Hmmm. How much diet is needed, really?

Ok, so the Daughter and I have a difference of opinion. I think we have a relatively healthy diet and she thinks she's eating too much food. So, here is a general, typical day's meal for a working day in winter for her (when she has to walk to work, walk home for lunch, walk back to work and be on her feet 8 hours a day, and then walk back - a few miles walking per day plus whatever she does at her job):

Breakfast:
1/4 cup (dry measure) of Bob's steel-cut oatmeal
1/3 cup skim milk on the oatmeal
1/8 cup raisins in the oatmeal
3 eggwhites, fried with spices (no fat used)
1 cup hot black tea
1 cup skim milk on the side

My calculations are that this was about 500-ish calories. The Oatmeal, while carby, has a low glycemic index and is high fiber. The raisins add fiber, flavor, and iron to the meal.

Lunch:
1 can Baxters tomato soup (about 175 calories)
1/2 ham sandwich  (1 slice low carb toasted wholemeal bread with a slice of home-baked ham, trimmed of fat, nothing else on it)
1 cup skim milk
1 cup flavored black tea

So, give or take 500 - 600 calories for lunch. The ham is usually cheese or chicken, but we have ham right now.

Supper:
1/2 cup curried chicken breast  served over
1/4 (dry) cup quinoa (cooked in chicken broth)
1/2 to 2/3 cup mixed fresh veg - broccoli/carrots/snow peas/mushrooms, what's available in the house. lightly steamed
Unsweetened herbal tea (cold)

So, 600 to 800 calories for the meal

Evening snack:
Herbal hot tea, no-caffeine
homemade, low carb cookie (almond flour) or similar  (sometimes cheese on crackers, or peanutbutter on crackers)

For a daily total on the top end of 1800-2000 calories.  Given all the walking, in the cold weather, and then working on her feet all day this does not seem like an excesive amount of food to feed her.  She's wanting to have just eggs and tea for breakfast, just soup for lunch, and "something lighter" for supper.  It's really hard to do something nutritionally balanced when you start pulling the calories down.  We do have the low-cal meal replacement in the house, so perhaps she'd want to switch that out for supper. (I'd hate to send her off to work without a good breakfast, and she is supposed to eat something at least every four to five hours, so no skipping a meal.)
 
Ideas?

That's an incredibly balanced diet!

For lunch, if she just wanted soup it should be something with lean protein in it... Lentils or beans, or shredded chicken etc. And a long acting carb source (the legumes are both, so rather ideal).

Does she eat many greens? That could also be a way to add bulk to what's being eaten and feel more full (and add essential vitamins) without adding more calories. Replacing bread with lettuce or collard greens to make a wrap is another calorie reducing method that adds vitamins & fiber.

I could see doing a lighter dinner, I usually had to as well. A big breakfast, mid size lunch, and small dinner is actually one of the healthier ways to eat. I know you have said she's struggled with weight due to a number of factors, so being aware of the calories you're having is important but don't underestimate the importance of healthy fats as well (and to me this means the naturally occurring ones like olive oil, avocado, egg yolks and so on). They add calories, but are key to so many body functions and absorbing vitamins, and provide energy. If she's going to cut calories, make it from dinner and ensure lunch is high protein. A lot of the research that demonised fats was based on bad science, and a Mediterranean diet has continued to perform very well in clinical trials for heart health and weight loss.



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Yeah, I was leaning that way - supper would be the meal to exchange with the diet shake.  I'll suggest that to her. I would hate to see her go off to work on just a diet shake, and run out of energy mid-morning.

I work very hard to try to come up with nutritious and balanced, but varied, meals, with some required elements involved. We both try to keep carbs at no more than about 50 per meal. And she does have to have something every 4-6 hours. (Total fasting is a no-no.) Unfortunately, no, she doesn't care for greens at all. I get salads into her in the summer because they are cold when it's hot out. I load them up with other veg (onions, mushrooms, olives, etc.) and chopped cheese, and she'll eat them then. I also slip them into fajita wraps and that sort of thing, where the stronger flavors cover the bitter. She won't eat them in winter. Says the leaves taste bitter. (Which I have to admit, they do - the mixed greens here do tend to be more bitter in winter. Must be the source of the greens, that?) Beans (other than green beans, which she loves), cruciferous veg, and most fruit are "out" as well. Like me, she can't digest them properly. (Same with egg yolks.) I do add some fruits to baked goods - applesauce into spice cake, etc., to keep the fruit intake up. And we do have zucchini, squash, or carrot vegetti (spiralized veg) with meat sauce now and then, rather than pasta.

The other night I made a big vat of chicken soup for supper  - I  opened up one of my jars of canned chicken in broth and added it to half a braised onion and a good dollop of garlic, cut up a carrot in there, and let it gurgle for an hour. Then threw in a handful of Polish egg noodles. Finished it with fresh basil and thyme, and cilantro. There were no complaints and quite a lot of snarfing noises from her end of the table over that one.  That may end up being a lunch soup instead of supper. I try to do the tomato soup thing to get another veg into her. But if she's not going to like have half a cheese toastie or half a meat sandwich with it, it's not much of a meal.

If I'm cooking chicken or fish normally I cook them in olive oil, and if I do a stir-fry I also use olive oil. I also do use real butter, and always have, in my baked goods and on toast, and a bit on any veg served (to make it more digestable). My grandparents made it into their 80s on a whole eggs and real butter kind of diet, and my parents made it into their late 90s on the same. So....   

Thanks for the ideas.

It's hard when there's the factor of can't eat or won't eat. Does she like pureed soups at all? A curried pumpkin/squash or carrot soup with coconut cream makes me happy. I have gastroparesis and its been flaring so veg juices and purees are currently my friends. Trying to have a healthy relationship with food is honestly the most important thing I think, and it sounds like you work hard to keep things varied and as healthy as possible!

Glad to hear you use plenty of healthy fats, my mom is still afraid of butter. my grandma is almost 95 and never bought into the fat free craze.

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To carry on what Margo said, a lovely pureed soup, if she likes them, is roasted red pepper. I hate tomato soup and this is just delish.

You can buy jars of roasted peppers if you want and it gets its creaminess from 1 potato in the entire soup. I don't add the sugar as it gets too sweet.


http://www.foodnetwork.co.uk/recipes/creamy-red-pepper-soup.html?utm_source=foodnetwork.com&utm_medium=domestic

To carry on what Margo said, a lovely pureed soup, if she likes them, is roasted red pepper. I hate tomato soup and this is just delish.

You can buy jars of roasted peppers if you want and it gets its creaminess from 1 potato in the entire soup. I don't add the sugar as it gets too sweet.


http://www.foodnetwork.co.uk/recipes/creamy-red-pepper-soup.html?utm_source=foodnetwork.com&utm_medium=domestic

Oh, cool! She likes roasted peppers so I'll try this one.

Does your daughter have any health issues that you are concerned about?  Is she trying to lose weight?  Does she need to lose weight?  Without question, you are a wonderful mother.  But she’s an adult and if she wants to have less calories - let her.  Unless you are fearful that she’s going to be too thin, she’s likely okay to have less.  I think the recommend calorie intake for women is 1500 a day.

Calorie requirements are actually quite individual based on activity levels and current weight/BMI. This article gives a pretty easy formula for calculating it.

https://diabetesstrong.com/how-to-find-your-daily-calorie-need/


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Does your daughter have any health issues that you are concerned about?  Is she trying to lose weight?  Does she need to lose weight?  Without question, you are a wonderful mother.  But she’s an adult and if she wants to have less calories - let her.  Unless you are fearful that she’s going to be too thin, she’s likely okay to have less.  I think the recommend calorie intake for women is 1500 a day.

Yes, that I won't go into here for privacy reasons.  And yes, she's an adult and can and does eat what she wants, but I do play the Greek Chorus. (It's not like I can shove it down her throat anyway! She's stronger than me!)  Then again, if I'm doing all the cooking, it does get challenging sometimes.

Ah, yes, that does change things a bit.   

Yep.

Well, for my 02 pence, which you may hate, I think that if there are medical issues at play, then appropriate diets and calorie counts should be under the care of doctors and dieticians.   

As someone who now has disordered eating and major metabolic issues thanks to 'diet culture' these kind of conversations make me weep.  I recently spent 10 months under the care of an NHS dietician and whilst I've made huge leaps and bounds in terms of things,  it's still a struggle every day with disordered and binge eating and food addiction. Slowly getting better though.  Whilst I do know there are definitely reasons to lose weight for medical issues (which I think should be under the care of doctors and dieticians), I will say, I'm sure your daughter, I'm sure is beautiful inside and out, whatever size she is or thinks she needs to be. 

Thank you for your post.  I agree with the docs who recommended the weight loss for medical reasons. Otherwise, it's out of my hands. Other than to do as I have been doing. My task now is supporting her health in the best ways I can.

(She saw dieticians  in the USA and they were completely useless. She knew more about her nutrition than they did, and they were completely unfamilar with her medical issues, which she had to explain to them. They still didn't "get it" as to what it all involves. She has no interest in the NHS, and there's really nothing the NHS doctors can do. Her issues are physical, not psychological.)

Ok, re-reading it, that last post may have come across as a little bit harsh. I apologise if it did so. PB I am happy to hear you are making progress with your eating/metabolic issues. And I appreciate your sharing your story.

As to the Daughter, she made so much progress bringing her weight down, and is so happy with the result, that she wants to go "full steam ahead" to get to the target weight. She looks better now than she has in 20 years.

She looks better now than she has in 20 years

What age is she, Nan? 
I'd been under an assumption that she was like 25-ish, but based on your quote above, she is quite a bit older?