First of all, is a 1200 calorie diet actully useful for very short girls?
My roommate is morbidly obese and I don't really mind but she's mentioned when around me a few times that she wants to lose weight, so I kind of feel for her, but I never realized how difficult things get when you're short. She's 4'11". The most I've heard her mention is her LOWEST weight was 200 and she's put on more now, so I'm *guessing* 230 but can't be sure. So I put her height and weight into a calorie calculator and am getting like 2000 calories at most to MAINTAIN her morbidly obese weight.... and about 1500 calories max just to MAINTAIN a weight on the high side of healthy BMI.
WOW!
That sure doesn't leave much wiggle room for losing weight, seeing as you can't go below 1200.
I've studied her eating habits. Foodwise, she doesn't actually eat that much, though she doesn't always make the best choices. I think her demise is soda. She probably eats about 1500 calories a day and then ends up drinking at least 500 in soda. I'm thinking of suggesting she just to try drinking nothing but diet soda (because she's hooked right now and quitting cold turkey would be disasterous, I think) for a few weeks and monitor her weight and see what happens... but I also get the impression she has a strong distaste for diet pop. Still, I think it'd be worth a try for her, since food-wise she's not really eating that much to begin with.
Any other suggestions I might be able to give her? Being 5'10", it's hard for me to comprehend MAINTAINING that weight with 2000 calories, because when I was 212 I was LOSING on 2000 calories, so I'm afraid I can't say I know much about weight loss when you're short, hence why I wanted to post here and ask y'all. I don't want to push her, but I do want to give just a few suggestions and try to help because she herself said she wants to lose weight.
Maybe suggest she wean herself off of soda, instead of switching to diet. I'm anti-diet soda, so I'm biased, but maybe just suggest she replace one soda with 8 oz of water, and gradually up her water/decrease her soda per week.
If you use the campus gym, maybe ask her if she wants to come with you the next time she mentions wanting to lose weight. Sometimes its scary to start off by yourself and it helps to have a "buddy" in place.
She could try the new "diet" colas, like Pepsi One and Coke Zero. If she's anything like most of us, a small change that results in a visible loss can urge her to do more. When I cut out pop, I started by switching to a lower calorie pop and drank as much water as I did pop. Then I drank twice as much water as pop, until I gave up pop all together.
I'm not particularly short, so I don't have any advice on that. Sorry!
I don't think being short really plays a role in it. I mean it's more based off how many calories you are burning vs taking in. Your Height is used in consideration of your BMI and other things, but that shouldn't stop her or keep her from losing weight like anyone else. I am only 5'0. I went from 175 to 135lbs in high school in a matter of months, now this was by watching my carbs and working out like a freak, which obviously I am back here and gained it all back plus too much. This time I am doing it right though. I am watching my Calories and making sure I exercise everyday even if it means only 30 mins on my WII fit. I am 250 ekkkk, and I am eating around 1500-1600 calories a day, and seem to be loosing steadily.
I'm sure this goes without saying, but suggest she try eating at least three meals a day to kick start that metabolism. Everyone says that, but it really does work. I used to eat only once, or maybe twice a day, and the meal(s) would be awful, fatty foods. Now I eat 3 meals a day and cut out 500 calories and the weight is melting off.
I found this article on FitDay and I have been implementing it into my own diet. Maybe you could share this with her.
I don't think being short really plays a role in it. I mean it's more based off how many calories you are burning vs taking in. Your Height is used in consideration of your BMI and other things, but that shouldn't stop her or keep her from losing weight like anyone else. I am only 5'0. I went from 175 to 135lbs in high school in a matter of months, now this was by watching my carbs and working out like a freak, which obviously I am back here and gained it all back plus too much. This time I am doing it right though. I am watching my Calories and making sure I exercise everyday even if it means only 30 mins on my WII fit. I am 250 ekkkk, and I am eating around 1500-1600 calories a day, and seem to be loosing steadily.
being short is a little tough because you should essentially weigh less than someone taller than you, but you guys can be the same size. But as far as weight loss, I don't know... it just probably takes longer for her to appear like she lost weight because of her height.
She doesn't have to start out eating her goal weight ideal calories. I would encourage her to use one of those BMR calculators and go by those numbers at first. She can adjust based on results.
I don't think height really plays ~too~ much of a role in things until one gets way down into his or her normal BMI range. For example, I'm 5'3" and in the mid-270s and losing weight on 2,200 cal/day.
Granted, that number will certainly decrease pretty drastically as I drop in weight, but at the beginning stages of weight loss, it's pretty possible to lose a decent amount of weight on a fairly high number of calories.
Perhaps have your friend check out her stats using FitDay.com? That's what I've been using and it's proved pretty helpful for me thus far.
I would recommend that she try Coke Zero!! I used to be a soda FIEND. And I also used to hate diet pop, but Coke Zero really is great. That's very nice of you to look for tips for her, and I also agree that you should encourage her to eat more meals a day.
I think she would need to limit herself to 1200 calories a day... Even at that level for me and I'm 5'1" I lose weight very slowly. The only thing that REALLY makes a difference is exercising. It will come off its just slow and you don't get to eat much.
I think Coke Zero is a great suggestion thats how I switched my Diet-hating bf to diet.
I would recommend that she try weight watchers. She can do it online if she doesn't want to do the meetings. It takes a lot of things into account like height, weight, age, activity level, etc when it calculates how many "points" you should eat a day. It also keeps you from under eating which can be just as bad as overeating. I would think that at 1200 calories she would be under eating.
Thanks guys. I might recommend Coke Zero to her. But for now I'm not going to do anything and just wait. If it comes up again then I'll try to make a suggestion to her, but I don't want to seem like I'm pushing, because I'm really not. If she isn't up to it, I don't want to try to MAKE her do anything, only want to help if she's willing.
Thanks for all the advice!
Tips for helping short friend w/ weight loss?
I'm actually not all that willing to try it again. Good luck to her!
