Help me design a diet for my dad

[LuckOfTheDraw]

My dad is a little over 6'2" and roughly 280lbs. He turns 60 next year and had a triple bypass last summer. Thankfully, the doctor said his heart itself was actually in decent condition. He had a pretty good attitude toward some plans to get back in good health, however, as soon as it wasn't too painful for him to get up to get a snack, he quickly returned to his old eating habbits. It's time to put a stop to this, and he's finally listening to me about it.

Nevertheless, he's still pretty stubborn. He admittedly eats because he loves food. It's going to be difficult to find a plan that he can stick with. After punching in the numbers into various intake calculators, I think starting off with a 2600-2800 cal/day diet. (yay? nay?)

Anyways, what I'm currently looking for are good meal options. He's a middle school teacher and I've worked up with rough schedule for him. I know more meals would be better, but this is at least practical.

7am - breakfast - ca. 600 cals
12pm - lunch - ca. 500 cals
3:30pm - 2ndlunch - ca. 600 cals
6pm - dinner - ca. 700 cals

With a couple smallish snacks maybe around 10am and 4-5pm.

Note, he doesn't leave for lunch, and has a microwave in his classroom. I'm thinking maybe a lean cuisine or smart ones type microwavable meal. They're not ideal, but I ate them while I was losing weight and I think will be fine.

He currently doesn't eat breakfast, but he says he's fine with cereal. So, I'm thinking the majority of the time, that will be his starting meal. He says he likes kashi golean, which is what I eat and I think is a good choice.

For lunch, like I said, some sort of moderately healthy microwavable meal. Maybe I can talk to my mom and have her cook up some chicken breasts every so often and give him a good chicken salad to take to work some days.

Afternoon lunch, I'm thinking of cottage cheese and fruits and nuts type of thing.

Dinner is going to be whatever my mother makes for them. From what I've seen of the way he eats, he's going to have to make some major changes in portion control. But, overall, the dinners he eats are relatively healthy.

I didn't think it would be this difficult to design a diet for someone else. I can't just use the same diet I used because our lifestyles are so different. So, any advice would be very much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[mattnxtc]

I would look to start him at about 3100 calories initially as this is probably a drop off for him as is.

Since he likes to eat look to have 3 main meals with 3-4 "snacks"

Look to get a good protein source in each meal/snack as well as getting in fruits and vegetables.

The easiest thing to do is go to www.t-nation.com and look for all articles by John Berardi. He will give you more than enough information to design a solid diet for your father. Look to get him on a solid vitamin and fish oil a couple times a day as well..Those supplements will help his body and heart out immensely.

[nation]

Are you guys suggesting 2600-3100 calories because he needs some time to adjust to smaller portions? Because I'm pretty sure at his age that anything over 2500 cals would not be a calorie deficit. He may be eating clean, but he has to lose weight to become healthy.

[mattnxtc]

Thats my basic though nation based on how he described his dad. That even at about 3000 calories he is still getting less than norm. Generally it is my thought that when others are helping push somebody into a healthier lifestyle that it is best to step him down.

At 3000 calories he is probably going to starting running a deficit over what he normally would get which is a good start. It also allows them to switch him over to a healthier lifestyle while not changing to much. Once he has adjusted to new food/lifestyle, then you can start bringing him down to a bigger calorie deficit. No reason to burn the dad out by hitting with to much to fast.