Help Please

[JoAnnPA]

Hello:

I have been reading the forum and it seems like there are some very knowledgeable people around here. I have a problem I was hoping to get some advice on. I have a 15 year old daughter who is battling a weight problem. She is desperate to lose. I feel so sad for her b/c she is uncomfortable with herself, with transfers over to her personality and happiness...and I hate to see her weight effecting her like this.

Over a year ago, she lost 30-40 lbs following weight watcher's point system, ,and the more and more I educate myself, the more and more I am beginning to think that she really killed her metabolism with the amount of weight she lost and calories she cut (not sure how much). Why do I think this? She has been killing herself by eating good and doing tons of aerobic exercise. I recently had her start lifting some weights with compound exercises to see if we can't speed her metabolism back up. For your reference, she is only 15 again, 5'2, and 156 lbs. She is very dedicated and willing to try anything. When she started gaining all this weight back, I took her to all kinds of doctors to find out if something was wrong with her. I mean it was not like she was being lazy. She was not eating a lot, and exercising her butt off, yet still packing on the pounds. One doctor actually told her that some people are meant to be fat, and she might have to learn to live with it. He told her that "look, when I was young I wanted to sing in the opera, but my voice was no good, so I slowly learned that I had to accept this." Well I am not willing to accept that she is doomed to be fat.

On an average day, this is what she might eat:

Breakfast:
1C Kashi cereal
1/2C skim milk

Snack:
1 sugar free pudding cup

Lunch:
1C Kashi cereal
1/2C skim milk
1 nectarine

Dinner:
4.5oz. grilled chicken breast
2/3 cup brown rice
assorted grilled veggies (approx. 1 cup)

Snack:
Iced coffee with splenda and cream (120 calories)

Snack before bed:
1 sliced honeydew
1 peach
1/2 cup of grapes

I am guessing that we should up her protein intake. However, I am not sure what to do about her calories. Should we start upping them slowly to see if we can get her metabolism to speed back up.....the damage that I think she has done to her metabolism is where I think she needs help, and I don't know how to fix it.

In terms of exercise, she does a pilates abdominal workout everyday for 10 minutes. She does 3 days per week of a weight routine that friend of mine wrote for her. She also does 30-45 minutes of that new dance/exercise game, dance dance revolution five times per week. It says it is equivalent to jogging 2-3 miles.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I am ready to throw out the docs and turn to some knowledgeable trainers to help.

Thanks in advance!

[Ogedei]

Can we see her resistance training routine?

I would also suggest tracking on www.fitday.com to get a good reading on her actual caloric intake and macro nutrient breakdown.

And of course I would be remiss if I didn't say....

EAT MORE VEGGIES! As far as I can tell from that she is only eating about 1 cup a day?

What kind of Kashi cereal is it?

[JoAnnPA]

I am not sure what the name of the kashi is, I will get it from her today.

The resistance routine is a full-body routine 3 times per week of two routines, like an A and a B

A includes:
Squats
Lunges
Assisted Pullups
Military Press

B includes:
Deadlifts (should she be doing these at such a young age?)
Rows
Bench Press (flat)

Any advice on this would be great too. However, and I could be wrong, but I think the number one thing is trying to speed her metabolism back up. She is always tired, and I don't think she is eating many calories at all and still gaining weight which tells me her metabolism is really sluggish!

Thanks again.

[Ogedei]

Certainly a proper diet coupled with an effective excercise routine is going to be good for her.

I am unsure about the specifics of resistance training on youths (ie your deadlift question). I would think if proper form is followed they shouldn't be bad though.

Quickly looking at her diet I don't think it's probably the worse ever, but it could certainly be better with more protein and more veggies.

I would def open an account on www.fitday.com (free) and see what her daily intake might be. If you do a search for the Harris benedict formula you can use it to get a ballpark idea of what her caloric needs might be.

Og.

[JoAnnPA]

I will look into fitday for sure....you are the second person to recommend it. If I find that she should be eating 2000 calories and she is only eating 1000 now, what should be done?

[Ogedei]

Another source of info that may be handy to some degree is the forums over at oxygen.com. They are a women's based fitness magazine and forum.

It is important to realize that the forumlas will only give you estimates and starting points. So if you come up with 2000 calories as what she needs to maintain her weight I would adjust her diet accordingly and track her weight. Either once a week at the same time or perhaps an average of a week. Keep her here for a few weeks and get a weight trend.

If her weight goes up then drop the calories 250 or so and track for a few more weeks. When you get a place where her she dosen't gain and dosen't lose you should have a pretty decent idea of her starting point. Also eating healthy at around maintenance while working out steady for a little while should stoke her metabolism up a bit.

Once you have this determined you can start looking at lowering her caloric intake slowly.

[JoAnnPA]

Hmm, I went to oxygen.com and did not see forums.....do you have a specific link?

Also, I guess my biggest fear is that her metabolism has slowed to the point where adding calories to speed it up will only make her gain more fat. This stuff is so hard!

[Ogedei]

My bad.

http://www.oxygenmag.net/forumdisplay.php?f=1

Eating well and enough and working out isn't going to be a bad thing.

[JoAnnPA]

Thanks very much for your advice and resources. If anyone else has anything else to add, I am all ears!

[OldGuy]

http://www.caloriecontrol.org/calcalcs.html

You can try this to get an estimate of the calories needed. Remember it's only an estimate. Adjust slowly and see what the results are, adjust again and so on and so on.

[Jimbo]

Originally Posted by JoAnnPA

I will look into fitday for sure....you are the second person to recommend it. If I find that she should be eating 2000 calories and she is only eating 1000 now, what should be done?

I highly recommend fitday. I just started using it the last couple of weeks and already I see problems with my diet that I never realized before. Something about seeing the actual macro-break down of the food you eat really helps. I also realized that my calorie intake yo-yos way too much. Meaning...I'm not as in control of my diet as I need to be.

Account is free. Takes only a few minutes every day. Try it a few weeks. I'm benefiting from it because...if I'm gonna put it in my mouth..I have to enter it on fitday...and I know what it will do to that day's charts on there. It becomes sort of a compass.

Anyway...I recommend it. Good luck!

[RobLL]

NROL discusses possibility of mussed up metabolism from under eating. As well as almost no vegetables I see almost no fat in this diet. Two books which to my mind have the best science behind them are New Rules of Lifting, Eat, Drink and be Healthy by Willett. The later initiated my good bye to obesity, and the former into a healthier way of exercise. Rob

ps. Look at the Adams diet, also on this site

[Johnka]

Thanks for the sincere post, and thanks for taking the time to provide us with all of the necessary details!

This is certainly a puzzle. While your daughter could certainly make some improvements here and there, overall it appears that she has a better than average diet, and a better than average fitness regimine for a person of her age.

The whole "learn to live with it" advice from her doctor is total crap, though. With some work, she can make significant changes.

It sounds like you're on to something regarding her metabolism. It would be great to hear some advice for your daughter from John Berardi and/ or Cassandra Forsythe, since they both have extensive knowledge with metabolism/ body composition issues.

It's still hard to believe that metabolism is entirely to blame, here. If that menu you provided is accurate, then she can't be eating much more than 1000 calories per day. With her height, weight, and activity level, she needs 2000+ calories just to maintain her weight. These numbers will certainly fluctuate due to other variables, but when a person is eating approximately half of what they need to maintain weight, and their weight isn't changing, then something is definitely awry.

Although there is some room for improvement in her diet, it looks pretty good, as far as modern teenagers are concerned. Between the milk and the chicken, she's getting about 25%-30% of her daily calorie intake from protein, which isn't bad. She could definitely be eating more veggies, but I like the fruit in her diet.

One possible explanation is that she has a severe case of metabolic syndrome, where chronically high insulin levels cause her to store fat. Perhaps you could try replacing the calories in milk and cereal with protein and veggies. I know that's not a fun proposition for a teenager, but it's worth a try.

Still, though, even the most insulin resistant person on earth would lose sigificant weight if their calorie intake was half of what they were expending. Is there a possibility that she is binging on snacks while she's at school? Maybe she's drinking a lot of liquid calories (sodas, or even juices)? That's the only thing I can think of to explain this discrepancy. If this is the case, then perhaps letting her know that empty calories can add up, and encouraging her to eat more healful foods during her real meals could go a long way.

Does she like eggs/omelets? She could definitely use more fat in her diet, and if she had an omelet with about four eggwhites and one whole egg, together with some lean ham and sauteed veggies, this would provide a very filling breakfast and help curve the temptation to splurge later in the day.

[Ogedei]

Another question if I may..

How much has she gained back and over what time period?

After reading Johnka's and re-reading mine, I worded my diet opinion wrong. Really what I meant was it was decent but had room for improvement, after re-reading it I think it came across as I though her diet was totally bad.

[JoAnnPA]

Wow, thanks for all the great replies guys. It is summertime now so she is out of school and she is def. not cheating. She is so focused on losing this fat, if it is the last thing she ever does!

She actually just started the lifting program recently, so I doubt that has had much of an impact on her body.

She gained the 30-40 lbs back over the course of a year, but it has been steady. The doctors did tons of blood work on her and she got a clean bill of health, which leads me to believe that her metabolism just got so screwed up.

I think I am going to have her start working more calories back into her diet overtime and monitor her weight closely.... see if that won't do anything.

[tonymcclellan]

This is what I come up with according to the Benedict formula:

BMR 1548.69
Maintenance Cutting Bulking
Sedentary 1858.43 1608.43 2358.43
Light Active 2129.45 1879.45 2629.45
Moderately Active 2400.47 2150.47 2900.47
Very Active 2671.49 2421.49 3171.49
Extra Active 2942.51 2692.51 3442.51

Ive included the different lifestyles because you would know it better than me. The important thing IMO is the BMR at 1550 kcals. If she is eating only 1000 or less, than she is too far below this. I would quickly input all that food in her diet into fitday.com like mentioned and see what it comes up with.

Like mentioned also, she needs to be eating more veggies and proteins. It sounds like you are seriously concerned and willing to help, one of the books I would recommend is Dr. John Berardi's book "Gourmet Nutrition" which is full of excellent food selections and how to cook them.

As far as deadlifts for her, I might hold off on them and focus on weightless or extreme light lifting for the first two weeks or so to help strengthen her joints and ligaments. If she is new to weights, than her body needs a nice and easy approach. While the routine is decent, I think slow and steady is the way to go, especially if she is not getting the proper nutrition.

I cant explain the weight gain. Usually someone loses 40-50 pounds the wrong way and when they start to "eat" again, it comes back on because they've been starving the body. I also wanna know how much weight and in what amount of time...


*I just realized this post is from Aug...*

[andrew_plamondon]

When I began looking at how I ate, I realised I was grossly undereating : I was lazy and didn't make a lunch to bring to school, I would wake up just in time to get dressed and take the bus and I'd eat a LARGE dinner (2 huge plates of the main meal + a dessert which usually was 1 or 2 bowls of muesli, I'm guessing I ate around 1600 cals at that meal alone, which was enough to maintain).
I was still skinny fat though and wanted to cut a little bit of fat and before getting on a diet, I ate 3000 clean cals a day and I was STUFFED and took a lot of water weight. After the short cut, I upped the cals slowly, around 200 cals per 1-2 weeks and now my maintenant is around 2500-2700 cals after years of bad eating.