Desperate plea

armorel2019

hi ,

My name is Wilma.I am 76.former hair stylist,former aerobics instructor, mom,Nan and wife.

I have lost and gained hundreds of pounds since I was 13 .

I don’t ever remember being happy with my body.I am at a crossroads today with …should I go on or should I give up .

I don’t like platitudes ,I know them all and have offered many myself.I would rather have tough love and claw my way out for a feeling of confidence that I did do it.

AERCompton

Wishing you well.

lynn_glenmont

It's hard. Pretty much any method of weight loss is going to fail for the majority of people after a year or more. That said, I had tried many times, many diets, over decades before I arrived here and tried tracking calories with a voluminous database and a foodscale. Twelve years later, I'm still more than 45 lbs lighter than when I started using MFP.

I won't lie; therere has been a little bit of bouncing around over years, but I've never gotten closer than 18 pounds to my start weight. None of this "gain it all back and more" that I experienced time and again before finding thus tool.

I can't say it will be true for you, but for me, I can't say Mission achieved and stop tracking entirely, although I can be a little less strict in tracking during maintenance.

AnnPT77

To me, being happy about my body has less to do with my body, more to do with my mindset. For sure, I've known women with bodies that others envy, but who hate their own enviable bodies anyway . . . all they can see are the flaws. On the flip side, I've known a few women with enviable sparkle and confidence in quite the variety of body sizes and shapes. For me, being happy with my body has more to do with what my body can do than with how my body looks, but I know that isn't true for all other women.

Should you go on, or give up? Go on with what? Reaching a lower weight, better health, better fitness, improved appearance, something else? Improvement in any of those is possible, with commitment and patient persistence. Perfection is out of reach for anyone, probably.

I'm close to your age, currently 69. I lost from obese to a healthy weight nearly 10 years ago - around 50 pounds - and have been at a healthy weight since, though as Lynn says with some bouncing around . . . in my case, all in the same jeans size. (That's my metric because I hateHateHATE clothes shopping. 😉)

Losing that weight improved my quality of life by a huge amount in diverse ways. I can't say it made me happier with my body, because I don't feel like I've been super unhappy with my body other than maybe during that adolescent phase when probably everyone feels like they fall short.

Before that, I knew my body could be improved aesthetically, knew that my health could be improved, pretty much generally knew how to make those improvements, and I didn't make them. I was pretty clear that where I was was a result of decisions that were in my own hands, and I'd made at least some of those decisions in a negative direction.

It wasn't out of my control; I just hadn't chosen to control it.

For me, stepping up and taking control, making some of those changes . . . it felt empowering. The results long term were amazingly positive, more positive than I would've predicted, surprisingly positive even.

Further, for me - can't speak for others - once I got serious and committed, most of the changes were simpler than I'd imagined they would be. They weren't psychologically easy every second, of course, but it wasn't miserable, didn't require daily hours in the gym, didn't involve never having a food treat ever again, or any other of the extremes I would've imagined. It was kind of boring, actually, more a thing I just needed to keep plugging away at somewhat tediously rather than being dramatic and miserable.

I don't think I have platitudes or tough love. If you want to make improvements, I think you can. IMO, key is finding a personalized set of tactics that works, a plan that is doable, not extreme: New habits that can work long term in a reasonably happy, practical, affordable way. Change is hard, staying on our current path seems easy by contrast. If the current path has negatives, it's those negatives being turned aroudn that makes the change worthwhile, I guess.

I'm wishing you success, and hoping you find a path to it, because doing that has been so powerful for me. If I can help in any reasonable way, I will try to do that.

Fitnessusagi

I was trying not to write out some platitudes so I'm editing my whole post.

If I were you, I'd do whatever makes me feel good.

I wouldn't give up though. Good luck. ❤️

armorel2019

thank you everyone ,I was in a s**tty mood that day . The sun came out so I’m good again. I have read all comments and I thank each one for writing them.