[rant] I don't know why I bother trying to help Long arse wall of ranty text - this story is nowhere near as bad as some FPH tales, it's more annoyance of wasting my time for someone who in reality isn't going to change their habits unless force fed every meal. So my mum is currently 16st (224lbs) and has a bmi of 33.1. [FYI, I am 8st 8lb (123lbs) and have a bmi of 21.9 (working on improving though]. For the most part, my mum is lovely, and pretty logical and sensible, except for healthy eating and changing her eating/drinking habits.  Backstory: Used to do exercise classes twice a week, she would act all interested and promise she would be there, but 75% of the time let me down.  I would already be there, because I lived a a train stop and a 20min walk away whereas, she lived a 10min walk from the gym, even then she would drive down.  Recently moved back in to my mum's house. Two days ago, I told her all about my fitness pal, as a good way of making yourself accountable for what you eat, and also (because she's only ever dieted using the Slimming World 'syns') it would show her exactly how many calories were in everything instead of points or syns or some other nonsensical system.  She seemed genuinely interested, downloaded the app straight away and we logged her dinner that night, I told her how she could have improved it e.g  adding more veggies, and reducing the portion size of the higher calorie foods.  I did warn her though, you have to be committed, and she promised she was, she is the highest weight she's ever been and she is desperate to lose weight. I explained CICO, and that in my opinion it's easy to just eat less then trying to burn off all the calories for the extra food you've consumed. We walked her dog twice that day together, I use endomondo (walking/exercise tracking app and MFP) and she was surprised at how few calories it burned (I know that MFP isn't accurate, but it's good enough for a guideline, and I told her I usually overestimate the food and underestimate the exercise anyway).  So today, we do two, hour long walks, and I made us both a healthy and filling salad for lunch (she added about a dessert spoon of light mayo to hers, whereas I added a teaspoon of mustard for flavour) the total was no more than 220kcals (for me) obviously nearer the 300 range for hers, she was really impressed with the amount of food and how low the calories were. It appeared to be all going well, she wasn't hungry or snacking and had enjoyed the food I'd made.  So later this evening, just before making dinner she even said to me 'shall we add up what tonight's food will be?'.  We added up all the ingredients and each portion came to around 600kcals, which I said was fairly big but she would still be under her total of 1350kcals that MFP recommended, so I thought she'd be happy with that given that she was still able to eat a normal sized portion of food.   Everything I'd said, and all the enthusiasm she'd previously shown went out of the window within minutes, as I see four pitta breads coming out of the oven (there are only three of us, and I said I didn't even want one, so I'm thinking who are these for??!)  I mention that each pitta bread about 140kcals, and I get told to 'stop talking about calories at the dinner table', so she's now turned her 600kcal meal into a 1000kcal meal and then she has the cheek to say 'i've got some left over so I can treat myself to a glass of wine' with lemonade.  (A 600cal meal has now become almost 1200kcals for one meal. Including breakfast (225kcals) and lunch (300kcals) she's around 1725kcal, and without the two dog walks she'd have easily been over the 2000 mark too).  So I tell her in no uncertain terms, that she has most definitely gone over her calorie limit for the day, and if she just didn't have the wine and maybe limited herself to ONE pitta bread (not three), she'd probably just be going over the daily limit. Her response is 'it's my first day, go easy on me, I didn't do that bad' then it become 'oh shut up' and 'I guess I'll always be fat then'.  We are going clothes shopping tomorrow, so who knows what tales that might bring...