My sister and mother-Diet help please

Hey hows it going? My sister and my mother are trying to lose weight. My sister is getting married and they both want to lose as much weight as they can. They both have been trying to lose weight for a while but have been losing the battle. My sister is on the weight watcher and supposedly have been seeing ok gains but very slow. Neither one of them works out but they both are trying to get into it at there houses. They have a couple of weights there, NOthing crazy I told them to send me there weight and height and what and when they eat. Can you please help them out. This is what they said:

Sister-
5'2 at 175lbs
each day is different a typical day will be

9-9:30 breakfast whole wheat w/ egg wht or whole wheat bagel or cream of wheat

1-2 lunch usually a weaight wathchers different porportioned meals

6-7 dinner steak or chicken (no skin) potatoes or rice or sometimes corn flakes

My sister says she walk for about an hour a day 5x a week.
She does 50-100 crunches a day 5x a week.
My sister said she is willing to take some over the counter supplements. So if you can suggest some that would be great.

Mother
5'0 144lbs
I have coffee at 5:45 with soy milk. I eat breakfast
(cereal and soymilk w/ half a banana, sometimes a cup of black tea) at 9
am, lunch (try to stay away from fried foods and store bought
sandwiches) around 1pm, dinner between 7:30 and 9 pm. Remeber I don't
get home from work until 7 so I can't eat earlier. I get up at 5:15am
for work.
She said she can start walking on lunch or after work.
My mother is active on the weekends playing paddleball, biking or hiking.

Thank you for your help!

welcome Essy!

First of all, if you just look around the boards the same advice will apply to basically everyone trying to lose weight. but here it is for you

Eat frequent meals for metabolism purpose, every 3 hours, if it's a problem at work you have to suck it up and bring food!!he he.

you need protein at every meal. for protein you can use cottage cheese, chicken, whey protein shakes, lean beef, eggs and egg whites, fish... *no one said dieting meant variety! I personally drink a lot of shakes, at 5-6 meals a day, at least 2 of mine are shakes.

IF you are active your going to need complex carbs, but not too many, Id go for under 100gs a day, some girls may disagree with me.
dont eat complex carbs before bed or late at night, complex carbs are sweet potatoes, yams, oatmeal (the real kind), and brown rice. I dont eat bread while dieting but if you do, brown bread is complex, white isn't. complex just means it takes the body longer to digest... so you have steady energy, and stable insulin levels.

low fat as always - EXCEPT... flax or udo's oil. they are called EFA's (essentail fatty acids)........ I have 1 -2 tbsp of flax oil / day,. usually at night in my bedtime shake, they regulate metabolism, and therefore aid in fat loss, (plus a bunch of other good things) dont be afraid of them!!

I dont eat diary when dieting either, diary bloats me and is hard to digest. The only dairy I eat is cottage cheese and no more than one container a day.

Typical day for me looks like this: am cardio (empty stomach), post workout shake, one hour later half potatoe with half container of cottage cheese (3o g's protein), then one hour later weight train, post workout shake with dextrose, then one hour later chicken and green veggies, or maybe fish, then another shake with my EFA's.

dont be overwhelmed!! just take small steps and drink lOTS of water, 1-2 L's a day, and take a multi vitamin
this combined with SWEATY cardio will do the trick .. but its tough and dont expect quick results cuz IT WONT happen!!!

GOOD luck

Prana's advice is excellent.

The one thing that's jumping out at me in both of their diets is the amount of simple carbs they are consuming. Get rid of the bagels and red potatoes. Opt for oatmeal, sweet potatoes. More complex equals slower digested. It'll even out their energy stores and not subject them to the highs and lows they must be experiencing due to the insulin spikes of simple carbs. Simply explain it like this. If you throw paper on a fire (simple carbs) it burns fast and furious but quickly dies. Put a piece of hardwood on the fire (complex carbs) produces just as much heat (energy) but is longer lasting and slower burning.

Secondly. Consume these complex carbs early in the day. It'll help start their days off with slow burning prolonged energy. I'd cut off the carbs all together except for green and leafies after 2:00 pm.

Prana touched on this but it is IMPORTANT so I'll expand. It's a difficult mindset to adapt to when trying to lose weight but it is important for them to eat more often than they are. If you keep fueling the metabolism it'll keep firing. Most people are accustomed to three squares a day. It's counter productive. By feeding your metabolism every three hours or so it knows it has more fuel coming so it keeps firing on all cylinders so to speak. Eating less causes it to conserve energy (store fat).

There are alternatives if they don't have the resources to lift weights. Very simple household objects can help to build muscle. Bleach bottles filled with water in each hand while doing lunges, fly's, you name it. You can teach them the different excercises. Any muscle gain will speed metabolism. Take an active role in teaching them how.

Cardio is an excellent start but I think adding resistance excercises will speed their progress.

As Prana said LOTS of water!

Best wishes and keep us posted on their progress.

Dicky doesn't all this advice look easy in writing!! ha ha

HAHAHAH, does that say Dicky???

I meant dUcky, but it does have a nice ring! ahah