I decided to start participating here to regain my motivation.

DannyYMi54321

So, I'm not at all new to diet and exercise - but I'm fat again - and I hate it. Actually, I've lost about half of what I regained, and I could live with myself if I were forced to stay here forever - but I am nowhere near the weight or the shape I was about 2 1/2 years ago, which was when the weight gain started again.

So, in the past, what worked for me was a higher protein, moderate fat, lower carb diet, with virtually no highly refined carbs or carbs with a high glycemic index, a lot of water, and a lot of exercise.

I have had challenges from health issues - physical and mental - including anemia, asthma, some congenital vein/circulatory problems (resolved by surgeries), and what I have come in the past 5 years to discover was lifelong CPTSD from growing up in a chaotic household, seeing a lot of domestic violence inflicted on my mother, and being a victim of emotional/psychological/sexual abuse (some physical but mostly threats of violence rather than actual violence) from a very young age.

So, I was actually in this great place a few years ago in terms of my weight, exercise, and health. Then things kinda fell apart on me due to life circumstances - I ended up taking care of 2 elderly relatives basically full-time as their health failed. Still tried to keep my career going as much as possible too. What had to give was taking care of myself. First it was my exercise routine - had to quit the gym, quit running and cycling except for a few rare opportunities. Unfortunately, I had to do it - very small family, and I entrusted as much of the care of my relatives to professionals as I trusted them with - but found rapidly that nursing home care, even in the "best" places, was lacking, and I owed them more than that. Both lived out their final illnesses at home and died less than a week apart - who knew?

So, the big thing that got to me about all of this was failing at the ONE thing I said I wasn't going to fail at - eating right and keeping my weight off. I was actually pretty philosophical about what was happening within my family - that is nature, elderly people do fail in terms of their health, and they were both in their 90s, one had heart failure exacerbated by a fall, the other had pancreatic cancer which spread to several other organs, so it wasn't like it was a pair of early sudden deaths.

What really tore me up was feeling so powerless over food, watching myself expand out of all of my clothes, and longing to be able to do the things I had done before, like serious cycling, running, etc.

So, it's been over a year since both died. And I have lost about half of my regained weight - and I have about 30 lbs to go to get to where I really want to be, which is 155, but I'd settle for 160.

I've been going about things EXACTLY wrong the last year plus a few months - NOT getting back to basics, NOT being organized about my nutrition or exercise, NOT feeling motivated the right way, and NOT taking care of my own health nearly as well as I should (for example, my iron is adequate overall but not ideal and dropping because I slacked off on supplements).

So, years ago, when I started to get real control over things, and said I would never look back and end up 60 lbs overweight, or so tired I could barely walk a mile, AGAIN in my life, I was actually very enthused and really happy about where I was, what I was doing, and I really felt like a winner! That feeling I want to get back - and the stupid simple part is, instead of spending months of time and all of my emotional energy worrying about why I'm NOT on the straight and narrow path, I just need to get myself on the straight and narrow path. I feel more optimism now about my ability to do that than I have in a long, long time. It's almost spring (I'm in one of the northern, snowy states), it's a great time to get myself back on track.

Like Nike says - "Just Do It!"

rsclause

I too have not put the miles in that I need to and as a result added 15 pounds. I miss running to find hills to run up and the feeling I can conquer anything. Yeah you're right "Just Do It"