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I received a notification on Instagram the other day.

The RISE page had been tagged in an Story.

It was a share of one of our adverts that’s currently running on social media.

With the accompanying text:

“So sick of seeing this idiot and his sexist ads on here and YouTube!!

What about the Men of Macclesfield and THIER ‘unwanted lbs?!

Stop praying on and adding to the insecurities of women in a bid to make money, and come join us in 2021 @myrise.co.uk”

Which I completely get.

I can see how the poster felt the advert was targeting women.

Because it was.

Targeting them with a view to helping them, sure, but targeting them none the less.

‘Targeting’ is the exact word that is used in the Facebook ad settings.

So any ad anyone ever sees on there is targeted at them based on some criteria.

The details they’ve entered about themselves on set up and / or their behaviour on social media and elsewhere on the Internet.

We have different ads running at all times which target based on various criteria.

And the text in them is designed to appeal to the people who will be served those ads.

Facebook then automatically assigns our budget to the better performing ads and shows them more.

So if a certain ad is being seen more by people it is because that ad has been getting interacted with more.

We also have ads running to those that have entered themselves as male when setting up Facebook and ads running to all genders – both with relevant text.

On average those that make people think “that’s me” perform better.

And Facebook shows them more.

The ones that mention men or women have always run about two to three times more effectively than those that mention ‘people’.

And words like “you” get you an instant ban.

So we get to help two to three times more people for our limited marketing budget if we include ads targeted separately to people who’ve entered themselves as male or female on Facebook.

I’m pretty confident that those that know me personally would never describe me as sexist (or racist, ageist, homophobic or other such prejudicial terms).

I’d actually say that most stuff I see getting described online as “woke nonsense”, I actually think “I pretty much agree with that”.

But that’s not what this blog is about.

It’s about the line “What about the Men of Macclesfield and THIER ‘unwanted lbs?!”

The writer missing the connection that she would only be seeing ads targeted at people that have entered themselves as female in their settings.

And wouldn’t be seeing ads targeted at those who’ve entered themselves as male in their settings.

Because we don’t always know what we don’t know.

We think we have the required information and make a judgement or decision on it………

When there may be other things that we’re not seeing, or aren’t aware of, that could be relevant.

Like the way we might describe our eating.

Many times (in the thousands, I’d say) I’ve had people express confusion as to why they’re not losing weight.

“I eat healthily” they often say.

And by some definition, I’m sure they are.

Minimal processed food probably.

Lots of fresh, home cooked stuff perhaps.

Little to none of the demonised “unhealthy foods” of cake, biscuits, pizza, take out, chocolate, crisps, etc.

“Do you know how many calories you have on an average day?” I may then ask.

And they (usually) don’t.

They’ve got the obvious information in front of them.

But are missing something that’s, perhaps, a bit more hidden.

Something that’s, in this case, more important.

Sure, there’s more to healthy eating than calories.

But if weight loss (or maintenance) is our goal, then that deficit (or maintenance calories) has to be there.

We’d not lose weight on a calorie surplus of foods that could be described as “healthy”.

Just like we’d lose weight on calorie deficit of chocolate and pizza (as hard as that might be in reality with the potentially very low portion sizes required of such calorie dense, hyper-palatable, very “moreish” foods).

We get that it seems a bit of faff tracking our food for a few days.

But probably less than we’re telling ourselves.

And, out of all the “faffs” we could do……….

It’s the highest return on investment one there is.

Way more than the same time spent exercising.

If you’re a member and not 100% sure how to track, it’s covered in the ‘Progress’ section on the Learn tab.

Much love,

Jon ‘The “idiot” bit was fine’ Hall

Jon Hall
Jon Hall

When not helping people to transform their lives and bodies, Jon can usually be found either playing with his kids or taxi-ing them around. If you'd like to find out more about what we do at RISE then enter your details in the box to the right or bottom of this page or at myrise.co.uk - this is the same way every single one of the hundreds who've described this as "one of the best decisions I've ever made" took their first step.