The receptionist at my work is a 60 year old woman who is I'm guess, 300lbs 5''5. She wants to lose weight, but is going about it all wrong. For example, she will have a bowl of cereal for breakfast, a sandwhich for lunch and a banana or sometimes nothing for dinner. Various calculators online show her maintenance calories to be around 2500 per day, but having her try to hit 2000 a day to lose weight seems awfully low. Any input? Also are there any special considerations since she is an older female? The only exercise she does is walking from her car to her desk and around the house.

jason

The receptionist at my work is a 60 year old woman who is I'm guess, 300lbs 5''5. She wants to lose weight, but is going about it all wrong. For example, she will have a bowl of cereal for breakfast, a sandwhich for lunch and a banana or sometimes nothing for dinner. Various calculators online show her maintenance calories to be around 2500 per day, but having her try to hit 2000 a day to lose weight seems awfully low. Any input? Also are there any special considerations since she is an older female? The only exercise she does is walking from her car to her desk and around the house.

jason

Wouldn't a deficit of 500 put her at around 2500 not around 2000. If she is not going to exercise - though I would suggest it, even at 60 you can add years to your life - then she needs to try to just eat clean food every 2 or 3 hours just like you or anyone else would. If she is only eating that much though, even though it isn't healthy, that is a large deficit and she should still be losing weight. Ask her what healthy foods she likes to eat and just help her make up some meals and start her off slow.

Also - something that was good for my grandpa (he lost around 60 or so pounds) was water aerobics - it doesn't cause stress on your joints and she WILL lose weight that way - you can sign up for classes at any gym that has a pool - that will work well until she gets further down in weight and by that point she made be interested in other things like the ellipitical machine and a weight lifting.

Tell her Good Luck!

I don't think there's anything special about an older person vs. younger trying to get in shape, only that 1) it'll take longer and 2) anyone that age and that heavy needs to have a thorough medical workup before attempting any kind of exercise and diet change.

the hardest thing wil probably be getting her to eat enough and to eat well. the same rules about BMR and activity factor would seem to apply here. I got about 2000cal BMR for her, not 2500, on a coupla different calculators.

a banana for dinner is great if you're a possum ;)