Living The Lifestyle Fri 2/22/19

Jerdtrmndone

We meet here to explore, share, celebrate and (sometimes) agonize over how we do (or don't) incorporate weight loss guidelines into our daily lives. "It's a lifestyle, not a diet" is easily and often said, but sometimes not so simply put into practice.

This is a thread for everyone. If you're new to GoaD, or to weight loss, your questions and comments are always welcome. If you're maintaining, or a long-term loser, your thoughts on the topic may be just what someone else needs to hear. If you're reading this, join in the discussion!

Each weekday, a new topic is offered up for discussion. Thread starters for February are below:

Monday - imastar2 (Derrick)
Tuesday - gadgetgirlIL (Regina)
Wednesday - minimyzeme (Kim)
Thursday - misterhub (Greg)
Friday - jerdtrmndone (Jerry)

Today's Topic: Decades
How has your life changed as each decade came about, ( weight related or non- weight related or both )?

Jerdtrmndone

When I was younger, I was very active working two jobs at times, When I hit 30 Had a major health issue happened, Couldn’t work and Dr. didn’t want me to work I was out of work for over a yr. and decided I was going to prove the Dr, wrong and returned to work, I actually had good jobs after that. The down fall was because I was put on steroids which always made me hungry and ate a gallon of ice cream a day. It resulted in a major weight gain.
When in my 40’s joined WW. losing a 100 lbs. keeping the weight off. Then in my 50’s stated having back issues and the weight started to come back gaining over half of my loss and by late 50’s things started to really get tough ending up on SSD, My DW also ended up on SSD,
You never can take life for granted and if I would have been more aware of my habits maybe things would be different,

gadgetgirlIL

20s & early 30s - my asthma was poorly controlled and I ended up in urgent care as well as the ER way too many times. Even landed in ICU on a ventilator after a code blue from a bad reaction to penicillin when I was 27.

Late 30s & early 40s - worked way too much putting everyone's needs in front of my own. Got up to my highest weight ever of 304 pounds during this time.

Mid 40s - finally felt like I was getting my act together as an adult. Went back to school at age 43 to pursue my master's degree.

Late 40s & early 50s - lot of stress on the workfront due to an unethical program director that caused the university to be sued by a student. His actions made me realize that I should pursue my doctorate to give me more career options. Started my doctorate program at age 48 and finished just before I turned 51.

The rest of my 50s thus far (I'll turn 58 this summer) - Wish I had maintained a normal weight earlier in life as my knees are showing signs of the abuse I gave them. But I'm eating more veggies than ever before in my life, I weight train regularly, and I'm doing lots of bike riding as well as some hiking. I feel financially stable and have been married for 27+ years. Both of us have our quirks but we've worked things out over the years. I feel very fortunate. And we have two wonderful kitties that help me to put things in perspective at the end of the day.

@Jerdtrmndone is right that you can never take life for granted.

podkey

I at most maybe had a couple of "extra" pounds on me when I was 17 and went off to college. My mother served us a decent diet and was always on the look out for nutritional ideas. We were early adopters of triticale and my mother made us Cornell Triple bread which was enhanced with soy flour, wheat germ, and nonfat milk. She didn't serve a lot of mac and cheese and we didn't bring pizza home. Overall decent enough. As kids we weren't prohibited from eating other foods or having an occasional coke either.
I drifted down to 149 LB my Freshman year of college while doing 3 a day football practices . I wanted to be 150 as that sounded better. I also played one year of rugby until I injured my knee. Really rugby was a club sport and football was just small school stuff.
I did stop biking while in college although I hiked, rock climbed, and did some handball.
I slowly gained weight and yes had some beer and pizza along the way.

I had trickled up some to maybe 160+ (maybe close to 170 at times?) by grad school and just continued to slowly gain up to about 190LB. I had a summer alone while DW was out of town and lost maybe upwards of 25-30 lb eating a diet of bulgar wheat and veggies plus maybe something to balance the protein a bit.

After grad school I bought a bicycle and started riding again and caving and had ok weight of around 160-165 ish pounds. I took up bike racing for fun and did something like seven 200 mile one day rides. Even with activity my weight slowly crept up eventually to about 213 LB.

At age 55 I had a serious injury from biking and took early retirement and was at 213 LB when I joined WW at age 63. I was still doing biking up to 100 miles in a day sometimes but needed an actual program. I have done ok maintaining my weight but by no means perfect (who is?) for over 10 years now. During that time I have been as low as 152 LB and as high as about 169 lb with a stated "goal" of 165 lb. I have the program "memorized" in terms of what foods to emphasize and portions. For me there is no "magic" or magical science other than maybe persistence.

imastar2

Over weight till from age 10 to around age 20 then stayed pretty fit through age 30 then really in good shape through my 30's early 40's and then around 45 started putting weight on and that got worse the older I got then around when my son was born a little later than that I wes around 50 and had sleep apnea but didn't realize it. By the time I hit about 60-62 I was able to have a sleep study but by turn I was at 400.8 lbs. I began my bi/pap treatment for my sleep apnea and pretty much the sme timer joined WW on line. Lost 100 lbs back top 300lbs but still had a ways to go. Stayed around the 295-300 lb range for about 6-8 years till I hit age 70 ish then put 45-50 lbs on just a little at a time. So that brings me currently up to date.

jasper60103

I weighed less than 180 lbs during my senior year in HS, 1981.
I recall a proud moment be able to bench press more than I weighed.
I know that's nothing by today's standards.

Then in college, I put on 20 lbs or so.
After college, I had a couple years of bachelor life. Not sure how much my weight fluctuated,
but upwards.

Once married (1987), the sedimentary lifestyle kicked-in full swing.
It didn't help that my wife like to eat a lot junk food as well.
During that time, I wasted hundreds of dollars on gym memberships. I could kick myself for giving
Bally all that money.

Ten lbs here and there. I tried not to look at the scale, but the
upward trend continued.
At one point I removed my wedding band because it became too tight.
I even bought a replacement band that was almost identical to the original.

Anyway, before I knew it I was in 300 land.
313 lbs exactly when I started WW (2011).
After 1 week, 4 lbs dropped off and I could hardly believe it.
They had a simple plan (PP) that was easy to live with in my opinion, and it worked.

Now I have two wedding bands, and the original one is actually too loose now.