59 years young newbie here

laurieangel64

Hello everyone. Not sure if I did this right ( quite tech challenged 🤗) I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to add comment on last existing thread or start a new conversation so I erred on the side of caution and started a néw discussion.
My name is Laurie and I turned 59 in January. I was a chubby kid and thinned out in 7 th grade then had children and was heavy again until I lost 105 lbs when I was 29. I gained it all back around the time I turned 40. I began developing health issues at about 45-48 . I was diabetic and had high c-reactive cardiac proteins. I went whole food plant based no oil or salt and lost about 1/2 of the weight. I was no longer diabetic and stopped insulin. Was no longer high cardiac protein and stopped statins. I’m still free of them but i have Sjogrens, arthritis, severe disc disease a vascular necrosis in my hips and a few other issues. A number of surgeries to correct what could be corrected. Then the pandemic hit and I have Eosinophilic asthma and had the virus twice. In& out of hospital and on steroids several times all of 2021 due to the virus and my asthma . I gained 111 lbs. I now need to lose 161 lbs. I am always short of breath and my pain levels are through the roof. I do not much more than sit because the spinal deformity my legs go numb and my spine screams if I stand more than 5-20 minutes depending on the day. I’ve been very discouraged and eating all the wrong things.
Then this past Saturday all our kids and grandkids went to a local restaurant for my husband’s 60 th birthday and had a great time. As we were leaving we heard yelling from the bar and as my husband is a firefighter and 1st responder we went to see if we could help. A woman our age and chubby but only 1/2 my size was choking. He tried to get it out but she passed out and she was too big for him to hold her up and on the floor he couldn’t find her sternum because of the size of her stomach. He worked on her to no avail doing cpr for 10 minutes until paramedics arrived. Her heart restarted but she later died. Besides being devastated our efforts failed it was an eye opener. For days since it’s all i can think about. Yesterday I renewed my subscription here and redid all my goals and have put past failures behind me and started a new chapter of my life.
I could use any words of wisdom anyone has to offer. I know my weight (311 at 5’3”) is a threat to my existence for the future and compounds my health issues in the present. Help! And thank you for reading this very long message if you got this far lol.

StaciInGa

That is a lot to deal with. Setting up your MFP profile and starting to log your food is a good first step.

I sent you a friend request, in case you're interested in adding friends.

88olds

Start a food diary and never stop. Get a food scale to crunch the numbers. Measuring cups are for liquids only. Log everything no matter what. When you get around to calculating a calorie target there will be times when you go over your number. These are errors, lapses and mistakes. Over your number- log it. Wildly over- log that too. Weight loss is mostly about problem solving and persistence. Going over is a problem to solve. Keep your food diary long enough and you will see a tendency to repeat the same mistakes. These are the problems to solve. Solve enough problems and you will get to goal weight. So long as you keep your diary going you will never have to start over.

Know this- calorie counting works. It has to work because of how our bodies are designed. We are built to store extra calories as fat to help us survive hard times. Fortunately hard times have not arrived for most of us. Mother Nature did not contemplate this much readily available food. But we still have bodies where the eye sees food and the brain says eat. What do you suppose would happen if we took a caveman to Old Country Buffet? As you’ve found out, gaining is fairly easy given enough time. The good news is that with concentration and effort, given enough time, the process can be reversed.

But there are some issues. Calorie counting has a significant learning curve. It involves a lot of trial and error. The frustration drives a lot of people to quit. But consider this- have you ever tried to play music? Did you throw up your hands and walk away when you played a wrong note? Ever try to shoot baskets? Did you quit the first time you missed? That’s what people do counting calories.

Start by just making lists of what you eat. Then start adding the calorie count. When you have that going use the MFP calculator to find a calorie target to lose 1 lb per week. Try to hit your number. You’ll soon find that you have a better chance to hit your number if you have a plan. When starting out I used to plan by the week. I also had an official weekly weigh in and suggest you try the same. Make a chart. What you want is a downward trend. Try not to worry about how much you have to lose past the next 5 lbs. Every .2 lb loss is a step in the right direction.

Try not to get caught up with the time factor. The calendar is not a weight loss tool. Try to avoid the X lbs by Y date goal setting. Unfortunately MFP encourages that very thing. But time driven weight loss is an invitation to turn weight loss success (losses) into failure (not fast enough.). I’ve lost 100+ lbs. How long did it take? Exactly as long as it did. It would have been too slow for a lot of people. But now I’ve been at goal longer that I was losing and longer than I was obese. How long it took to get to goal doesn’t matter to me now.

Some things to watch out for. The calculators and gadgets. The calculators put out numbers based on averages and statistics. But no one is exactly average. We really don’t know how many calories we are using unless hooked up in a lab. Read this board much and you’ll see people going crazy when the numbers don’t seem to work out. The calculators provide starting points to try to find a calorie deficit. But we need to find what works for us individually. That means trial and error, a time consuming and frustrating process. Plus, calorie counting involves a lot of gray areas. Unless we make everything we eat at home from scratch, at some point we are relying on what menus or NI on packages tell us. Like I said, gray areas. The good news is calorie counting doesn’t have to be perfect to work, but it does help to be consistent.

Watch out for your own brain. Parts of our brains will resist change of any kind. But I think our brains hate weight loss in particular. Watch for your brain to latch onto every misstep and call it failure. It isn’t failure unless you quit. It will tell you every loss is too small. Any exercise it too little. This is all a trap to try to get you to make your life miserable while losing weight. Then it will encourage you to quit to end the misery. Don’t fall for it. Weight loss has 2 parts- eating in a calorie deficit and living with it. There’s a tendency to go all in on the deficit and try to beat ourselves into living with it. Generally doesn’t work. The best plan is one that we will actually stick to so long as it results in losses.

And beware your brain exaggerating. I quit telling myself I was starving even when uncomfortably hungry. It wasn’t true. I wasn’t starving, I had missed lunch. Likewise, I quit telling myself that I love food or eating. I have a conditioned response to a lot of food but that’s not love. I love my family, not pizza.

Last thing- you can do this. And you can start today. Track your next meal. Goal for next week is track every meal. Its not that hard to start. My tracking was just a crude list with the numbers kept with pen and paper. I didn’t like using the computer except to crunch the numbers, reminded me of bing at work. And the number crunching gets easier as you go along. Try it and you’ll see. Never quit. Good luck.

laurieangel64

StaciInGa & 88olds
Thank you so much for finding my post and offering support and advice. I’ve gone through mfp set up of goals etc as best i know how and will continue to learn the app more each day. I’m going to save your advice 88olds to re read for motivation before giving up when i get discouraged. My goal right now is to not give up. And to make this year between 59&60 the turning point for my health . I’ve too far to go to set long range goals and am trying to take one day at a time and to look at myself honestly and learn from the the mistakes I have made. And to not let them derail me.