Need help making my mother a diet plan

[HELLA SWOLE]

Yup, my mom promised me that if i took the time to design a diet/workout regimen for her that she would actually stick to it. I am descent at dieting/nutrition for myself but that is because i know my body, but i have no experience with nutrition/needs for females. Her stats are:

55yrs old
5'7"
165lbs
22-30%bF im guessing, as i know women are higher, but she is not FAT by any means

I am guessing he LBM is around 110-120 lbs, so I am guessing her daily caloric intake should be around the 1500 range to lose weight??? I may be wayyy off her. She is limited to going to the gym only once per day, so please keep that in mind, she is not a competitor by any means, she just wants to get/stay in shape and look better. I was thinking something like this:

Monday: weights...chest/shoulders/tris
Tuesday: Cardio in the am on an empty stomach at 75 of her MHR for 45 min.-1hr
Wed: weights....legs
Thursday: same as tuesday
Friday: back, and biceps
saturday and sunday: same as tuesday and thursday.

-she may have a day in there where she palys tennis or does an aerobics class with soem weight too.

HOw does this look? Remember she works out already, but is not looking to compete or anything, much less take it to the level that many of us do here.

Here is what i was thinkign as far as diet goes:
Cardio days:
cardio
m#1: eggwhites, 1 tbs of flax or 2tbs natty Peanut butter
m#2: grilled chicken and 1 cup oatmeal
m#3: lean beef/steak and brocolli, maybe 10-15 almonds
m#4: fish (or any other lean protein)/broccoli or asparagus and almonds
m#5: .5-1 cup cottage cheese with splenda

Lifting days:
M#1: eggwhites and 1 cup oatmeal
hit the wieghts
M#2: whey shake (1.5 scoops) with 40-60g dextrose
M#3: lean chicken and brown rice (.5 cups)
M#4: salmon and broccoli
M#5: chicken and almonds and asparagus

How does a diet like this look? You think she coudl get soem descent reesults with that, not ever mixing her fats and carbs in the same meal? I jsut want to help my motehr lose wieght so bad and look good, bc when she is in shape she looks great and has good muscle tone for her age. Also, i dont knwo wmuch about portion sizes for her, so any input on that woudl be greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot in advance!

 

[HELLA SWOLE]

oh yea, any thoguhts on soem lifting routines for a woman (such as # of sets/reps etc) woudl help out a lot as well, thanks! I woudl jsut have her do the same type of lifting as me (with higher reps of course) but i dont work that many muscles all on the same day, so im not real sure, and dont want her to overtrain and get burned out.

 

[Dad]

Pretty good...

Hella,

Your plan looks pretty good, and I'd like to strongly suggest something in addition.

I'd have your mom get a blood test for thyroid function, A1C, and fasting glucose.
It's not uncommon for women in this age group to be slighy hypothyroid (or even more than slightly), and to be flirting with the beginnings of insulin resistance, which could lead to Type II diabetes.

Even with the best of diets and routines, if her thyroid function is off, it's not going to work well, and then she's working hard for little or no results.

Hope this helps...

 

[HELLA SWOLE]

Hella,

Your plan looks pretty good, and I'd like to strongly suggest something in addition.

I'd have your mom get a blood test for thyroid function, A1C, and fasting glucose.
It's not uncommon for women in this age group to be slighy hypothyroid (or even more than slightly), and to be flirting with the beginnings of insulin resistance, which could lead to Type II diabetes.

Even with the best of diets and routines, if her thyroid function is off, it's not going to work well, and then she's working hard for little or no results.

Hope this helps...

Thanks a lot for the advice, I will have her do that in her next check up. If this were the case, would she jsut have to take thyroid meds?? ALso, what is A1C?? THnaks again bud

 

[Dad]

Well...

It's possible she'd try thyroid meds IF her thyroid function was low enough to warrant it. There are several different meds, and different dosage strengths, and this is pretty routine treatment now.

A1C is glycosylated hemoglobin. If red blood cells are exposed to on-going high levels of serum (blood) glucose (sugar), the hemoglobin molecule becomes glcosylated. This may indicate that the cells aren't using glucose because they have become insulin resistant. This is the first in a series of steps that can lead to Type II diabetes. So the A1C test can be a good screen for detecting the beginnings of problems, and hopefully, "heading them off at the pass."

 

[knucklehed]

looks good very good

but i'd dropped the dextrose. post workout . she doesn't need the insulin spike or the pancreatic stress. She just doesn't fit in that catagory in my opinion. stick with complex whole food carb sources. otherwise you have a well thought out plan -nice work
give mom my best. I admire the effort she and you are making.....
KH

 

[HELLA SWOLE]

Thanks for your comment,both of you. But could any of you guys mayybe give me some help with the portion sizes? Like how big of a chicken breast, or how many eggwhites, or cups of oatmeal etc etc..

 

[Dad]

A start...

You might want to shoot for about one gram of protein per pound of bodyweight, spread out over the meals. This assumes that the carbs are going sto stay smoewhat low, and low glycemic, and fats are going to be EFA's (flaxseed oil, etc).

A portion of meat, fish or poultry that is the same size as a deck of cards is about 22 gms of protein.
One scoop from commercially-available protein powders is about 23 gms of protien.
One egg white is 3.5 gms protein, while a whole egg is 7 gms.
Oatmeal is about 20 gms of carb per ounce.

A great source for info like this is a book called the Nutrition Almanac.

Yuo'll probably want to get a food scale to make sure you've got protion sizes right. Once you do it for awhile, you'll be able to sort of judge it by eye without weighing stuff all the time.

 

[HELLA SWOLE]

You might want to shoot for about one gram of protein per pound of bodyweight, spread out over the meals. This assumes that the carbs are going sto stay smoewhat low, and low glycemic, and fats are going to be EFA's (flaxseed oil, etc).

A portion of meat, fish or poultry that is the same size as a deck of cards is about 22 gms of protein.
One scoop from commercially-available protein powders is about 23 gms of protien.
One egg white is 3.5 gms protein, while a whole egg is 7 gms.
Oatmeal is about 20 gms of carb per ounce.

A great source for info like this is a book called the Nutrition Almanac.

Yuo'll probably want to get a food scale to make sure you've got protion sizes right. Once you do it for awhile, you'll be able to sort of judge it by eye without weighing stuff all the time.

Ok cool thanks for the help dad, i really appreciate it.