little bit before you buy into that one.

Holly Wyatt:
And we talk about this all the time. Everybody wants the simple, easy, secret, hidden solution. And I feel pretty confident about saying that that doesn't exist. One thing that's going to be that simple that is going to work for the majority are a lot of people. I feel pretty confident about saying that now. So I think that's a good thing to recognize.

James Hill:
In the weight management field, we've looked for the easy, simple solution for decades and haven't found it. So I'm pretty convinced it's not out there.

Holly Wyatt:
Yeah. What questions should you ask, Jim?

James Hill:
Well, first of all, I think what you're trying to do is to decide whether this applies to you. Don't just ask, did it work? Think about what kind of result was it? What's the gestalt of what happened and why? Because not every inspiring story is a good plan. You may have someone that has an inspiring story, but you say, that just doesn't seem like that plan would be a good fit for me.

Holly Wyatt:
Yeah. I always ask, and this just may be the scientist in me coming out, but I always say, what else changed? I'm always curious. Okay, let's dive a little deeper because a lot of times there are multiple things that changed. And then I start to say, okay, we can see this pattern developing for this person, multiple things coming in. And then someone saying, should I do this? If they're asking me, should I do this? Is it realistic for your life right now? Is another question I sometimes ask. Is it useful for you?

James Hill:
Yeah, for example, if I hear someone says, I lost 20 pounds in a month, I'd want to say, let's see what happens the next month. And the month after that, are you still losing? Are you maintained? Or has it come back? Because we see this all the time, Holly. People do crazy stuff, lose weight quickly, they regain it quickly. So the 20-pound weight loss may only be a tip of the iceberg for the complete story.

Holly Wyatt:
Yeah. So I think kind of to end this part of this, what do you do with these anecdotes? I think you use the story to guide your curiosity. I don't use it to, I wouldn't use it to necessarily make a decision, but you could use the story to ask more questions. If someone wants to try something, I usually look at for sure, is it likely to do any harm? If there's a risk to it, that changes it. But if it's not, I sometimes say, okay, let's do an experiment with it. Let's not just jump in. But if you want to try it, we might. So that's one thing that I think you can use an anecdote, but be careful with it. Don't just fall into those traps. How might you test it thoroughly instead of just jumping in?

James Hill:
So the anecdote can give you a starting place. It's not a solution. It's not a permanent answer, but it can pique your curiosity. And it's many times it's worth diving a little deeper to see if there's something really there.

Holly Wyatt:
Right. So, Jim, we have some great listener questions that I thought fit this episode perfectly. So I put several of them for us to answer because this is the stuff we get all the time. I mean, this is very, very common. Like you said, it can be sitting in an airplane, but we also get the emails and the questions. And even my best friend will call me up and say, well, so-and-so did this. And guess what happened? What do you think? So here's listener question number one. My whole family swears by apple cider vinegar. Have you heard about apple cider vinegar, Jim?

James Hill:
Oh, yeah.

Holly Wyatt:
Okay. Before meals. They were taking it before meals. My mom, and there we go, their mom. I mean, that's a real person in their life, lost about 15 pounds and has kept it off. At some point, do I just try it? Or is this one of those things that sounds bigger than it is?

James Hill:
Oh, if we just had everybody drink apple cider before meals, we wouldn't have any obesity, Holly. It would solve the whole thing. It's that simple. No, it's not. First of all, Your mom's result is real. She's not lying about this. She lost 15 pounds. She attributed it to the apple cider vinegar. So something worked, right?

Holly Wyatt:
Yeah, it worked for her.

James Hill:
But was it really the apple cider vinegar? Vinegar, from everything we know, would probably not be a major driver of losing 15 pounds. But adding the apple cider vinegar likely gave her some structure, maybe helped her with portion size, maybe helped her with consistency. So she didn't lose 15 pounds because of the apple cider vinegar. She lost 15 pounds while she was using it, but I'll guarantee you she was doing some other things. Consuming apple cider vinegar is not going to dramatically alone produce weight loss.

Holly Wyatt:
So I would encourage someone to be looking for those other things. To be curious, okay, did this, what else happened? Or by drinking the apple cider vinegar did she, you know, even placebo effect, Jim, even the fact that she thought it was going to work can come in. But I would also look for, you know, consistency. Did she work on her portions? Did the types of food that she put on the table because she was going to eat this, drink this apple cider vinegar? Would she cooking more because she was eating at home because she was going to drink this apple cider vinegar? I mean, I would be a detective here and try to figure out the other things.

James Hill:
I'm going to ask a few more questions.

Holly Wyatt:
Yeah.

James Hill:
But again, your mom's not lying to you. She's not trying to lead you astray.

Holly Wyatt:
That's what makes this hard because it's a real thing. And you may want the same result. So you just don't want to fall into the traps. You want to think about it a little bit differently.

James Hill:
All right, here's another one. My friend cut out gluten and suddenly her cravings disappeared and she lost weight. I don't even understand why that would work, but it clearly did for her. How do I make sense of that?

Holly Wyatt:
Oh, Jim, so we've got the confounding variables in there and I think also misattribution.

James Hill:
Uh-huh.

Holly Wyatt:
We got a little mechanism like this is why it worked.

James Hill:
Maybe a big placebo effect too in there.

Holly Wyatt:
Possibly. That always can play effective in there. But so the trap, I think, is confounding. More than one thing going on, my guess is. And then also misattribution. She's saying cutting out the gluten and the cravings and that there's a mechanism there that the gluten is what was causing her cravings. And by cutting out the gluten, she got rid of her cravings. So remember that the story, the anecdote doesn't give you the mechanism for sure.

James Hill:
Yeah, yeah.

Holly Wyatt:
So the story is gluten was the problem, and that's what you might take away from it, but that could be completely wrong. So wanting to kind of think through that and think about what the behavior was, what was really going on, and not jumping to, oh yeah, that's exactly what happened. It was all about gluten.

James Hill:
The result was real, but maybe not for the reasons the person thought about. He or she got the result.

Holly Wyatt:
Exactly. Exactly. All right. Do we want to do one more?

James Hill:
Do one more.

Holly Wyatt:
Let me see which one would be good. How do you respond when someone you trust is really convinced something works without sounding dismissive or negative?

James Hill:
Boy, that's a tough one. So somebody you really trust, this is a person you know doesn't make stuff up, and they may even be a critical person, and yet they're swearing by something that happened to them. And you don't really want to dismiss them and say, well, you know what, you're an N of one, don't worry about that. I think you have to, again, be a detective. Respect the fact that they accomplished something. They think they understand why. And don't debate them. Don't say, well, it wasn't the gluten. It was probably just a little bit of quizzing and say, Holly, that's great. Tell me how you did that. What else did you do? What changed? What are you doing differently? You don't want to use this as an excuse to mess up the relationship.

Holly Wyatt:
It's not going to work because they're going to sit there and go, I lost 20 pounds.

James Hill:
They're going to be defensive. If you approach it that way, they're going to be defensive and you don't want that.

Holly Wyatt:
Right. So they lost 20 pounds. You don't need to prove them wrong. The traps and the things we were talking about is for you to consider whether you want to use this or how to think about this. It's not to go back and try to convince them. You don't need to tell them the six traps of an anecdote. It won't get you anywhere. That's right. But you, if you want to make this what they're telling you, if you want to see how it might apply to you or how you could think about it, that's where you want to think a little broader. What change? What are you doing differently day to day? But I don't go in and say, you're wrong. You know, you're wrong. It's not the carbs. It's, you know, that doesn't work.

James Hill:
It doesn't help you to try to convince them because it's going to be a battle and it's not going to help your relationship. This is somebody you trust and a friend and you want them to continue to be a friend. So be supportive, but quiz them a little bit more in a nice conversational way, not a debate way.

Holly Wyatt:
Well, I can tell you for sure from from being in the clinic. If someone walks in and tells me this is what I did and it worked, if I'm going to push back against them at that point, it doesn't do me any good.

James Hill:
They're going to dismiss you.

Holly Wyatt:
You know, if they tell me, yes, it's because I was breathing oxygen better at night. Well, of course, I guess now if that was a sleep apnea thing, that might help them. But if they come up with this crazy thing and they believe it, it doesn't do me any good. And to build that relationship to just say you're absolutely wrong because they're 100% convinced at that point.

James Hill:
Wow. You know, this is such an important topic because we all get caught up into hearing those stories and we want to believe and we want to believe that there are some simple solutions to some of our problems. So let's see if we can sum this up, Holly. Anecdotes are real. But they're not complete. You can't take them totally at face value. They show you what happened once. They do not show you what works reliably. When something works for your friend, don't just copy it. Study it. It may pique your interest. Ask questions. Understand what else changed. Try to figure out in your own mind why you think it worked. And a big one is, did it last? Are these big changes short-term changes, or are they sustainable? Because the goal isn't to chase stories. The goal is to build a strategy that works for your body, your life, and your future.

Holly Wyatt:
Wow, that was good.

James Hill:
Oh, yeah, good episode. We all get caught up into this. So hopefully, these were some tips that helped. And we'll see you next time on Weight Loss And.

Holly Wyatt:
Bye, everybody.

James Hill:
And that's a wrap for today's episode of Weight Loss And. We hope you enjoy diving into the world of weight loss with us.

Holly Wyatt:
If you want to stay connected and continue exploring the “Ands” of weight loss, be sure to follow our podcast on your favorite platform.

James Hill:
We'd also love to hear from you. Share your thoughts, questions, or topic suggestions by reaching out at weightlossand.com. Your feedback helps us tailor future episodes to your needs.

Holly Wyatt:
And remember, the journey doesn't end here. Keep applying the knowledge and strategies you've learned and embrace the power of the “And” in your own weight loss journey.