Worst advice ever. What's yours?

Everyone gets unsolicited advice from the most unqualified sources. What's the worst you've heard? Here are a few of mine:

Fitness - "Don't eat after you work out or you've just wasted the exercise." (My muscles will recover how?)

Weight loss - "Do a lemonade/maple syrup/cayenne colon flush detox diet because nasty things have built up inside you." (Nothing says "health-conscious" like laxatives and starvation!)

Health - "Don't take any medication your doctor prescribes and you'll be a lot healthier. They're all just designed to make you dependent and make pharmaceutical companies rich." (I'll go hide my friend's insulin. She'll thank me later for helping to cure her dependence.)

Money - "Don't use banks. Keep all your assets in cash. Hide it in your furniature." (Where do you live and what hours are you away from home?)

Travel - "Use paper panties when abroad. Then you can throw them out as you use them and have more room in your suitcase on the way home for souvenirs and stuff." (I'm not kidding, she even had a package to show me!)

Two years ago: "Buy a house! The prices are only going up from here!"

Or, the caring friend who sent me something clipped from WedMD.com, called something like "Signs of Narcissism" and her note, "I really think this will help you - please read and tell me what you think." Pthhhhp!!! (We are not close any longer, wonder why!)

Wasn't given to me, but when my younger brother was in high school, he went to the guidance counselor for some help applying to colleges.  He told her he really wanted to go to a specific one and asked her what he could do to get himself the best chance of getting accepted.  She told him "you know, not everyone is cut out for college."

He graduated in May from one of the best public universities in the nation.  Not cut out for college?  Take that ****!

Not that I have any problem with people who didn't/don't want to go to college.  Just think it's ridiculous to tell that to a kid who's asking you for help because he wants to go to college.

Quite a few people with straight hair have told me I should cut my hair short so that it would be easier to care for. My hair is naturally very curly and when it's short it's 3 times the work as when it is long.

this advice wasn't directed at me, but it's crazy bad: "Don't tell your kids that you're proud of them, because you want them to be proud of themselves."

Original Post by moonikins:

Quite a few people with straight hair have told me I should cut my hair short so that it would be easier to care for. My hair is naturally very curly and when it's short it's 3 times the work as when it is long.

moonikins, I, too, have extremely curly hair and it's currently very long.

However, when I cut it short (boy-short), it was like, 1000x easier to handle. So unless your hair curls immediately from the roots (mine curls about an inch from the roots, but does true ringlets from there on out), cutting it super short SHOULD actually make it easier. But that's the key: it has to be super short. Anything longer than an inch or two and it's suddenly not so easy to take care of, for me. =(

Though I am about two weeks away from getting a hair cut (still deciding on how short I'm going to get it before my hubby comes home), and look forward to getting rid of all the dead ends I've accumulated.

However, the worst advice in regards to my hair that I've received was "straighten it!" NO! My hair is damaged enough, thanks, exposing it to high heat in order to get it to straighten out is only going to damage it more. ;_; My hair is entirely too thick to even bother with straightening it. It looks dumb straight.

Original Post by armandleg:

Original Post by moonikins:

Quite a few people with straight hair have told me I should cut my hair short so that it would be easier to care for. My hair is naturally very curly and when it's short it's 3 times the work as when it is long.

moonikins, I, too, have extremely curly hair and it's currently very long.

However, when I cut it short (boy-short), it was like, 1000x easier to handle. So unless your hair curls immediately from the roots (mine curls about an inch from the roots, but does true ringlets from there on out), cutting it super short SHOULD actually make it easier. But that's the key: it has to be super short. Anything longer than an inch or two and it's suddenly not so easy to take care of, for me. =(

Though I am about two weeks away from getting a hair cut (still deciding on how short I'm going to get it before my hubby comes home), and look forward to getting rid of all the dead ends I've accumulated.

However, the worst advice in regards to my hair that I've received was "straighten it!" NO! My hair is damaged enough, thanks, exposing it to high heat in order to get it to straighten out is only going to damage it more. ;_; My hair is entirely too thick to even bother with straightening it. It looks dumb straight.

Yeah, if I cut it boy-short then it's easier; however, then I have to get it trimmed every 3-4 weeks and I have no options with styling. The grow out period is absolutely horrible. I've done it enough times in my life to know better than do it again.

Telling a person with curly hair to just straighten it is pretty dumb. Straightening does so much damage. I'm caucasian with very fine hair. I can occaisionally blow it dry straight, but only in the winter when there's no humidity and no chance of precipitation. I can not apply a straight iron on a regular basis. That amount of heat is just not acceptable for my hair.

And to all the other hair-know-it-alls out there:  Those humidity proof products are a joke.

"Girls shouldn't lift weights ever because then you won't have boobs anymore and you'll look like a man"

He actually continued this debate by taking a picture of an extreme female body builder (example) and photoshopping my face onto her with the warning "THIS IS WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO YOU IF YOU WEIGHT TRAIN! DON'T DO IT!"

Yes... because by doing a few chest presses and squats at the gym a couple times a week I am going to look like a body builder... uh huh.

My boss at my PART TIME job during university:

"You should cut class and work more"

...Ummm, I worked there so that I could go to university, NOT the other way aroud.

""Girls shouldn't lift weights ever because then you won't have boobs anymore and you'll look like a man""

Haha, I've actually experienced the opposite... Working out my chest/pecs have made my boobies perkier and seem larger!

I've heard so many of those, haha. My dad gets the "Buy a house! Prices are only going up!" all the bloody time

"You have to pop your zits, or they'll just get bigger." - from this girl I knew in sixth grade who was covered in acne scars.

"Never wear a sportsbra... it'll make your boobs grow into one."

This was from a friend in 7th grade... you should have seen the look we all gave her!

Well doctors are over-happy prescribing depression/ADD  medicine these days and they told my parents to give my now 18 year old sister ritalin in the 2nd grade because she had a hard time paying attention. Now she is a great artist and in college and she's smart. Pshhh "ADD my ***".

Oh and the all time dumbest one, is "If you want to get drunk mix alcohol and codeine/vicodin/cough medicine, and its great."

Sounds like a recipe for accidental death to me...

If you want to lose weight eat nothing but watermelon for 2 weeks-you'll drop 20 pounds!

my high school cross country coach told me this: 'if you cut your hair, you'll lose ten pounds and run faster.' at the time i had straight hair down to about the bottoms of my shoulder blades. i didn't cut it. i was nearly done with college when i decided on a whim to chop it all off above the shoulders. i did not lose ten pounds. i don't even think i lost one, but i've never gone back to long hair.

"my god peanut butter is SO fattening, you'll never make the soccer team if you're fat, stick to salad"

- girl in my class last year, ended up breaking her leg, was the only one of us not on the team

"The key to  staying skinny is to not throw up every day, just when you eat food with fat in it"

- same girl, coincedence eh?

"OH god, you do cardio?! Don't do cardio, ever! It's a complete waste of time. ONLY lift weights!"

~random Fedex guy who picks up packages at my work

"Stretch before you work out, or you'll hurt something!"

~random guy

 

Yes, because not warming up via light cardio (i.e. walking then light jogging) before you do weights is the worst idea in the world! OH,  and stretching COLD muscles is a brilliant idea. Really, you should try it.

Worse advice ever award has to be from my own MOM. She told me when I started dieting "As long as you eat a carrot, or even some crackers.. and that's all, your body wont think it's starving and you'll lose a lot of weight!"

Yea thanks mom.

not weight loss related, but when I was 7 years old and the kids were teasing me in school, my mom said "laugh along with them" and, later, "if they insult you, say thank you", I guess thinking that the shock value would put them off. Nope, they just made a game of insulting me in order to watch me thank them.

Not good advice. "Punch them in the nose" would have been better; "insult them right back" would have been better still.

-

"You have to lose weight by dieting before you should even attempt to exercise because them you will just get bigger because you will be toning fat."

 

wtf?