My mother's birthday is coming up on September 27th and I want to buy her a book to try and give her some information about how bad sugars are. I need some advice as to what book to get her. I can't give her atkins, because I know there is no way in hell I will ever get her to follow that. But what I want to do is just get her to read a similiar, less hardcore book, something like Sugar Busters, that maybe will help her cut out some of the candy she eats, and also eat more protein. Let me tell you about about my mom though first.

My mom is a total sugar junkie. She gets strong cravings in the afternoon all the time and needs to stop at mcdonalds and get an ice cream cone, or else stop and get some candy. She probably goes through a whole bag of toffees every 2-3 days (the werthers original ones) and I can't remember the last time she went to bed without having her nightly bowl of ice cream. She also keeps a full stock of those Jub-Jub candies which are no fat. I told her before "Mom, just because they are low fat doesn't mean they are good for you. Sugar is bad for you". And she goes "I know, I should cut back" but of course never does. And the problem is, she never sees any bad results from eating sugar, so it's impossible to convince her it's bad. Besides this though, she barely eats anything at all. Everything she eats is low fat. She won't even touch any of the food I make, not even the muffins I make, just because I used cream instead of water. Yes, I am worried about her eating so much sugar, but the big thing is her protein. I think her bones are weak and if she got really sick, I am not sure if her body would be able to fight it off. I've also been trying to just get her to take 1 Centrum Select each day. How hard is that? But she won't. She goes "those are for you". What the heck! What is that supposed to mean? If anything, they are for her, since the centrum says "50+ and over".

But anyways, to give you an idea of what she eats, I think her daily diet goes something like this:



That's about her daily schedule. Her breakfast and lunch seem so good, but then after lunch virtually all she eats is candy. She has even told me that she probably couldn't go one day without eating any sugar or candies. And she often opts-out of eating dinner, and instead will wait and eat ice cream, then go to bed hungry i'm sure. I think her problem is mis-information. She was on weight watchers for several years, so she knows good health, but over the years I think she has gotten way too involved in weight loss. She stays at 128/129 on the scale all the time, but I was there on morning when it read 129.5 and she was very upset. She didn't show it, but I heard her upstairs banging doors in the kitchen afterwards, upset about something. Then the next day she barely ate anything at all. She actually said this to me.... honest to god, "How did I gain weight, I barely ate anything yesterday". sigh.

But anyways, the problems here for me are:

1. I care too much about her health to let this go. I don't want her to die young. She just got remarried and is the happiest she has been in her life. But she tells me it's none of my business, which she is probably right about, but I need to at least try.

2. She is in pretty good shape for her age. She is 54 and 129lbs and in very good condition for her age. Because of this, it's hard to argue with her. What am I supposed to say? If she was overweight, then it would be easy to critisize her ways of eating, but she is actually in very good shape for her age.

3. When I got my blood tests done when I first started atkins, I dragged her along. She had all her cholesterol, iron, ect. tested and apparently our doctor told her she is in fine physical health, so after this happened, I had to shut up. I don't really trust our doctor though. I don't think he would say anything was wrong unless something was REALLY wrong. I saw my cholesterol levels and IMO they were very high, but he said they were "normal".

4. With all these reasons, I just can't sit by any longer and watch her do this. Her mother suffers from severe diabetes and my mom is only 16 years younger than her. I don't want to see my mom develop diabetes now.

So with all of this being said, I need advice guys. What do you think I should do? Standing still is not an option for me anymore, but I also will never push my mother into doing anything, or force her, or argue with her. I just want to try and give her the oppertunity to learn about a better way of eating. This is why I think buying a book for her bday might help. So can anyone recommend a good book? Like I said, she won't be willing to cut out carbs entirely. Im sure she would be willing to cut back, but my mother will never stop eating the skim milk, cereal and muffin. So what book would you recommend? Would Sugar Busters be a good choice?

Thanks for listening to my rambling... feel free to comment on this post and tell me if you think i'm being unreasonable and if I should just butt out of her life. Maybe I am, and maybe I should just let her live her life.

Adam