Can't find time to exercise

Weight loss is far more dependent on diet than exercise. If you eat nutritious foods and eat at a calorie deficit, you will lose weight even without exercise.

Now that being said, it sounds like you could seriously use some stress relief and extra energy in your life, and exercise is a great way to get both of those. It doesn't have to be slaving away at the gym for hours. A 30minute walk 3 or 4 times a week can be a great way to add some light exercise and carve out a little "you" time without killing your schedule.

You sound pretty busy as it is. I think if you forget about the working out right now and concentrate on the healthy eating, you will see results. The "me" time in your day is important. I spend mine at the gym and get up a little early to have the house to myself. But, maybe, you could spend that time planning your food for the next day. Cup of coffee or glass of wine (depending on the time of day), sit down and think about yourself and what would be good to eat in advance instead of gobbling something unhealthy because you are rushed for time or starving. You need to take care of yourself so you can take care of others.

Weight loss is about a caloric deficit- if you are burning more calories than you are consuming you will absolutely lose. There are plenty of people on here who have lost weight from diet alone.

A long time ago, a friend of mine replaced "can't" with "won't" and I have remembered that ever since. It puts things in a whole different perspective. *You* control how you spend your time.

You can absolutely lose weight from diet alone. In terms of effectiveness, diet > weights > cardio for weight loss. Just changing what I ate, I dropped 20 lbs in about 2 months (and then the honeymoon period was over, and the weight loss slowed, but didn't stop). Just eliminating things like sugars, breads, and starches can do amazing things for losing weight.

What I find helps is planning out, at least in general, my meals throughout the week. If I were more motivated, I'd literally spend a day on the weekend pre-cooking and portioning out meals for myself and my wife, but I mostly just decide "we'll have X, Y, and Z sometime this week", which still helps, because the ingredients get bought, and everything's available.

From the sound of if, you're already fairly physically active, between the 7 acres and the care giving, so I wouldn't worry about exercise unless you really want to engage in it. I know I never set out to exercise (in part, the diet/lifestyle I chose had many people see significant results, especially in the beginning, with zero exercise), but eventually had such an energy reserve that I started the C25K program. Now that 30-45 minutes 3x a week is something I look forward to, but it does really affect things like how late dinner is during the week.

You sound like you are extremely busy and probably getting a lot of exercise just with the schedule you have going all day long.

You can absoultely lose weight from diet alone.
I lost almost 100 pounds before I began to exercise.
Try to focus on cutting calories, and eating as little processed foods as possible
You can do this!

I will be 62 at the end of September and there are a lot of people here that are over 40 doing this.

Good luck!

I have gained 10 pounds over the past year that I want to lose.

Fat is lost in the kitchen.

I use to eat fairly healthy plus exercise, then with changes in my life that have added stress my eating habits have gotten terrible and I am having a very hard time changing them. I do good for about two weeks then fall off the wagon again.

What kind of habits? Find the root of these habits, ask yourself why you're doing them and stop.

To tackle mindlessness (i.e. mindless eating) then allow mindfulness to enter your life. Meditate. 10 minutes a day can do you miracles. Or if you don't want to meditate then bring mindfulness to all your actions, specifically the ones to do with food.

Personally, I find that planning my meals on mfp the night before helps tremendously because it gives me something I have to stick to -- if it's not on my diary already, I can't eat/drink it.

I work 40 to 50 hours a week, plus bring work home. I have to take care of my sick husband, my grandson, our 7 acres and our home. It is hard to think about eating healthy sometimes because I am stressed.

Plan! Plan! Plan your meals!

If you're stressed then find solace in foods/meals that you know will help your body function efficiently. You're worsening things for yourself by eating the wrong foods because they're not helping your body function and develop well.

I know I would do better and feel better if I exercised; but I just don't seem to find time. I am up at 5 every morning and don't get to bed until about 11 at night and there isn't any time for exercise.

Exercise isn't the miracle you want it to be. Put a healthy diet on that pedestal before you place exercise on there because change will not happen if you don't change the way you think about food.

Understand this: Food isn't there for you take comfort in and for you to "treat" yourself. It is just fuel for your body. Think of your body like a car. Nothing helps it function more than the right fuels.

Can I still lose those 10 pounds if I can just find the will power to eat better?

Easily.

I am 56 years old so I know my metabolism has slowed down which don't help.

It wouldn't have slowed significantly.

The bigger you are, the higher your metabolism is. The more you move (which you say, is about 18 hours of the day for yourself), the more calories you burn.

I have never had this problem so it really bothers me to be over weight and keep craving the wrong kind of foods.

You're craving the wrong foods because your body's crying out for help -- it doesn't want those foods, it needs the nutrients you're depriving yourself of. Google "food craving meaning chart" and think about your current diet when you look at it.

Just don't know what to do any more. I don't seem to have the will power I need.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself, and "man up". ("Woman up" just doesn't sound right! )
Sorry, I'm not usually such a horrible ***** but honestly, you need to give yourself some tough love because right now your mind and taste buds need discipline. The beginning is always the most difficult part but when you start accepting that you can get those results, they'll come flying.

Also, you do have the power you need, you just need to understand and accept that all you need is a change of mind and change of behaviour. That's all it takes. You don't need to learn rocket science, you just need to learn to read food labels and nutritional info and accept that you're worthy of a healthy, functioning body. It's not hard. Anyone can do it, but very few - the few who want it enough to put the work in - can succeed.

you are already exercising with all that workload, Exercise doesn't lose weight. In fact exercise can do the opposite or atleast appear to. you lose weight by diet primarily, exercise just helps the process if in combination with dieting and you look better with exercise.

slow motabolism or not you can lose weight if you eat right, don't undereat and don't overeat, find out what your real BMR is and factor in say a busy workload and work with that least then you know you aren't undereating or overeating or get a fitbit type thing or a heart rate monitor and work out what you actually burn on an average day and go from there.

Find a way to de-stress, that's a killer for weight loss, even if it's just a few mins of meditation or positive afformations, anyone can do that there is no I can't do it cause my life is so stressfull, everyone has alot of stresses to deal with you aren't alone.

Personally i am up at 4:30am get barely 6hrs a night sleep if i'm lucky and that's usually broken sleep, i work a 10hr nonstop job with only 10-20mins a shift of breaks if we are lucky, then go to the gym for an hour b4 coming home for dinner and working out my next days meals. Which leaves me with about 3 hrs of me time b4 bed again at 9-9:30pm. OK i don't have to look after sick relations and keep a huge acerage aswell so i feel for you there, maybe you need to ask for help in that regard, you can't do everything by yourself.

I know my mother is similar in that role of always putting others ahead of herself and trying to be everywhere at once and it takes it's toll. and my father was a work-a-holic which led him to a quadruple bypass and type 2 diabetes
Please don't work yourself into the ground.

Just based off what you wrote, I'd say between the grandson, 7 acres, the husband, and the house, you're getting plenty of cardio.. I would say just try to plan out your meals better and eat more within your range for now. You should start seeing something.

Also, and just throwing this out, but it sounds like your plate is pretty stressed out and full already, maybe this isn't the right time to place added stress about 10lbs. Just eat healthier (and less) and take care of yourself since you are doing so much for everyone else and then maybe you'll see some free time to add in whatever for yourself. (make sense?)

Just based off what you wrote, I'd say between the grandson, 7 acres, the husband, and the house, you're getting plenty of cardio.. I would say just try to plan out your meals better and eat more within your range for now. You should start seeing something.

Also, and just throwing this out, but it sounds like your plate is pretty stressed out and full already, maybe this isn't the right time to place added stress about 10lbs. Just eat healthier (and less) and take care of yourself since you are doing so much for everyone else and then maybe you'll see some free time to add in whatever for yourself. (make sense?)

I agree with this thinking. A couple years ago, my husband was in/out of the hospital approx 10-11 times. With that, working, the house, the yard...blah, blah blah....I was stressed. I watched what I ate and really tried to get enough sleep. If I could get in a 30 min walk, great. But if not, I was plenty active already. I think if you take good care of what you eat, the lbs will drop, but let health and energy be your focus, not the scale.

I can totally relate to the original poster.

My days go something like this:
Up at 7, get ready and leave at 7.45. work from 8-6, home and doing uni work till 1 or 2 am, then do it all again. Sat is similar but with Uni from 8-6. Sundays are spent marking work (I teach), planning work and catching up on uni work as I am doing a full time degree around a full time job.

I honestly do not have relaxation time except after dinner on a Sunday I refuse to do any work so that I don't burn out! During that time I usually have a bath and get an early night!

I work through my lunches at work while I am eating and I am really struggling to find time to exercise.

If anyone can offer advice it would be great as I am often sat while doing research and writing essays!!