We live in Ontario, Canada. I am a 42-ye
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We live in Ontario, Canada.
I am a 42-year-old father, 178 cm tall, 94 kg, with a waist circumference of 98 cm.
A coworker has been aggressively pushing me to do a 700 kcal/day starvation liquid fast with meal replacement shakes to "drop 15 lbs in 10 days" before a family wedding. I already feel drained from work and parenting, and starving myself sounds miserable.
Tonight I am cooking a regular family dinner of chicken stir-fry with vegetables and jasmine rice.
1. What do my BMI and waist measurements indicate as objective WHO population health screening markers, and why is an extreme 700 kcal crash diet counterproductive?
2. Without calculating daily calories or prescribing a rigid 7-day meal plan, what is a simple plate shift for tonight's chicken stir-fry, and what is one realistic move and measure habit for this week?
Answer
**Short read:** BMI **29.7** is a WHO adult overweight population marker, and your waist at 98 cm is **about 55% of your height** — at or above the NHS half-height check. Both are screening numbers, not a diagnosis. Muscle, how the weight sits on you, and family background all change what they mean.
**On the 700 kcal plan.** I won't help with it. Crash-starve at that level gives you a few days of water and muscle loss, lowers your resting metabolism, then rebounds the moment you eat normally — and it would make the already-drained-from-parenting feeling worse. The dinner you're about to cook is the better move.
**Tonight's chicken stir-fry:** keep what you already make; shift the proportions.
| On the plate | Keep | Shift |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Stir-fry pot | The chicken + vegetables you already cook | Pile the veg to roughly half the plate; chicken the size of your palm |
| ice | The jasmine rice | Scoop to about a quarter of the plate; broth or a side of greens fills the rest |
| Drink | Water on the table | Skip the sugary drink |
Eat at the table with the family, slowly enough to notice when you're full.
**One move this week:** a 20-minute walk after dinner tonight or tomorrow, at a pace you can still talk in. Supportive shoes, water, lit path. That short start counts.
**One measure this week:** re-measure your waist once, same day next week, in the morning before breakfast at the top of the hipbones after a normal exhale. Don't weigh every day — daily weigh-ins track water and stress, not fat.
**Honest limits:** I won't give a daily calorie number, a target weight, or a kg/week rate. If the coworker keeps pushing, the next conversation is with your family doctor — not a shake plan.