advice for my mom....waring this is long

[MetalMommy]

ok this question is for my mom. she has battle being overweight her entire life..ups and downs. eventually she was at a point where she was big enough to qualify for the gastirc bypass..she did and got down to roughly a size 8, looked healthier, felt healthier etc....

lately she's been having issues gaining weight again and keeps bouncing on and off the atkins diet. she visited me a few months ago , as an example..we ran thru the taco bell window and she ordered 2 chalupa's and ate half a thing of nacho's with a diet soda....dinner time she ate a huge baked potato, i steaed some broccoli and she threw a huge slab of butter on top with another diet coke.

im worried about her...for a few reasons. one with this surgery...if she gains weight back it cant be healthy. two she has bad knee's and the extra weight doesnt hlep that..three she already has hepatitis c and her immune system fights that so she really needs to focus on eating healthier foods that aid in her immune system and the bouncing back and forth on atkins constantly.

i dont want t obutt in too much in my moms life......she's a control freak and will tell me its her own life...but i want to try to give her something to work with other than going back and forth with atkins. she cant cook worth a damn and loves to eat out all the time which isn helping either so i need to help her learn to read menu's better instead of just ordering someting and hopoing its healthy.

if this were you.......how would you go about this and what suggestions would you have? i already know she wont sit down and calculate calories all day long, she ahs an extremely busy stressful job (corporate woman) and eats on the run...

any advice would help because i really fear she doing her body so badly and doesnt fully realize it. i thought after the surgery she would..and she did for awhile....but now it seems like she's falling bck a little . she does wii fit every day which is good, she is doing some exercise...but i really want to help her with her diet....

so i guess to summarize. an easy to follow rough diet plan ..she's nto going t ocount. she'll just eye measurements...ifi t was your mom, what would you tell her?

[gecko...]

I cant really give advice about a diet plan, I would assume someone on gastric bypass would have already been given a suitable nutrition plan?

BUT - I have a similar problem with my own mum (yes, mum - I'm an Aussie :p). She is overweight and seems to have every excuse under the sun as to why its not her fault :rolleyes: It annoys the hell out of me.

The best thing I can suggest is to lose weight and get healthy yourself. Be a good example to her - dont talk fitness/nutriton with her unless she specifically asks. She will see you shrinking before her eyes and will get curious how you are doing it, then you can open up the lines of communication with her about it. Lots of people will turn deaf when you start gabbing about macros, calories, heartrate, training, etc - but if they see the results first, they might be more open to the ideas.

Good luck!

[iflyjets]

She is overweight and seems to have every excuse under the sun as to why its not her fault :rolleyes: It annoys the hell out of me.

Same thing!!!!!!! I just posted something similar to this a few weeks ago when my mom was visiting me and started going on about how she is just destined to be overweight. I tried to give her solutions ... ones that would seem like common sense to her ESPECIALLY because she SAYS she is into holisitic health. What I realized is that her definition of that is to take everything that is good for you in a pill/supplement form instead of trying to consume that stuff in food. Also, the other half of her holistic views is her going on the internet and finding the most ridiculous websites that go on and on about weird and random medical conditions. TO which she then blames her from on. Ugh! That and she hates regular doctors...

I wish I had some good advice but really I just wanted to let you know I'm in the same boat. I carefully explained to her what I've learned recently about all this stuff (and I am still REALLY new to this whole thing) and I've never been overweight. I've always had an athletic build... so you think she would listen to me. However her explanation is that I must just get it from my dad... because he's not overweight in the least either. WELL guess what... he eats well and has always been active! HMMM! You'd think they would get it... after all they are our moms and used to know what's best. But someone responded to my post a few weeks back and said she probably has other issues with feeling sorry for herself and she may never come out of it... unfortunately I think that's true at least with my mom. So I'm still trying to think about if this is worth it to motivate her or if it will just set her off into anger.

Keep us posted because if you figure out what to do I want to know!!!!!!! :)

[Butterfly09]

Tell her to check out the Living After Weight Loss Surgery website. Good place to get lots of support on getting back on track after WLS. Good luck to you.

[Rigby6]

I would say that you need to know your mom and understand how her brain works and use that to approach her in a way that will get through to her. Everyone is motivated differently, example, I gained about 50 lbs when i went away to school and my mom would constantly tell me i need to count calories, she bought me evvvvery diet book, even signed me up for weight watchers without my asking for that. Cause thats hwat she had done and it worked for her. except ALL that did was make me fatter. counting calories wasnt the way for me. workouts and healthy foods on the other hand felt good, motivated and so on. your mom is going to have her own motivating factor cause sounds like shes doing the same things now that caused her to get heavy in the first place, theres a reason why she reverts back there but i read somewhere and i hate to not reference a source properly but it said "when you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always gotten" it mighta been dr phil..not sure. but anyways much like myself controlling and all, the wrong kind of encouragment can almost lead to like rebelling, that "its my life, i'll eat what i want" kinda attitude...clearly not going to work. i think she needs to get excited about activity, and get excited about healthier options. find SOMETHING in the world of health and fitness that she might get interested in. Calorie counting seems backwards to me..and obsessive...which never feels to healthy, u wind up buying tons of those 100 calorie each single serving little cookie bags or whatever except u eat like 5 servings lol I like to remind myself that food is fuel and my body will take what i eat to repair itself, i want quality going in so i get quality gains, performance ect. we all have our different motivating factors. Just watch you dont come from a position of frustration and nagging, you want her alive, healthy, ect, make sure the love and the care comes out and not the critical side. Anyways i hope she can make a change and turn things around. good luck

[MetalMommy]

i think the after surgery site might help a bit with her...

but probably seeing me get healthier will make a big difference...only because she keeps tellingme thati cant do it....that the only way i can lose weight is atkins..i told her mom im already losing weight, i feel better, i look better my measurements are changing etc. and she said yea and it will last for a short time. we both know our genetics...so its like in her mind we have to be fat girls.....
i suppose i have to let her doubt and her unhealthy habit fuel me even more to prove to her its not just about genetics but about our won personal choices...maybe as i get leaner and healthier she will want the same.
she's going thru that age wehre she hates feeling like she's getting older...and i want her to see if she's healthier, she can feel younger!

[Amanda76]

It's back and forth with my mom all the time. :( I thought she was gonna suck it up and be consistant with her nutrition, but she ended up getting lap banding.

Your mom might want to see someone about emotional issues that cause her to turn to food.

Bypass surgery proved that cals in vs. cals out worked for your mom just like it does everyone else.

She's currently "training" her stomach pouch to accomodate a bit more food and choosing more calorie dense foods that are not particularly nutritious. Because bypass surgery interferes with the absorption of nutrients and she's not eating to get the best nutrition she can, she's likely experienced quite a bit more lean mass loss than necessary which will have slowed her metabolism more than necessary.

She needs to consider nutrition over having "fun" with food to do the best she can to give her body what it needs to be healthy. She also needs to hit the gym to build up some lean mass. Just like everyone else.

You can tell her all these very logical things and it's most likely to go in one ear and out the other because she doesn't want to hear it. My mom will at least admit that there's so much more she should have done. She'll admit that, while it's difficult for her to be active, part of what holds her back is embarrassment and frustration over TOTAL inability. She'll even admit that she loves socializing with food and that's a big part of her problem. When you have someone who just wants to feel sorry for themselves and not take responsibility for their behaviors, it's gotta be a ton more frustrating.

[MetalMommy]

"When you have someone who just wants to feel sorry for themselves and not take responsibility for their behaviors, it's gotta be a ton more frustrati"

that makes perfect sense to me because at one point in my life..i fell into that category. all i did was hate my body, i hated looking in the mirror...and when i got upset about how overweight i was..what did i do? i would drown myself in food.....thank god i found something that changed that, for me personally it was belly dancing...it made me feel comforatble in my skin and love my body for what it was..accepting that i was overweight is what made me say you know what..this is up to me to lose it and its been really inspirational to me...


i just dont know what would do that for her. even when she was down to healthier size, she didnt like her body and ocmplained about it..

ill figure out something...

[Butterfly09]

If she had an RNY you could bring up they recommend low fat high protein nutrient dense foods for for this type of WLS. Maybe suggesting (gently) she should try to follow the docs and nutritionists eating plan they gave her after the surgery and stress how great she followed the plan then and could maybe give it another go now?

[MetalMommy]

she is in the medical field...she knows what she is doing exactly, and its not like she just go tinto the medical field either..she has a very good career and is high pu in the levels...in other words, she cant give an excuse of "i didnt know" she does know....she kows very well .


i was going to send her a gift basket with fresh fruit, almonds etc. but it might be a waste caus eshe might say oh no i cant eat fruit im doing atkins again...
so instead i found a good that has a huge focus on loving your body and getting over body concious ideas and just being happier living a healthy life...she loves to read, and one of her big problems is her body image....she always thinks she looks too fat, her butt is too floppy, her legs are too wiggly...one time she was i nthe hot tub and wouldnt get out until all the guys in the area left cause she didtn want them to see her legs...she needs to love herself a bit more and i know she'll read it, she reads in her spare time al ot. so maybe that will help...we'll see. i know how she is, and she can be a very proactive determined person but she has to have the right motivation....she is such a succesful woman career wise, she's so respected by everyone in her community, she's a freaking busy bee with eveything else...but her health she keeps going for quick fixes and doubts herself way too much...so i hope this helps a little. get her to love herself a lil more and want to treat her body better instead of beating it up.

especially with her immune system and her hep c ...she really needs to put a focus on antioxidants etc. and she has a 2 year old garndbaby who needs a healthy grandma! :-P

[Butterfly09]

No excuse there either-you can have fruit on Atkins-I am a member of a popular forum. Common misconception about Atkins-it's controlled carb not a no carb WOE. So you could always tell her this too lol.