Question:
shes my best friend, she thinks shes fat, shes on a 15 grams of fat a day diet.
shes 5'5 and weighs about 117.i tell her shes skinny,but she doesnt beleive me. i dont know what i can do! i try giving her food and i tell her that u need 50-100 grams of fat a day normally and that if she wants to diet she should eat more than 15 grams a day. (at first she was at 7 grams but i persuaded her to move up) any advise? ANY advise is apreciated. thanks
sara
Only hting i could think of is tell her parents or teachers at school to get her help
Blessings,
Shawn
HI Sara, she's lucky to have you as a friend.
Does she know about the functions that fat fulfils in our bodies?
If she wants good skin and hair, she'll need fat in her diet: without it she'll get dry skin and flaky patches, and dry hair.
If she wants her nervous system to work properly she'll need fat to form the myelin sheath that surrounds the nerve fibres (it's the breakdown of this which causes MS - not suggesting however that MS is caused by the absence of fat in the diet, but you can see how important your myelin sheath is).
If she wants to think properly she'll need fat as the brain is 2/3 rds fat - here's a link http://www.fi.edu/brain/fats.htm
And I found this one about the general dangers of too little fat in the diet http://www.msu.edu/~healthed/fact/08.htm
Good luck with this Sara,
Sharonx
Interesting links, Sharon.
Also, it's worth mentioning that while everyone is obsessed with avoiding fat, unsaturated fat is good for you. It's the saturated fat we need to avoid.
She should get a BMI check done if she thinks she is fat. http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/bmi/calc-bmi.htm for an online one, but if she can get someone to use the calipers on her then that is better.
Edit: on second thoughts, not sure she should use that online BMI. It reads her as 19.5 which is the bottom end of 'normal' so she might be tempted to do stuff to push her BMI down and end up 'underweight'. depends how you think she will react to finding out she is 'normal'.
sorry i havent been able to reply i was grouinded from the computer. thank you everyone. she already took her bmi and i think she was average. but of course she thinks she did it wrong and she still beleives shes fat. shes even starting to look too skinny and thats only when she lost 3 pounds. (shes at about 115 now i think).
she wants to get down to 105.
i told my parents and her mom already knows shes dieting...
There can sometimes be deeper set hidden factors to feeling overweight when you're not.
Sometimes trying to control weight can be a substitute for something else in your life which you dont feel in control of, so controlling weight feels good as you feel in control of it, but realistically it is just making it harder to get to the true problem as your mind can become fixated with food control. Plus when you are not eating healthily your mind and emotional state become increasingly unbalanced and therefore it seems easier to not eat rather than deal with your emotions, because obviously your energy levels decrease and therefore you dont feel like eating. Physical activity can obviously increase apetite, but if she is determined to lose more weight that can possibly be leading down the wrong path.
She could really do with communicating with her parents, a teacher, or a counsellor about how she is feeling.
As the longer she keeps avoiding her real feelings, the less connected she will be to what the truth is underneath the food control.
She may not feel there is anything wrong. But just for her to be able to communicate with a supportive older person about her initial weight worry, can be a blessing in disguise.
Keep us all informed of any progress.
Thank goodness she has a true friend like you to look out for her.
PEACE
SunYveMoon
it is such a difficult problem to help with, especially when caring friends look upon the situation with their own logical reasoning and the mind of the intense dieter is some placee else.
having been through it all myself and for years i knwo that no matter what anyone tells you, and even when you sit down, understand it, accept what they say, you still cannot apply it to yourself.
I would never in my worst moments have encourage another person to do the same, I have never had anything against fat on another person, but have certainly had issues with it when it is on my own body...even knwoing this is wrong.
And i can't really say why..i can come up with plenty of resons for my mind set and plenty of excuses, but i also knwo that until someone is ready to make a change they will not.
Despite that, if i see someone doing that i would want to stop them.
it is hard because the mind plays tricks..even if you are currently fit, well and of the right weight..my mind still shows me the same things but I have learned to react differently.
But at one time i would be convicned...now i will have bad moments but soon come back to knowing I am wrong.
For example, years ago i would diet excessively, i would be way too thin, i would have an ideal weight in mind, say seven stone, now given that my body would prefer to be 7.5-8stone this requires a degree of effort to remain there..and once you are on the road of starving your metabolic rate is lowered anyway, your fluid levels mess about and fluctuations are inevitable..so the minute you eat something you fast put on weight. So the next thing i would do is try and keepa buffer zone, be lighter than needed to give room for a mistake of eating and the gain of a few pounds.
then that buffer zone gets bigger because you are so paranoid about leaving the weight ideal you place on yourself..so ultimately your ideal weight in your own estmiation is ridiculous.
I have discovered my ability to see myself accurately in the mirror is governed by my mood at the time, if i haven;t eaten altely, am happy i may see that i look ok, am slim etc and see what others may see.
if i am upset or have just eaten I see myself fat..i see it everywhere and I am in hell, i feel like never eating and resorting to all sorts of methods to sort it out. for example, speed, thropwing up food, not eating..anything which is totally mad.
Well...today i don't do anything extreme and have a small belly, eat lots of food most of the time and enjoy it...sometimes the demons bother me, but i alwys remeber that i have bettre things to do.
i still get the donut dream!! it began years ago, the first time I freamed vividly that i ate many donuts, i woke up in a cold sweat full of horror, i felt guilty, bad, looked in the mirror and saw someone huge and ran to the loo and tried to throw it all up...nothing came apart from bile and blood.
Can you see how mad and dangerous this whole dieting thing can become?
Your friend may not be there yet but is on the slipprey slope, she is already more comfortable to be in irational thinking mode than the thinking we'd like her to have..if doesn't take long to go from there to the next stage..and when you get there is is hard to come back.
i still have the donut dream and exactly the same feelings as I once did, but i also have self esteem and know how to manage..I count to ten etc and go back to sleep.
Your friend may or may not be ready to accept change is needed, but she needs to have some ideas available so she can take some help.
hal
shes 5'5 and weighs about 117.i tell her shes skinny,but she doesnt beleive me. i dont know what i can do! i try giving her food and i tell her that u need 50-100 grams of fat a day normally and that if she wants to diet she should eat more than 15 grams a day. (at first she was at 7 grams but i persuaded her to move up) any advise? ANY advise is apreciated. thanks
sara
Answers:
Only hting i could think of is tell her parents or teachers at school to get her help
Blessings,
Shawn
Answers:
HI Sara, she's lucky to have you as a friend.
Does she know about the functions that fat fulfils in our bodies?
If she wants good skin and hair, she'll need fat in her diet: without it she'll get dry skin and flaky patches, and dry hair.
If she wants her nervous system to work properly she'll need fat to form the myelin sheath that surrounds the nerve fibres (it's the breakdown of this which causes MS - not suggesting however that MS is caused by the absence of fat in the diet, but you can see how important your myelin sheath is).
If she wants to think properly she'll need fat as the brain is 2/3 rds fat - here's a link http://www.fi.edu/brain/fats.htm
And I found this one about the general dangers of too little fat in the diet http://www.msu.edu/~healthed/fact/08.htm
Good luck with this Sara,
Sharonx
Answers:
Interesting links, Sharon.
Also, it's worth mentioning that while everyone is obsessed with avoiding fat, unsaturated fat is good for you. It's the saturated fat we need to avoid.
She should get a BMI check done if she thinks she is fat. http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/bmi/calc-bmi.htm for an online one, but if she can get someone to use the calipers on her then that is better.
Edit: on second thoughts, not sure she should use that online BMI. It reads her as 19.5 which is the bottom end of 'normal' so she might be tempted to do stuff to push her BMI down and end up 'underweight'. depends how you think she will react to finding out she is 'normal'.
Answers:
sorry i havent been able to reply i was grouinded from the computer. thank you everyone. she already took her bmi and i think she was average. but of course she thinks she did it wrong and she still beleives shes fat. shes even starting to look too skinny and thats only when she lost 3 pounds. (shes at about 115 now i think).
she wants to get down to 105.
i told my parents and her mom already knows shes dieting...
Answers:
There can sometimes be deeper set hidden factors to feeling overweight when you're not.
Sometimes trying to control weight can be a substitute for something else in your life which you dont feel in control of, so controlling weight feels good as you feel in control of it, but realistically it is just making it harder to get to the true problem as your mind can become fixated with food control. Plus when you are not eating healthily your mind and emotional state become increasingly unbalanced and therefore it seems easier to not eat rather than deal with your emotions, because obviously your energy levels decrease and therefore you dont feel like eating. Physical activity can obviously increase apetite, but if she is determined to lose more weight that can possibly be leading down the wrong path.
She could really do with communicating with her parents, a teacher, or a counsellor about how she is feeling.
As the longer she keeps avoiding her real feelings, the less connected she will be to what the truth is underneath the food control.
She may not feel there is anything wrong. But just for her to be able to communicate with a supportive older person about her initial weight worry, can be a blessing in disguise.
Keep us all informed of any progress.
Thank goodness she has a true friend like you to look out for her.
PEACE
SunYveMoon
Answers:
it is such a difficult problem to help with, especially when caring friends look upon the situation with their own logical reasoning and the mind of the intense dieter is some placee else.
having been through it all myself and for years i knwo that no matter what anyone tells you, and even when you sit down, understand it, accept what they say, you still cannot apply it to yourself.
I would never in my worst moments have encourage another person to do the same, I have never had anything against fat on another person, but have certainly had issues with it when it is on my own body...even knwoing this is wrong.
And i can't really say why..i can come up with plenty of resons for my mind set and plenty of excuses, but i also knwo that until someone is ready to make a change they will not.
Despite that, if i see someone doing that i would want to stop them.
it is hard because the mind plays tricks..even if you are currently fit, well and of the right weight..my mind still shows me the same things but I have learned to react differently.
But at one time i would be convicned...now i will have bad moments but soon come back to knowing I am wrong.
For example, years ago i would diet excessively, i would be way too thin, i would have an ideal weight in mind, say seven stone, now given that my body would prefer to be 7.5-8stone this requires a degree of effort to remain there..and once you are on the road of starving your metabolic rate is lowered anyway, your fluid levels mess about and fluctuations are inevitable..so the minute you eat something you fast put on weight. So the next thing i would do is try and keepa buffer zone, be lighter than needed to give room for a mistake of eating and the gain of a few pounds.
then that buffer zone gets bigger because you are so paranoid about leaving the weight ideal you place on yourself..so ultimately your ideal weight in your own estmiation is ridiculous.
I have discovered my ability to see myself accurately in the mirror is governed by my mood at the time, if i haven;t eaten altely, am happy i may see that i look ok, am slim etc and see what others may see.
if i am upset or have just eaten I see myself fat..i see it everywhere and I am in hell, i feel like never eating and resorting to all sorts of methods to sort it out. for example, speed, thropwing up food, not eating..anything which is totally mad.
Well...today i don't do anything extreme and have a small belly, eat lots of food most of the time and enjoy it...sometimes the demons bother me, but i alwys remeber that i have bettre things to do.
i still get the donut dream!! it began years ago, the first time I freamed vividly that i ate many donuts, i woke up in a cold sweat full of horror, i felt guilty, bad, looked in the mirror and saw someone huge and ran to the loo and tried to throw it all up...nothing came apart from bile and blood.
Can you see how mad and dangerous this whole dieting thing can become?
Your friend may not be there yet but is on the slipprey slope, she is already more comfortable to be in irational thinking mode than the thinking we'd like her to have..if doesn't take long to go from there to the next stage..and when you get there is is hard to come back.
i still have the donut dream and exactly the same feelings as I once did, but i also have self esteem and know how to manage..I count to ten etc and go back to sleep.
Your friend may or may not be ready to accept change is needed, but she needs to have some ideas available so she can take some help.
hal
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