Hello

maryannava10

Hello my name is Mary, I live in NM. I'm 72 years young. I've struggled with weight for the last 14 years after I retired. I want to get back into shape and get back to being healthy

AnnPT77

Hello, Mary, and welcome!

I think that many kinds of self-improvement are achievable at any age to someone who commits to the needed process and puts in the work.

I'm not a blithe 20-something saying that, I'm a 69 year old woman who started used MFP to lose from class 1 obese to a healthy weight 10+ years ago, and who has been at a healthy weight for 9+ years since loss . . . after around 30 years before that of overweight/obesity. I'm also quite active exercise-wise, but I started that earlier, in my late 40s after cancer treatment.

Like you, I'm retired, in my case for around 19 years so far. My feeling is that leaves more room in the day for self-improvement pursuits, and possibly more mental bandwidth available to plan that out.

In some ways, I think being older is an advantage: By this age, we know ourselves pretty well. We've worked with our own preferences, strengths, challenges, etc., for decades, and maybe know more about how to work with or around those things than young people may. They have less experience.

I feel like we've developed skills from achieving big goals in other parts of our lives by chipping away at them in small increments patiently but persistently over a period of time: Education, home-making, career-building, retirement and other financial planning/progress, and more. Those same planning and behavioral skills can be applied to weight loss and fitness improvement. There's some different knowledge content, sure, but the basics aren't obscure or complicated.

I'm cheering for you to succeed: If your experience is like mine, the quality of life improvement will be more than worth the effort it takes to accomplish it.

Best wishes!