In social settings, how do you deal with people giving health/fitness advice that you don’t agree with?

Hey y’all! I’ve been a trainer/health coach for about 5 years now.

Last weekend I was out at a bar with friends and someone brought up the topic of their high cholesterol.

This person is a friend who I know is sedentary and eats a lot of takeout

The group started throwing out recommendations- “Salmon-only diet”

“17.5k steps a day, you can eat whatever you want”

My brain immediately went to “well does this person even like salmon?”, “how many steps do they currently walk?”, “is that number even realistic for them?”, and “sure walking is great but you can’t just throw diet out the window!”

Some people in the group turned towards me and I responded by saying “yeah those two pieces of more whole foods & more consistent exercise are huge”

Usually, unless someone asks me directly for advice, or someone gives advice that I think could be dangerous for the person they’re giving it to, I’ll usually smile, nod, and say something like “yeah that could work for someone.”

I don’t want to be “that guy”, correcting folks who are genuinely trying to help. And frankly, sometimes I just don’t want to fight the battle at all, so I’ll stay quiet and make this face 🙂

How do you all deal with these types of situations? Do you usually engage on the topic?