How to lose weight with parents who buy unhealthy foods?

AddisonWaggoner

Hi guys! Im currently 240 pounds, Im fighting through an eating disorder, but my parents also buy very unhealthy foods, im hoping to be able to lose weight by working out and fighting through my ed, but im not sure how possible its going to be without the health food my body needs. Any tips? Thank you!!

yirara

How old are you? If you're an adult you can buy your own food. If you're a minor you should not be here but instead talk to your gp and therapist. But yeah, overall unhealthy food does not mean weight gain. Weight gain or loss is all about calories. But less healthy food might be less nutritious overall.

ddsb1111

It’s a misconception that healthy food makes you lose weight. I gained weight on healthy food, lost on junk food, it all comes down to whether you’re eating in your calorie goal.

It’s also a misconception that accurately weighing and logging all your calories is obsessive. To the contrary, it’s just a method & tool to get accurate data, nothing obsessive or toxic about it.

That being said, calories should not be confused with nutrition.

Stay in your calories= you control your weight. Eat nutritious food= you feel and operate better.

PAV8888

@ddsb1111 I usually agree with most of what you write, but I think a couple of slight clarifications, especially in a case of known or latent ed may be of use.

Logging Calories CAN be done in a non toxic, non obsessive and overall health promoting way, if the information gathered is used to create, set and promote even keeled, non extreme, appropriately healthy and appropriate for the individual goals and actions.

But the potential pitfalls are there for people (as they are with many other diet interventions) and, in the presence of known or latent ED, they multiply.

Beyond that, unhealthy food is not ideal and it is easy to overeat. But people can gain, lose, or maintain weight eating pretty much anything... just not in "any" quantity!🤷‍♂️

Unfortunately our social dynamics, as a lot of us end up figuring out in our later years, are a most common stressor that leads to excess calories being consumed

AnnPT77

If you're under 18, it's against the rules for you to be here. In that case, you should seek help from your doctor, or a trusted professional at school (school nurse, health teacher, coach, even a guidance counselor who can refer you to other experts).

If you have an ED, the right answer is a specialist medical team. In most countries, there are also non-profit organizations, some of which offer free information online or even in person to help people work through their ED to a healthier state. Look for those.

Working out is great, but losing weight is directly about calorie intake. I got fat - eventually obese - eating plenty of healthy food (too much healthy food, in reality). People have lost weight eating mostly Twinkies and convenience store snack foods, or entirely and only food from McDonald's. (Usually they've done that as a sort of stunt, to demostrate that it's calories that matter, not food choices, when it comes to weight loss.) In those cases, their health markers (like blood tests) improved just from the weight loss, despite eating what people would call unhealthy foods.

In general, highly processed or refined foods aren't as filling as more basic foods (meat, fish, veggies, fruits, whole grains, unsweetened dairy foods, etc.). That's one sense in which eating more of so-called healthy foods may be a bit of a boost for weight loss: It's easier to stick with moderate calories when the foods are filling.

Another factor is energy level: Poor overall nutrition can result in lower energy level, so we rest more and burn fewer calories than we would with good nutrition. But even most so-called "unhealthy foods" contain nutrients.

Issues with feeling full and feeling energetic because of food choices are not insurmountable things, they're just added difficulty. Calorie balance is what matters directly for weight loss.

For sure, there's no reason to eat all superfoods, officially-designated diet foods, organic foods, or only so-called health foods in order to lose weight. Do the best you can to get reasonable calories, good overall nutrition, and reasonable exercise.

The exercise isn't magic, either: For the last dozen years of being overweight/obese, I was working out hard 6 days most weeks, even competing athletically. Exercise doesn't burn as many calories as a lot of people think. In my case, I just ate enough extra calories to wipe that out. It was easy.

One thing we see here often in posts is people finding a way to identify something outside themselves as the reason they can't lose weight: They can't afford a gym, they can't afford health/organic foods, no one taught them how to cook, their family doesn't buy healthy food or tempts them with treats, "Big Food" pushes sugar and fats, etc.

Do things like that maybe make weight loss more difficult? Sure. But unless someone is literally holding us down and pushing food down our gullet, we each have nearly 100% control over how many calories we put in our mouths, chew, and swallow, and how much we move in daily life. That's the bottom line.

I don't intend to be mean in saying this, I intend to be honest. If you're committed to losing weight, I think you can do it, even in your current circumstances. Keep your tactics moderate and manageable. Eat fewer calories until you start seeing slow loss.

Best wishes for success: It's more than worth the effort, and at your current age you can be setting yourself up for many happy, healthy decades ahead. I wish I'd been smarter about it younger, myself.

DiscusTank5

What finally enabled me to lose enough weight (60 pounds this past year) to get to a healthy BMI was a focus on protein and fiber. A food scale really opened my eyes to portion sizes, also.

Good luck! Many people on MFP have succeeded under less-than-ideal conditions such as yours.

springlering62

my mother was morbidly obese, and determine that I would be, too. She made fun of me for being thin, took me to the doctor for being underweight, used to buy vats of protein powder from the barber (I kid you not! This was the very early 70’s to try to fatten me up.)

When I started working with my parents, tons of snacks were available in the kitchen. I was a dummy and ate everything and she’d quietly maintain the supply. The weight crept up.

Any time it appeared I might be losing weight (I learned not to announce that I was trying), she’d up the ante with alllllll my favorites, temptingly spread all over the office kitchen table.

Not saying that’s what your parents are doing but that was my experience.

likewise, it was my fault for eating it recklessly

I started bringing in my own meals (instead of fast food every. single. day) and bringing in an extra serving for my dad, who was tired of fast food three times a day. At least I helped stabilize his severe diabetes a bit, while I was doing that, but she became very jealous and very angry.

family dynamics can be really wierd. They can just be lazy, uninterested, or actively trying to sabotage. Mine were all three. Only you know for sure.

OTOH I had a kid who announced in HS that she was vegetarian and expected me to produce a separate meal for her every night. She didn’t lift a finger to help, other than informing me she wouldn’t eat what I put on the table

Her dad and sibling were not in to that. It was a huge burden on me, since I had a full time job, plus had to taxi kids to after school things. She never once offered to help, nor provided me any guidance. I won’t lie. I was resentful. Angry. Cooking two separate meals a night was crazy and we ended up doing months of nothing (it felt like) but chili and spaghetti. One pot with meat, the other without. I got screamed at about using sugar which apparently contains charred animal bones or something. I “tainted” dishes by mixing up the pots from one night to the next, or dipping a spoon from one pot to the next (sue me, I’d forget).that was the cue for angry tears and recriminations that I didn’t “understand her”. if I made a special effort to do a vegetarian meal from a cookbook, it was “gross” and I hadn’t tried hard enough.

Ask yourself as well, if you’re this person. Demanding on the one hand but not offering to help or plan on the other. Being a mom is multiple full time jobs and catering to someone with special wants adds yet another layer.

You can make very simple, low cal tasty meals in a crockpot or instapot. Maybe offer to cook for your parents several nights a week? Ask them what they’d like?

Ask if you can help plan meals a week in advance, do or assist with the grocery shopping?

My main takeaway as a daughter and later as the mom to a vegetarian was, you can sit back, be a meal and snack punching bag, and take all the garbage you’re handed, or sit up and take some sort of control of the situation.

I was in my .50’s before I figured it out. Don’t wait decades like I did.

H

ddsb1111

PAV8888 Here’s the thing- People are often told that weighing and logging “everything”automatically means they have an eating disorder. For years, intermittent fasting was casually labeled anorexia by a lot of people. For someone genuinely trying to use a healthy method, it can be very validating to hear that they’re not actually doing anything wrong. Both things can be true at the same time. The tool can be helpful, and it can also be abused.

And sure, eating unhealthy food isn’t ideal…especially in large amounts. But turning food into something to fear or moralize is exactly how disordered eating and chronic dieting start. Knowing the basic facts matters, and calorie control is weight control. Ignoring nutrition would have been a missed opportunity, but that point was already made at the end.

What we do not actually know is her age, or where the eating disorder label is coming from. Was she diagnosed by a professional, did her parents put that on her, or did she adopt it herself trying to navigate a house full of unhealthy food. At 240 pounds, with parents who seem to encourage that outcome through their grocery choices, it wouldn’t be surprising for her to feel like she has an ed. If she doesn’t control what food comes into the house, learning to track what is there may be the only healthy option she realistically has right now. We can only speculate on pretty much everything.

springlering62

sadly, @AddisonWaggoner has not been back.

😢