I try and I fail over and over...

vexedangel678

Now I'm in my mid-40s and afraid it's really too late to change my life. The last time I lost weight was before my kids were born, in order to help us conceive--and it worked. However after my second pregnancy, I never lost the baby weight and have stayed there or 10 lbs. above for the past 10 years. I have health issues (high bp, high cholesterol, NAFLD, touchy gallbladder) and hate a lot of things about me and my body and my habits but I cannot change anything, literally, to save my life.

Help.

***ETA: sorry, I know I posted this as an intro and it comes off all drama--I am a mom of 2, work in education, have a hubby who is a bit of an enabler, and 2 kitties, plus 2 hobbies--scrapbooking and nail polish.

AnnPT77

Hello, and welcome! Please don't apologize: It's fine to be real here, even rant a little sometimes.

First, I'll bet you can change some things, if you seriously commit to it. What you maybe can't do - most of us can't - is CHANGE! EVERY! SINGLE! THING! AT! ONCE!

Let's talk about age first. You're just a little over half my age (67).

In my mid-40s, I went through cancer treatment for locally advanced breast cancer, i.e. surgery, 6 months of chemo, 6 weeks of radiation, then 7.5 years anti-estrogen drugs. I went into that very physically out of shape, very sedentary. I came out of it pretty much completely physically depleted, then was diagnosed as severely hypothyroid just for extra fun.

I'm not trying to engage in "comparative doom" here. All I'm trying to do is say that I have personal experience with a pretty bleak starting point in later half of 40s. And that experience suggests that the situation is not hopeless.

At the time, I gradually got more active, starting with very manageable things. IIRC, the first was a twice a week community education yoga class. As I felt better, I gradually increased activity in manageable, practical ways over a period of months to actual years. I focused on active things that I personally enjoyed (or at least tolerated well and found practical). This was all going on in context of demanding full-time job and normal home responsibilities, BTW.

Just chipping away at that, within a couple of years, I surprised myself with the progress. In my early 50s, I was literally competing as an athlete, and not always unsuccessfully in age-group competitions. I'm not saying you need to do that, but saying it is in the realm of possibility IMO and IME, without making huge disruptive changes in habits at any one time . . . just chipping away. Good everyday-useful functional fitness is for sure in reach!

Unfortunately, I was not fully tuned in, and stayed fat (class 1 obese most of the time) even while being very active and becoming fitter. Don't get me wrong, getting fitter was a huge quality of life improvement. I wouldn't have dreamed the impact it would have on my daily life functioning.

At age 59, still with high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and some other physical issues, I finally acknowledged that I wasn't going to be truly healthy unless I lost weight. Once that switch flipped in my head, I have to say it was a simpler thing than I'd imagined. It isn't psychologically easy every second (of course!) but the practical changes were surprisingly straightforward, not impossible, not even punishingly awful.

Again, it was gradual and manageable changes, this time in my eating routine. Logging what I ate showed me where I could cut calories in ways that were tolerable to me, things I could visualize keeping up long term. Within a year, I was a healthy weight.

That also turned out to be a big quality of life improvement, and I didn't have to wait all the way to goal weight to start feeling some of those benefits. The combination of healthy weight and reasonable fitness has been absolutely gangbusters. I'm now in year 7+ of maintaining a healthy weight, and I have no desire to go back at all.

My point here is not self-glorification. I'm just a normal everyday person, maybe more hedonistic and lazy than average, actually. I figure if I can do a thing, most other people can do it, too. That's my point.

So, I think you can lose weight and/or improve your fitness. You don't have to throw yourself off a metaphorical cliff and revolutionize your life. You can just incrementally make changes in a healthier direction, and they'll add up over time.

I may be a stranger, but I'm out here cheering for you to succeed. It's worth it!

vexedangel678

Thank you so much. I really appreciate the encouragement. And the real life experience.

I am trying to create a new habit--never turning down an opportunity or invitation to exercise. Like--fetching things from downstairs instead of asking kids. And my daughter and husband like to go on walks in the evening, and they will ask me and I normally turn them down, but I've taken them up on it the last three times they asked.

And I am tracking food and exercise again, which I had stopped doing for over a month, so that's a step in the right direction.

I do have some good habits I just need to get back to them and stick with them. I get depressed and decide it's hopeless or in the moment I just don't care, but I always care eventually.......

Again, thank you--very much--for your response.

AnnPT77

That sounds like a good start. The more you practice those small positive changes, the more they will stick.

Sometimes it helps me continue a thing to frame it in my own mind that it isn't something I make a decision to do or not do, it's just a thing I do. For example, most of us don't make a decision about whether to brush our teeth or do the laundry (and things like that), we just do them because they need to be done. It's not even a question. Some things about eating and activity can be more like that.

Best wishes!