My dad [6'2" (188cm); 350+lbs (159+kg)] has been obese for literally my entire life. The lowest weight he has maintained in my life has been about 300lbs (136kg). While still morbidly obese at this weight, it was the healthiest he had been since his days of playing football in college and he was doing okay. Then he was in a bad car accident which has paralyzed his foot. This has left him unable to run, jump, or even walk very far. Fast forward about two years to last year and he tore his left triceps, an injury which required surgery and from which he's been recovering for about the past 5 months. Unable to exercise at all he kind of fell off the diet train and has done nothing but drink beer, eat pizza, and go through about a pound of cashews a day. I mean it. He buys two pound jugs of cashews and finishes about half a day. He looks to be approaching 400lbs again. But what really worries me is that he's always out of breath now. When he stands up from sitting down he's out of breath. When he walks to the refrigerator he's out of breath. It takes him several minutes to put his shoes on because he's out of breath. He snores really loudly, he has discoloration on his face from sleep apnea. Before his surgery I went to the doctor with him and the doctor remarked how my dad, whose heart and blood tests have always come back squeaky clean no matter what his weight was, now had sky high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and heart disease.
About 11 weeks ago I started my own weight loss journey [6'4"; SW: 257lbs; CW; 229lbs; GW;200lbs] and my dad has been really impressed with my results so far. Whenever he sees me working out he always remarks how he wishes that he could work out with me. I always tell my dad that the secret to getting in shape really isn't the working out, but it's the diet. Literally every day I share with him that in the beginning of my journey, no matter how hard I worked out I never lost any weight, and sometimes gained weight. That was, until I started really buckling down on my food and being more disciplined about my calories. But every time I tell him this, he always says that the reason he's approaching 400lbs is because he doesn't eat enough. No matter how many times I tell him that it's physically impossible to become 400lbs in a caloric deficit, or no matter what articles I share with him, he is convinced that he's obese because he doesn't eat enough. I have gently pushed him to measure his foods and even said a few minutes ago "I was really surprised when I measured my food to find out that a meal I thought had a couple hundred calories had over 600," and all he said was "I do measure my food," which is a flat out lie. I asked him how many calories he thinks he consumes per day, and he estimated 1200kcal. I've kept track of what he eats for a few days (obviously I can't be exact because I can't weigh his food) and my estimate is that he eats between 4000-5000kcal a day. I am at a loss as to what to do. My dad wants to lose weight and desperately needs to lose weight, but I cannot convince him that the reason he's overweight is because he's eating too much, so he won't change. It really scares me when I hear him with raspy breath panting because he had to walk to the kitchen to get water, or when I hear him struggling to breathe when he's putting his shoes on. Especially since he has heart disease now. But in his mind he thinks "My heart and blood tests have been perfect my whole life no matter how obese I am, so they're fine now", even though they're not fine.
Does anyone have any advice on how I can reach through to my dad and make him realize that he didn't get to 350+lbs by starving himself? I am at my wit's end.
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