76 years young 12 stepping grandma

trishalala

Greetings friends! Im not new tk My Fitness Pal but dont have support here. Ive maintained a 22 pound weight loss by logging my food daily since 2019 and need motivation to begin my Tai Chi exercises daily and strengthen at our gym. Weigh and measure my food and have support group I belong to as well. Anyone else need motivation? Namaste.

Myayah

Good morning amazing 🙂👸🏿

AnnPT77

Hello, and welcome, @trishalala: Congratulations on your successful weight loss.

I'm close in age (66), also maintaining weight now after loss back in 2015-16. I'm sorry to say that I'm kind of a sub-par MFP friend (more of a Community forum gal, I guess).

For me, a couple of things help me with exercise consistency.

For one, "motivation" is not my strongest muscle, so I try to rely on it as little as I can. This may not be true of you, but I'm a full-bore hedonist, mostly enjoyment-seeking. I was lucky enough to find some active things that I find extremely enjoyable . . . and enjoyable enough that I'll do other things I enjoy less just to keep in shape for my favorites.

For me, on-water rowing and riding my bike on the local trails are the really fun things. I'd do them even if they weren't good for me, because I enjoy them so much. It would 100% be different activities for other people, though - those just happen to be my thing.

One problem is that we do have severe enough Winters here that my river freezes (can't row boats) and snow piles up along the road (can't ride bike safely). That's where my other strategies really get important to me.

In the Winter, I try to persuade myself that machine rowing and stationary biking (plus some strength training) aren't things I make a decision to do, just things I do, like grocery shopping or dish-washing. That psychological trick works, somewhat.

On top of that, I participate in some online challenges in the rowing world, where machine rowers try to hit certain targets for frequency or distance. There's a "200,000 meters between US Thanksgiving and Christmas" holiday challenge that helps me stop grieving the end of on-water season, and get a machine rowing habit in place for the Winter, since if I'm going to hit that total, I really need to row most days of the week. I can also remind myself that if I don't work out in Winter, I'll need to start over at ground zero in Spring when we get out on the water, which would limit how often/long I can do the thing I enjoy, until I get in shape again.

Another thing that helps is participating in MFP groups/threads that are activity focused. There are various ones, including challenges to do one's own goal number of hours of activity per month (of any activity), or ones focused on specific things (planks and isometric exercise, cycling, miles/km-based exercise, etc.). You can find and preview some of those in the Challenges, Exercise and Fitness, or Motivation parts of the MFP Community.

I participate in this one, which is an informal "what did you do" thing. I don't love highly-structured threads, so that one's good for me. But other types will work better for other people.

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10705619/what-was-your-work-out-today#latest

Ugh, this is getting really long and wordy, but I also wanted to mention that I used to do Tai Chi regularly: Good stuff, in various ways! My late husband was a Tai Chi and Kung Fu teacher. I was never as serious as he was about it, I have to admit, and stopped regular practice while he was still teaching because of some physical issues I had at the time.

I hope you can find your keys to making your Tai Chi and strength training happen regularly, as you're planning. Best wishes!

trishalala

Thank you so much for your kind inspiring words. I appreciate it very much!

trishalala

@AnnPT77 your words and the time to respond are well appreciated. I will check out the link you sent because I am not a strict MFP member either. I am new to this but have used the app for my food plan for a program I am active in for physical, emotional and spiritual balance. I am sorry I took so long to respond. You are kind to encourage me.