My mother needs to lose about 100 lbs, and has done fad diets her whole like. I tried to get her into WW at home, and this failed. She is 56 and her knees and back hurt her so much she can't walk down the mall without needing to sit. She will not ask her doctor for help. I need her to do this for her sake, as well as my father's. He is fit and just spends a lot of his time waiting on her.


Can anyone who has lost weight in this type of situation give me some advice in motivating her to take small steps. I am not expecting her to get thin, I just want her and my dad's quality of life to improve. I am only 22 and want her to be able to walk around at my brother's and my weddings in the future.

Thanks!

Hi Cait,

You are honestly in a very difficult position - being your mother is the age she is she is obviously set in her ways.

I went through a very similar thing with my mother, who smoked. Any implication to her that she needed to stop would erupt a fight the likes not even **** has seen. She eventually had a small stroke and the doctors told her she had to stop smoking or she was going to die, she didn't listen (even with this warning) and started smoking again, 2 years later she ended up having a massive brain aneyrism. Even her body gave her a stern 2 year preview/warning and she didn't listen to it.

Some people are motivated when facing what they can lose, if you haven't all ready let, her know how you feel, be honest even if it's a bit insulting, she has to know there is an element of selfishness involved, that she is risking doing this to you and your brother and chances are your children, and get her to ask herself is what she is doing worth that risk. Unfortunately it is to easy for us as people to disconect from that though. Sometimes denial sits on a list beside Air, Food & Water.

Im a strong believer that it's never the diet (fad or otherwise) that doesn't work, it's the dieter that doesn't. It's about finding the right motivation, and what works best with that motivation. So the only real advise i can give is help her find her motivation. She doesn't have much time left.

Well, Catie, unfortunately no one can do it for your mom but her. Motivation comes from within - it's not extrinsic. You can't make her eat right or exercise. You can't motivate her to do something she's unwilling (or just not ready) to do. If you're mom's anything like me, nagging her about it is just going to make it worse. She has to make up her mind to do this on her own terms.

The one thing you can do is write her a long and heartfelt letter about how much you worry about her and how you are afraid she will miss out on things like grandbabies because of her weight. Offer to be there for her, then step back and wait for her to come to you. (Keep in mind that she may never come to you, though.)

You're a sweet daughter to worry, but in the end, it's her hill to climb, not yours.

I have to echo Nash and Jenelle. Your mother has to do this for herself.

However, I will say that if your father is waiting on her, he is enabling her and that doesn't help matters either. If he's bringing her food, that certainly needs to stop, and if she wants those foods, then she needs to get them herself.

I like the idea of you writing a heartfelt letter, but then you have to drop the whole matter and never bring it up again until she does. Cajoling, threatening, insulting, humiliation--none of that works, and often makes the overweight person eat more out of anger or hurt.

I hope your Mom knows what a wonderful daughter she has.

Not too be a copycat, but nothing can force you mom to adopt a healthy lifestyle except herself. My personality is such that when someone tells me to do something that I don't want to hear, I will go and do the opposite just to show them. I knew I was overweight (morbidly so), but I ignored the problem. If my mom told me I needed to lose weight, I would go and devour a bag of chips (large of course). For me it took a conversation with my doctor to scare me. I am only 34, am morbidly obese and was a high risk for stroke/hypertension/diabetes or a combination. That is what it took for me. I can not say what will be the trigger for your mother. I concur, that the idea of a heartfelt letter would be best. I am food addict, and like all addicts, I needed to make the decision for myself. My best wishes to you and your mom.

You have been given such great advice. It has to be something that she wants to do for herself.

Hopefully she'll want to change soon and then you can be there to help her.

I agree with what the others said.

My mum is overweight, but not nearly as much as me. She does, however, have diabetes and high blood pressure because of her weight. I have been getting on her CONSTANTLY about her diet, which was not right for her diabetes. I was consistant, and stubborn, and basically harrassed her. She FINALLY gave in and listened when her doctor told her the same things I had been (to follow South Beach diet principals). I am SO proud of her, and have such hope that she's make a turnaround.

I assume that you don't have an obesity problem, so it might be hard for you to relate to her. I do want to caution that I was thin until half-way through college too (just a bit younger than you) and obesity seemed to have gotten me out of the blue. If you haven't already, you should adopt a healthy lifestyle too. If you have the same DNA as your mom, you might have to deal with the problem at some point in your life. Maybe you can inspire her.

I was a chubby kid, but I have never crash dieted or done anything super crazy to lose weight, because I have seen my mother and don't want to yo-yo the way she has. I am pretty thing now. The fact is, she says she wants to lose weight, and I feel like if I get all of the resources for her, how can she turn me down?

Because she is around 300 pounds, how many calories should she eat each day to lose weight? Is it possible for her to drop weight without being active?

Catie - If she's not active at all right now, then any activity would be better than nothing! There was a member named JiffyPop who used to weigh something like 500 lbs., and her first foray into activity was walking 10 steps without oxygen (or something like that...). She needs to be active to lose weight, but activity is a relative term. Maybe you could meet her for a walk every evening after dinner. Even if she can only make it to the end of the driveway and back for a while, it's still activity. Also, because of her crash/yo-yo dieting, she has most certainly screwed up her metabolism and exercise is the only thing that's going to kick-start it.

In my opinion, counting calories isn't the best way to diet. It's way too easy to get stuck on the numbers and do stuff like, "Oh, I went over by 10 calories today, so I guess I'm just going to give up and start over tomorrow and now I can eat ice cream out of the tub with a fork." I am a proponent of the South Beach way of eating because I'm a carb addict. It also doesn't entail me counting calories, which is something that dooms me to a tailspin into eating disorder ****. You can pick up a copy of The South Beach Diet at the library or practically any store.

Remember, THIS IS NOT YOUR FIGHT! It's totally up to your mom. (But you're still a good daughter for caring.)

The thing is, on an average day, I think she eats in the 2500-2700 calorie range. Her metabolism is shot. In WW they have someone in her weight range eating 30+ points per day, which in my opinion is too much, but will that increase her metabolism?

Caitie, the deal is that the more you weigh, the more calories it takes to support that weight. For example, I am 5'5" inches tall and currently weigh 236 lbs. My basal metabolic rate (BMR), or amount of calories I need to support my body if I just lolled around in bed all day, is 1801 calories per day. However, at my goal of 188 lbs, my BMR drops to 1592 calories. (Your BMR is also affected by your age.) There's a good BMR calculator at http://health.discovery.com/tools/ca...sal/basal.html. I encourage you to visit it and plug her vitals in. Now, remember, this is a baseline number of calories. She needs to eat at least this number of calories per day! Anything less and her body will go into starvation mode and hang on to every last glob of fat it can.

I also can't stress enough the importance of exercise. I looked for a link to a good beginning walking program and found one at this link: http://www.arthritis.org/resources/a...guide_plan.asp. I know you are trying to keep her motivated, and I think this is the place where you could do the most good. You two could sit down together and look at the plan, then pull out a calendar and set up the dates you'll walk together.

I hope I answered your questions, or at least pointed you in the right direction.