Help me help her...please!

My mom has been trying to lose weight for a very, very long time now.  She has been through every fad diet and cleanse you can think of.  She is very disappointed that nothing is working but she WOULD NOT try calorie counting, even though I'm living proof that it works.

HOWEVER, I have recently broken her down to maybe trying it, and I told her I would help her.  She wants to lose weight, and I want her to lose weight because I've been worried about her health.  She is 42, 5'4", ~205 lbs and she does a lot of walking and moving.  I've noticed that she doesn't eat during the day then shovels at night.  She is very very busy and hardly has time to even eat anything, so I told her I would put together a couple meal plans for her...or try to =P

Can someone with similar stats or someone who is good at planning help me figure out what she needs to lose weight?  I mean, I can figure out her calorie limits and stuff but does anyone have a meal plan they follow?  How do you break up your meals (what times do you eat, how many calories each sitting, etc.)?

Any help and advice is appreciated!

Thank you much =D

I'm 5'5'', 23, ~190 lbs. I started at 208 at the end of February and this is the meal plan that I have been sticking to (and lost 18 lbs so far while on it!):

Breakfast @ 9 am: Approximately 230-270 calories

Quaker Lower Sugar or Weight Control Oatmeal (120-160 cals made with water)

Banana (~110 cals)

Lunch @ 11:30 am: Approximately 588 calories

8 ounces Dannon Light n Fit Yogurt (90 calories total)

100 calorie pack snack (Pringles, Chex mix, or popcorn)

Baby Carrots (8-10 carrots is ~28 calories)

Peanuts (1 serving=39 pieces=170 calories)

SlimFast High Protein Peanut Granola Meal Bar (200 calories)

Snack @ 3:00 pm: Approximately 187 calories

Orange (~87 calories)

Smart Pop 100 Calorie Popcorn

Dinner @ 7 pm: Approximately 458 calories

Organic Baby Spinach salad (2 cups ~ 20 calories)

Balsalmic Vinaigrette dressing (2 Tbsp ~ 60 calories)

Perdue Perfect Portions Boneless Chicken Breast (~ 140 calories)

Whole Wheat Bread (2 slices ~ 138 calories)

Country Crock (for the bread; 2 Tbsp ~ 100 calories)

Total: Approximately 1503 calories.

I have also begun regularly exercising so I have increased my daily calorie intake by adding a 100-200 calorie snack (like strawberries and whipped cream or an apple and peanut butter or chips and salsa) after dinner. I'm not a breakfast person at all so I keep my breakfasts to 200-250 calories, lunches to 500-600 calories, total daily snacks to 200 calories, and dinners to about 500 calories. I also have at least one day a week where I don't count calories.

Hope it helps!

Thank you so much!! Very helpful =D

I am 5'4", 45 and currently 165, I started at 232.  I eat 3/4 cup bran flakes, 1/4 cup of fiber one and 1 cup of strawberries or a banana with 1/2 cup of 1% milk before I leave for work each morning.  Then about 8 am I have another piece of fruit.  About 10am I have a weight watcher yogurt with 1/4 cup of fiber one.  For lunch I have turkey or ham on a "diet" bun or bread with carrots and celery.  About 2-3pm I get home from work and have 2 servings of steamed vegetables with some sort of protien, either cottage cheese or cheese, ect.  I then make a family supper about 6pm and have a serving  of meat and brown rice, and a vegetable.  About 8pm I usually have either a scoop of sugar free/fat free ice cream  or a dish of fruit and FF cool whip.  I have a sedentary job but do work out 4-5 x's a week.  I usually eat 1600 calories a day.  Overall I try to eat every 2-3 hours at least 100 calories.  Hope that helps.

Leslie

Thank you!!! It's so hard putting together other peoples' stuff, but you guys are making it a lot easier =)

One thing that's really handy for me is baby carrots.  Another is grapes. Lots of raw veggies, fresh fruit and yogurt.  Since I don't really have time to sit and eat, grilled chicken wraps are a god send.  I can carry them around and eat too.  Whole grain breads with a smear of fat free cream cheese and some jelly.  Yumm!  I've traded in my bagels for bread but I kept the lox. 

The 110 calorie Pria bars are good too.  Handy for breakfast when things get really hectic. 

Then I'm not starving Marvin by dinner time.  That with a good sensible dinner should do her worlds of good. 

special k bars are also good at 90 cal 15 fat  and quaker granola is also 90, 20 fat. green giant stir fry 180 cal per 1 cup serv . but a lil high in salt but if she knows she gonna have something like that for dinner compensate for by cutting back on salt earlier in the day has 810 mg  and only 60 fat cal and it's tasty. 

Note that if she "has been on every diet in the world", she might be in starvation mode.  If she is, she will gain a bit at first.  You need t prepare her for that or she will quit when it happens.

Thank you for your replies!

I had actually thought of that too, clharr.  She just recently finished a cleanse my grandma got her into (and got her to spend mega $, which made me very angry haha) where she hardly ate anything, and what she did eat was VERY limited.  Like, no fruits except GREEN apples, grapefruit, and berries, no grains, nothing with yeast, no sugar, no artificial sweeteners, and a ton more rules.  SHE WAS MISERABLE!  As soon as she got off it she came home with a platter of cinnamon rolls and fried pastries! 

I was planning on sitting her down and explaining the calorie thing and the possible initial gain from starvation, and then hiding the scale =P  She has always been obsessed with the scale -- using it 3-4 times a day, so it's going to be difficult!!!!

Well, we wish you the best of luck!  And..  cute kitten 

It's very nice of you to try and help your Mom. But you have to understand she won't do things, even if they are good for her, if she doesn't herself believe  they are necessary changes.

One thing you have to point out to her is that she is on the brink of the most difficult years, weight-wise. I was 110 lbs my whole life till I reached 45+. I am 181 now. I didn't change my diet, never binged, and am more active now than I ever was, exercise-wise. It's all hormones... The same way some girls get chubby when they reach puberty and stay so till their hormones stabilize, some women go the same way when they reach menopause. I used to drop 20 lbs a month when I really wanted to. Now I feel grateful when I manage 5-6. I stay below 1400-1500 cals a day, eat 3 meals a day (300-500-300) plus a mid-morning and mid-afternoon snack of about 100-200 each. I walk 90 minutes every morning, swim, and use a stationary bike on a regular basis. I am also planning to introduce a weight-lifting routine in my exercise plan after I come back from vacation in September. Eating regularly, STARTING FROM THE TIME YOU WAKE UP, is an important part of a well balanced diet. When you stay more than 4 hours active without ingesting any food, your body starts saving energy... Keeping things you can eat at hand - and have prepared beforehand so you don't get overboard with your cals - is just a matter of organization. And I am quite sure someone who can starve herself on a regular basis to follow a fad diet, can also find the strength to get organized.

Depriving yourself of food is not only a recipe for disaster (re: the plateful of cinnamon rolls and pastries...) but also dangerous for your health. Our bodies are programmed to survive famines, and they will do so at any cost, even if they have to eat our own heart to succeed. Literally. A few years back, there were several suspicious heart-related deaths in a dieting institute in Europe, and they found out that their customers - who paid top $$$ to lose some weight -  were so deprived of food their heart walls had become paper thin... Our bodies are wonderful machines, but we have to respect them and treat them with care if we want them to serve us well and long.

I wish there was a miracle diet, a miracle food, something that can be used as a magic wand to make all those extra pounds disappear. But there isn't. Eventually, we have to be responsible for what we look like and the way we live. The sooner we understand that, the better for our bodies, and therefore for us.

Your Mom is lucky to have a daughter that cares! Hope some of this helps...