I'd never go to someone and offer unsolicited advice about their health or diet, but I'm happy to help when I'm asked. I'm now starting to reconsider the latter part of this policy.
A friend of mine at work has been getting progressively heavier so he came over to ask for help. I gave him some pointers (basically the URL to the /r/loseit FAQ and a TL;DR explanation of what a caloric deficit is and what getting there generally entails), then went over as an example what I include in my diet, including protein shakes.
For some reason whenever I go over this part people's ears perk up (this isn't my first rodeo). Something about protein shakes seems to be looked at as the secret to controlling one's weight, as if they are magic potions instead of food. That's what they fucking are, which I stressed out as well - it's a convenient way to meet a higher daily protein requirement at a cheap caloric 'price'... and if done right, a cheap real price as well. But no, magic.
So he comes back a couple of days later and starts telling me the shakes contain a lot of cholesterol, man. And isn't the sodium high? Because he spoke to another guy in the company about it too who pointed out these things. Also isn't intermittent fasting better?
<sigh>
Dude, until last week 80% of your diet came in McDonalds and Tim Horton's bags. Do we seriously need to have that conversation? Stay the course for a couple of months, see if it works, and then decide. Or don't!