Advice in regards to a friend.

Hannahp1402

Hi

Not sure how to start but I have a 23 year old friend who is at current 188kg. Not sure what that is in pounds but I expect its not gonna be pretty. He gained a huge amount of weight around six years ago when he moved to an area he didn't know with nothing to do and no friends around and his lifestyle changed from very active to doing nothing but eating and sitting at a computer all day.

I have known him for the last 5 years and he has very slowly gained to this level of weight up until today. Recently I am noticing him start to struggle with normal tasks - he has usually carried off the weight well. He is 6ft 2 and also was at one point a very muscly person. He is starting to avoid walking stairs waiting for other people to pick things up for him , refusing to come shopping with me or anywhere that involves moving (although in major denial about all of this).

He is not really someone who enjoys chocolate,biscuits and crisps and isnt really into ice cream or things like that. He is just inactive and its portion size. Two sandwiches filled with half a pack of ham, or for dinner 6 pieces of chicken and chips.

He has told me his joints are starting to hurt, he is having trouble sleeping. He signed up to this and it came out with 3500 calories, now to me I don't understand why he is being asked to eat more than he is now. What should he actually be eating to lose weight? I dont see a way to help him. Please can someone suggest where he starts? He would prefer if it didn't involve him eating more than he is now - it makes no sense to him at all and he won't follow through with it. Just an idea of what or how or how much he should be eating? Please

thank you

wannakimmy

If he entered his info in correctly and MFP gave him 3500 calories, then that is what he should eat... It may be a deficit and neither one of you realize it. When I first started logging here I was shocked at my caloric intake for a day. Easily 4000-6000 calories without a thought. No wonder I got as big as I did.... Was the 3500 calories what was given for 1lb a week loss or? Either way, if he is ready to make a change, this is a great place to start! Buy a food scale, and weigh and log EVERYTHING you consume. Be honest with yourself and good luck on the journey!

djs2303

414 lbs
29 stone

Firstly, does he want to lose weight? and get healthier? If he doesn't, you cant win. He needs to get into the right frame of mind to be able to change his lifestyle.

potluck965

First of all, he has to put in the work, not you. You can support him, but if he doesn't want to do it, nothing you do will matter.

Secondly, you say that 3500 is more than he is eating now, how do you know that? Has he been logging accurately?

Also, I quickly plugged in his approximate numbers and came up with 3110 calories, to lose 1 pound a week with no workouts, so maybe you need to do the numbers again.

kuolo

If it gave him 3500 to lose weight then this IS less than what he's eating/has eaten to gain the weight, and if he logs accurately and eats that he will lose weight.

Unless he has already been logging and weighing everything already then he doesn't know how much he has been eating, so cannot say this is more than he is already eating.

The numbers don't lie (unless he has a metabolic or other disorder which is very unlikely).

And you can gain/lose weight eating anything, it is all about portion size. I got fat eating nothing but super-healthy ultra-clean food.

ETA: It looks like 3500 is actually his TDEE so you might want to double check the numbers. His BMR comes out around 2950.

MinnieInMaine

That may seem like a ton of food but if he's been gaining weight, he's been eating more than that and just not realizing it.

I ran his numbers on the site below and set him as sedentary with a 20% calorie deficit and it provided a daily goal of 3288 so the MFP numbers aren't that far of. His BMR is 3425. Technically he could go with a higher calorie deficit and probably do ok but I wouldn't advise that without a doctor's approval. He still needs to make sure he's getting enough calories/nutrients to support your body's needs. Plus, a more reasonable calorie deficit is going to be more sustainable in the long run.

http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

I used to say I ate pretty healthy but I snuck in goodies, had a few alcoholic beverages on a regular basis (empty calories that add up quickly) and my portion sizes were out of control. Denial can be a major factor and sometimes we don't even realize we're doing it. He might not be disclosing all of his eating habits to you but honestly, that's his business, not yours. And once he starts accurately portioning out his food and tracking it, trust me, he'll see how much he was overeating and not realizing it.

Good for him for getting started!

ETA - the post above is wrong - a lot of people get BMR and TDEE confused unfortunately. His TDEE at sedentary is actually 4110.

earlnabby

Hi

He is not really someone who enjoys chocolate,biscuits and crisps and isnt really into ice cream or things like that. He is just inactive and its portion size. Two sandwiches filled with half a pack of ham, or for dinner 6 pieces of chicken and chips.

He has told me his joints are starting to hurt, he is having trouble sleeping. He signed up to this and it came out with 3500 calories, now to me I don't understand why he is being asked to eat more than he is now. What should he actually be eating to lose weight? I dont see a way to help him. Please can someone suggest where he starts? He would prefer if it didn't involve him eating more than he is now - it makes no sense to him at all and he won't follow through with it. Just an idea of what or how or how much he should be eating? Please

thank you

I went to a basic metabolic rate (BMR) calculator and came up with 4,021 (along with an RMR of 3,460) so MFP's number appears to be in the correct range.

Regarding the 3500 calories: if he has started eating healthier foods, it WILL be a lot of food, volume wise, to reach 3500 calories. It may be better to gradually change his foods by cutting portions first, before adding healthier foods. Use only 1/4 pack of sandwich meat instead of 1/2, or eat 4 pieces of chicken instead of 6.

I suspect he does a lot of mindless eating, not even really aware of how much he actually eats. Many of us are/were like that and writing down everything, including licking the spoon when cooking and baking, really helped in the awareness department.

Hannahp1402

Hi,

Thank you for your replies. I am aware that it his down to him completely but he finally told me he needs to stop doing this to himself and said the takeaways are making him feel ill now and he just wants to change. The problem is when it comes to food he only see's big and where a normal size portion to him is tiny. He wont even eat a normal sized meal and at this point would probably chuck me under a bus for a takeaway lol

I lived with him for two years and I was buying the food in the house (he had no money) and I could see that he was eating too much but unless he was buying food and hiding the packaging and eating in secret I cant see how it was that much.

I know I sound pushy but I know he's young but I hear how he breathes and stuff and I am scared he is just going to die which I don't even know is possible but I am just always worrying about him and am really just wondering how you do it at that size? I mean its a huge amount of food to eat.

Thanks

Hannah

knra_grl

Just be a supportive friend. If he has signed up on MFP then that is a good start. The best you can do now is to maybe ask him to go for walks with you for a bit of exercise and maybe eat home cooked meals together a couple times per week and make a point of weighing and measuring. If you make something that uses a lot of ingredients maybe ask him if he wants to enter it in the recipes section so he has it for future use. He has to do the work but if you are here also there is no reason you can't team up and do it together. :flowerforyou:

kuolo

That may seem like a ton of food but if he's been gaining weight, he's been eating more than that and just not realizing it.

I ran his numbers on the site below and set him as sedentary with a 20% calorie deficit and it provided a daily goal of 3288 so the MFP numbers aren't that far of. His BMR is 3425. Technically he could go with a higher calorie deficit and probably do ok but I wouldn't advise that without a doctor's approval. He still needs to make sure he's getting enough calories/nutrients to support your body's needs. Plus, a more reasonable calorie deficit is going to be more sustainable in the long run.

http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

I used to say I ate pretty healthy but I snuck in goodies, had a few alcoholic beverages on a regular basis (empty calories that add up quickly) and my portion sizes were out of control. Denial can be a major factor and sometimes we don't even realize we're doing it. He might not be disclosing all of his eating habits to you but honestly, that's his business, not yours. And once he starts accurately portioning out his food and tracking it, trust me, he'll see how much he was overeating and not realizing it.

Good for him for getting started!

ETA - the post above is wrong - a lot of people get BMR and TDEE confused unfortunately. His TDEE at sedentary is actually 4110.

I don't know what calculator you are using but mifflin-st jeor gives the numbers I wrote ie TDEE 3500 for sedentary and BMR 2950 ... No I'm not confusing BMR and TDEE. I think you need to check your numbers.
http://iifym.com/tdee-calculator/

ETA the calculator you used massively overestimated my TDEE so I would be wary!

KhatLady

The problem is when it comes to food he only see's big and where a normal size portion to him is tiny. He wont even eat a normal sized meal and at this point would probably chuck me under a bus for a takeaway lol

If he *needs* a big meal, he can make it a big meal...as long as he doesn't mind healthy foods.

I like big meals. I liked eating until I wanted to pop. When I started trying to lose, one of the first things I did was stop with "seconds." It's hard to tell yourself that you don't need more food, but when you're a mindless eater, you really need to relearn the difference between full enough to puke and no longer hungry. Another thing I did was become addicted to bulky veggies. Salads are freaking awesome for dinner {if you can restrain yourself on the dressing}. I feel like I'm eating that salad for an hour. My jaw is exhausted by the end. Or I make a ton of broccoli or cauliflower {again, watch the "sauces" - cheese, butter, etc will turn a 120calorie bag of frozen broccoli into a 500+ calorie disaster pretty quickly}. That usually makes up like half the volume of my meal. Also, things like broccoli are high in fiber and help you feel full longer.

Another tip is to drink more water. I drink a lot of water over the course of the day, but I make a point of chugging during meals. Most of the day I sip, but with meals I want to make sure I down about 8oz of water during the course of my meal. It helps me feel fuller faster and also makes me stop shoving food in my face for a few seconds at a time. It's a way to stretch out the duration of the meal so I don't feel "cheated" when dinner is gone and there's no seconds coming.

Also, eating several meals a day is very helpful. When I miss a meal {usually lunch} I'm usually ravenous by dinner time and that hunger doesn't really want to fade, even if I allow myself to eat more than I normally would at dinner to make up for skipping lunch. Calorie-wise, it might even out {or more likely, end up way over} but it suddenly becomes harder for my brain to register I'm full if I've been hungry most of the day. It took practice to make myself eat several meals a day. I was never one for breakfast. I'd have lunch if I got around to it, but almost all my calories came between dinner and bed time. Now that I'm used to 3 solid meals a day, I feel much better and my calories are much easier to control since I don't feel the need to have 8000 calories between dinner and dessert.