40+ looking for motivation

sameoldbrandnewme

Hey MFP community, looking for things keep me motivated when times are hard. What do others do for motivation? I'm a family man and there is always a party, event or something to celebrate...danger everywhere. Help!

AnnPT77

For me, looking around at family and friends my age (+/- 10 years or so) is motivating. Don't get me wrong, they're all wonderful humans, and I value them all for their individual, unique talents and insights. But still.

At my age (59-60 when losing weight, now 68), looking around me leads to inescapable conclusions: My healthy-ish weight, active connections have much better quality of life, on average, than my overweight/obese and inactive ones.

Some specifics?

The inactive/overweight group, on average:
* Is sick more often
* Spends more money on health care, so has less discretionary income to spend on travel or other enjoyment
* Depends more on adult children/family for help with heavier routine home chores (or hires help for $$)
* Are less able to do fun things that involve lots of walking, stairs, or other physical activity (some examples are art fairs, music festivals, stadium-based music or athletic events)
* Need to limit food/drink choices more because of health conditions (diabetes, fatty liver, high cholesterol/triglycerides, etc.) or contraindications because of drugs they take for health conditions
* Need more surgeries, and recover from them more slowly because of more complications
* Tend to have a long period of poor life quality, essentially a slow and unpleasant decline of health, before dying (usually younger)

The healthy weight (or close) active people, by contrast, usually have better quality of life at every age, plus tend to have a short, sharp decline before dying at a later age.

On top of that, especially now that I'm retired (so more appointments mid-day), the waiting rooms at my medical appointments are disproportionately people who are visibly more overweight and less fit than the average similar age person I see at grocery stores and whatnot, let alone at events that require more robust physical capabilities.

Of course, there are individual exceptions or outliers, but those are the trends or averages.

Me, I'm not a family man. (I'm female, only child, childless, orphaned, widowed . . .). If I had children/grandchildren, I'd be thinking even more than I do now about being an excellent role model for healthy, robust aging. "Old" and "disabled" are two different things, not synonyms. We can illustrate that for the young people in our lives . . . or not.

Just a few thoughts.

Best wishes!

P.S. In my mid-40s, I was obese and lumpishly inactive. I honestly feel more vital (younger, if you will) now, at 68, than I did at 45. I do things now easily that were punitively challenging then. I started being routinely active even while still obese, in my late 40s/early 50s. Stupidly, I didn't reach a healthy weight until 59-60. Both increased athleticism and healthy weight were huge quality of life improvements for me, and the two together were absolutely gangbusters.

Go get it. I predict you won't be sorry!

Theoldguy1

@AnnPT77 has some good ideas/points, I'm around her age.

I steal a comment on motivation from Dan John, a former educator, world class trainer, and Olympic lifter. He, like me is in his 60's. His (and my motivation) is to dance with our granddaughters at their wedding (and we don't want them to be teen brides). Our granddaughters are under 1 year old, meaning I need to be dancing in my 90's.

In addition I want to be able to be playing with her on the floor, taking her places and not sitting down to rest, be able to go to large sporting events, concerts, etc. with family and friends and not slow anyone down.

Your family should be your motivation. You can't take care of them if your sick. Remember what the flight attendant says, put on your own oxygen mask in an emergency before helping other. You want to help your family, not be a burden to them. This thought should be much more important to you than some extra chips, brownies, beers at some random event.

Good luck.

plg999

Is being your healthiest for your family a motivation? Healthier means that you can enjoy those family gatherings more and for more years.

Also, you're probably not the only one at the gatherings who is wanting to lose weight, so make sure there are healthy options there!

nossmf

I'm age 46, family man.

All that's been said above is 100% true, but all comes from the perspective of thinking about others or the future. I want to mention the perspective of being selfish in the here and now.

Specifically, I work full-time, have a long daily commute, and when home much of my time is taken up by household chores (I'm the chef of the family), helping my wife/daughter finish schoolwork to graduate from their respective schools, and keeping the peace between 6 humans, 3 dogs and 6 cats.

My gym time? That's MY TIME. For an hour a day I escape from my other responsibilities, focus exclusively on ME. Whether that's zoning out during cardio or exerting my will to move heavy pieces of iron around, causing a change in the world because I WANTED TO, working out is for me. I always leave the gym feeling like I just completed a therapy session; I'm calmer, less stressed, everything else is just a step closer to being put into perspective.

Theoldguy1

nossmf wrote: »

I'm age 46, family man.

All that's been said above is 100% true, but all comes from the perspective of thinking about others or the future. I want to mention the perspective of being selfish in the here and now.

Specifically, I work full-time, have a long daily commute, and when home much of my time is taken up by household chores (I'm the chef of the family), helping my wife/daughter finish schoolwork to graduate from their respective schools, and keeping the peace between 6 humans, 3 dogs and 6 cats.

My gym time? That's MY TIME. For an hour a day I escape from my other responsibilities, focus exclusively on ME. Whether that's zoning out during cardio or exerting my will to move heavy pieces of iron around, causing a change in the world because I WANTED TO, working out is for me. I always leave the gym feeling like I just completed a therapy session; I'm calmer, less stressed, everything else is just a step closer to being put into perspective.

My kids are out of the house but I agree with this. For years I was at the gym when the door opened at 5AM to workout for an hours or so before going to work. At 5AM generally nobody wants you for anything. After work you can concentrate on the family.

SafariGalNYC

sameoldbrandnewme wrote: »

Hey MFP community, looking for things keep me motivated when times are hard. What do others do for motivation? I'm a family man and there is always a party, event or something to celebrate...danger everywhere. Help!

@sameoldbrandnewme - I notice in 2019 you were also posting about being stagnant and no goals achieved.

What is holding you back? Just really ruminate on it.

Whatever it is- decide your fit, healthy self is worth it and take a leap! Join one of the groups in MFP that’s about healthy eats and monthly accountability.. make it a daily habit.

csplatt

When I really needed to cut, I ate before parties and said no thanks when I arrived. Didn’t take long to get used to. I didn’t always say I was trying to lose weight. A lot of times I’d say I was working on getting stronger for a goal a had (a specific hike, for example) so I was committing to a specific eating plan at home in the meantime. That was also more comfortable for me to say in front of kids and teens

FibroHiker

I am having this difficulty myself. I've noticed that one night of bad eating paired with alcohol each week has really stalled my progress. I am recommitting to having a plan in place for such events and sticking to it. The hard part is not knowing ahead of time what the offerings will be and whether it will help me with my plan. I like the other suggestion of eating prior to the event and then not indulging at the party. Or, you could eat ahead of time and just enjoy a small piece of cake with everyone else at birthday celebrations. If the party is at a restaurant, I usually look at the menu online ahead of time and decide what I will be eating. It takes the pressure off to know I have a gameplan.