Diet help for Sis-in-Law!

[Jim Ouini]

Hope it's appropriate to post this here - didn't get much response over on the Diet Forum. Any help is greatly appreciated.

So I'm helping my sister-in-law get in shape. Like most of her friends, she wants to feel better, drop some bf and basically 'tone-up' ( )

Background:

Busy mother of 3, pretty thin but probably relatively high BF% (haven't taken it yet, but I'd estimate high 20's and has the post child pooch that she really hates).

About 119-120 lbs, zero previous fitness experience, except for chasing her kids around, I guess.

I have her on a beginner's resistance and cardio program; my main question is her diet, and hence my post

I asked her to write down her diet for 3 days and here's what she gave me:

Day 1
Meal 1: Vietnamese noodle soop (beef and noodle soup)
Meal 2: 1 slice cheese and snap peas
Meal 3: Rice and Korean Beef/Kim Chee/Potato Salad + 1 fruit drink

Day 2
Meal 1: Special K w/milk
Meal 2: 1 slice cheese
Meal 3: Leftover rice & beef
Meal 4: BBQ pork sandwich + 1/2 smores + 1 glass wine

Day 3
Meal 1: Shredded wheat w/milk
Meal 2: pork and noodle soup
Meal 3: Carrots & Snap peas
Meal 4: Rice & Beef & Broccoli

So by calculating this (rough estimate, I just totaled everything on Fitday, estmiated some qty's and divided by 3) I get the following:

Cal/day = 1000
Carb = 110g
Pro = 60g
Fat = 36g

Using some of the helpful calculators found here, I figured for her TDEE she should be at (for maintenance):

Cal = 1852
Carb = 278
Pro = 93
Fat = 41

Questions:

1. So beyond the fact that some of the food choices are 'eh', I'm wondering how to exactly go about helping her lose body fat?

With her being in a calorie deficit already, I'm not sure what recommendation to make, except maybe to maybe add extra 1 solid meal per day, add some veggies and increase her protein every meal.

2&3. Is this a case of her metabolism being real slow after many years of not eating breakfast and way below maintenance? Is her shortage of carbs causing some problems re: protein sparing and so forth?

Maybe these 3 days aren't representative of her previous several years of eating?

Because just the basic math would tell me she should be losing weight. Maybe I calculated something wrong here?

Sorry for the long post, kinda new to the cutting diet thing and again, any help is greatly appreciated. Oh and any othere insight and tips would be great as well.

 

[sdupdike]

A few quick suggestions. She needs to eat 5 - 6 small meals a day, consisting of protein (lean meats or egg whites), carbs (brown rice, yams, oats), and fat (fish oil caps, olive oil, natural peanut butter). Drink lots of water. She does seem to be eating some veggies, so that's good. She basically needs to eat a lot more, especially since starting a new workout regime. Multivatimins are always a plus.

 

[Jim Ouini]

A few quick suggestions. She needs to eat 5 - 6 small meals a day, consisting of protein (lean meats or egg whites), carbs (brown rice, yams, oats), and fat (fish oil caps, olive oil, natural peanut butter). Drink lots of water. She does seem to be eating some veggies, so that's good. She basically needs to eat a lot more, especially since starting a new workout regime. Multivatimins are always a plus.

Thanks! I'll plan on having her do all of those. I think the other problem is - although the 3 days of diet maybe doesn't reflect it - she told me that sometime she eats what the kids eat.

 

[fmorrow6]

That's a toughy, just cause it's hard to resist. But what's wrong with making the kid's eat what she eats? I have two kids of my own, my hubby, and my kids eat everything I eat. My son is almost four, so he's kind of picky..... If he doesn't like what I'm eating, I make him a grilled cheese, or peanut butter sandwich..... Otherwise, grilled chicken, turkey sandwiches on wheat bread, lean steak, salads, etc... that's what kids should be eating anyway. Tell her to keep the "junk" out of her house. My kids, at first, were asking for the chips and ho-hos, but after a while, they kind of forgot about it. I replaced it with sugar free fudgecicles and what not. Then, on my cheat day, I take them out for ice cream or pizza. I think getting the kids on a healthy diet in the process of changing hers, is a plus all the way around.

 

[Sassy69]

If this is representative of how she eats and has eaten for a long time, she's not goign to lose weight / bodyfat bceause she's starving herself -- her body isn't getting near enough cals to operate on -- it thinks its in a starvation / drought scenario and as a survival tactic, it is slowing her metabolism down to preserve the energy sources that she has available (i.e. bodyfat, muscle). Also if she isn't eatign enough to support the energy her body needs, it may also look to what little muscle she has as an energy source and start burning that as well, thus further reducing the contribution of muscle to the bodyfat ratio (thus makign it higher).

General guidelines:

- 32 g protein in each meal (about a fist-size.. her fist size) of chicken, steak, whatever -- using your expected requirements, you might bump this down and not require protein at every meal... but definitely lots of room to add more carbs. But I'd watch the carbs if she isnt' burning them....
- no meal should just be veggies and still be considered a reasonable "meal"
- don't consider "1 slice of cheese" as a meal
- toss the fruit juice - its nothing but sugar.

Looks like she likes the "ethnic" food -- I am not familiar with somethign other than your typical body buildign / American menu, but I really like the Body for Life book by ill Phillips -- you might have her look at that. He provides diet guidelines and lists of appropriate food and she can determine the equivalent foods to build a menu that translates better into an "eastern" menu that she might be more familiar with.

 

[Jim Ouini]

That's a toughy, just cause it's hard to resist. But what's wrong with making the kid's eat what she eats? I have two kids of my own, my hubby, and my kids eat everything I eat. My son is almost four, so he's kind of picky..... If he doesn't like what I'm eating, I make him a grilled cheese, or peanut butter sandwich..... Otherwise, grilled chicken, turkey sandwiches on wheat bread, lean steak, salads, etc... that's what kids should be eating anyway. Tell her to keep the "junk" out of her house. My kids, at first, were asking for the chips and ho-hos, but after a while, they kind of forgot about it. I replaced it with sugar free fudgecicles and what not. Then, on my cheat day, I take them out for ice cream or pizza. I think getting the kids on a healthy diet in the process of changing hers, is a plus all the way around.

Great tips, thanks. I *think* she's talking mac & cheese or a chicken tender when she's talking about kids' food.

If this is representative of how she eats and has eaten for a long time, she's not goign to lose weight / bodyfat bceause she's starving herself -- her body isn't getting near enough cals to operate on -- it thinks its in a starvation / drought scenario and as a survival tactic, it is slowing her metabolism down to preserve the energy sources that she has available (i.e. bodyfat, muscle). Also if she isn't eatign enough to support the energy her body needs, it may also look to what little muscle she has as an energy source and start burning that as well, thus further reducing the contribution of muscle to the bodyfat ratio (thus makign it higher)..

That's what I was thinking as well, that her metabolism had slowed to a crawl. For years she didn't eat breakfast, she just started when I told her.

Also, I just chatted with her...she tends to eat like this on the weekdays (way below her caloric reqmts), and then 'binge' on the weekends (way over her daily reqmt) when we all get together.

So I would assume her metabolism is slow, and then a huge meal once or twice a week takes a long time to digest (and gets stored as fat?) - analogous to someone eating nothing all day but a big dinner; she just happens to be doing this over a week time period...(I'm thinking).

I guess I was trying to reconcile the calories in<calories out...apparently it's a bit more complicated than that

General guidelines:

- 32 g protein in each meal (about a fist-size.. her fist size) of chicken, steak, whatever -- using your expected requirements, you might bump this down and not require protein at every meal... but definitely lots of room to add more carbs. But I'd watch the carbs if she isnt' burning them....
- no meal should just be veggies and still be considered a reasonable "meal"
- don't consider "1 slice of cheese" as a meal
- toss the fruit juice - its nothing but sugar.

Yep I'm trying to round out her diet with P-C-F every meal if she can. And I've told her to cut the sugary foods.

Looks like she likes the "ethnic" food -- I am not familiar with somethign other than your typical body buildign / American menu, but I really like the Body for Life book by ill Phillips -- you might have her look at that. He provides diet guidelines and lists of appropriate food and she can determine the equivalent foods to build a menu that translates better into an "eastern" menu that she might be more familiar with.

We are Asian so that's the reason ...although we certainly eat our share of Western food (me moreso than anyone else ). I have that book 'Eating for Life' from Phillips so maybe I'll pass that along to her.

Thanks a million for all the help!