2016 Adopt a Noob Official MFP Thread

Hello Everyone!! I am looking for a mentor, not just any mentor but a mentor who can help me assess my strengths and weaknesses on not only on my fitness goals but diet goals. You see at my age (40s) I have dieted and tried every fitness regime known to man. Some I succeeded at, others well...

I am being very honest when I say that I need someone to help me find the power to change. I have many life long goals that I have not achieved due to family commitments, location difficulties or due to being unmotivated and downright lazy! On the other hand, some I have achieved through sheer determination. But one, one that has been my aching goal to this day, is to get healthy and fit. Hollistically healthy is my aim and goal.

My body is slowly getting harder to make do what I want it to do (aging back health, obestiy does not help). My health is becoming probmatic and my motivation is slowly decreasing due to not really understanding what I need to do and how. Some days it feel like this whole getting healthy is information overload. I have finally had to bow my head and admit that I am unable to do this alone. I am not sure how the mentoring works here in MFP but If I sound like someone you could mentor, that is great! Please message me. I am looking for someone long term and I am fine with any age, gender etc, please just be aware that I am female and in my 40s. Thanks for reading!

Hi. I'm in dire need of a mentor. I have 20lbs to lose and would like to work on toning up, eating cleaner and exercising. Help lbvs

We all have that moment, you know, the one where you realize ... Holy cow....I have let myself go and I really need to make changes and now!!!!!... I am a noob looking for a mentor... A little about me.. I was never overweight in school.... But later in life, college and a family added 50lbs.. I have 2 kids, ages 11 and 9 and have to make the changes now in order to be around for my family longer... I need to loose between 50-60 lbs ... I am not looking for some quick fix... I need to make real, lifelong changes. I am looking for a mentor who can inspire and motivate me... I have a gym in the basement and would like to start weight lifting as well as cardio, but don't know where and how to start... If you can be a mentor .... Send me a message.

I am looking for a mentor. I am 40 and need to change my diet lifestyle. I am a father of 4 boys and we are fostering 2 girls right now. Just need encouragement and prodding.

Would love a mentor but the thought of sending a private message to someone is intimidating to me, (I would never make it on dating sites) so I am throwing my request out to the masses.
First and foremost I need to lose 100 pounds. It kills me to write that because it shows just how far I have let myself go. I need help climbing out of this pit of self-destructions.
I am 50, but does my age really matter or is the fact I want to lose weight and get healthier more important?
Yes like most women my age I have children they are grown and out of the house. No I don’t have grandchildren.
I did the C25K program awhile back and was doing 5K on a regular basis, developed plantar fasciitis that sidelined me and I haven’t been able to get back on track consistently. I would really like to get back on track with my exercise; I have fantasies of finishing a half marathon.
I see people around me losing weight and I think “why can’t I do that”, you would think by my age I would know how to do this.
My job is sedentary, I am behind a computer ALL DAY. I have a Fitbit you would think that would motivate me – it did, now, not so much, and I don’t like that it doesn’t. I would have little contests with myself to see if I could beat my previous day steps and move up the ranking on my friends list. I want that back!
My eating habits, well let’s just say they obviously are not the best or I wouldn’t have 100 pounds to lose 
Are you willing to help this lost soul get back on track?

I am starting on my journey just today and would love a mentor to help keep me on track and ping a few words of wisdom over. I'll check out the list later but a little about me:

My weight has been so up and down for the last few years and I've come back to this app and a determination to change.
I live in the middle of the U.K and am 27 years young. I work in a nursery and am on my feet with a bunch of two year olds for 9.5 hours a day. It's fun hard work. I enjoy swimming and try to get to the pool at least three times a week. I'd like to put some weight training/other cv training (I own a gym bike and a pair of trainers) so someone with experience of weights or body exercises would be a bonus. Aside from all this I love my sport (massive Liverpool FC fan) and I like to read.

If anyone sees this and would like to mentor me. I'd be delighted.

looking to start my weight lose. starting weight 228lbs goal weight 140lbs 5'4 40 years old. Looking for help on where and how to start. I do walk on my treadmill 30 mins a day. I have 2 children. My kids would like to go to the beach and amusement parks which I am scared that I cant enjoy the rids with them or have the energy to walk on the beach with them. I would also like to start hiking with my kids too. Looking to be paired with someone who is willing to teach me.

This seems to be where everyone looking for a mentor is posting, so I'll join the ranks...

I'm a 51yo woman from Wisconsin, on a lifelong struggle with my weight and fitness. I always thought I'd have time to lose weight and get into better shape "later." Well, it's "later" and I'm no closer now than I was then...in fact, I'm heavier and in worse shape now than when I first started saying that to myself years ago.

I can't even say it's that I've made excuses over the years, it's more that I haven't really paid attention. I raised my daughter, graduated from college as a returning adult student, and devoted myself to work in order to grow my career. And I've achieved a lot of goals I set for myself - except where my health was concerned.

I'm great at planning, but often fail with the execution. I can spend hours scouring cookbooks and planning out a week of healthy meals, and a detailed grocery list. Then I go spend several hours and hundreds of dollars on healthy ingredients at the grocery store, and by then I'm so exhausted and "over it" that the healthy food goes to waste because I'm too tired to cook what I've brought home. I CAN cook, but it's a chore and I get no enjoyment out of it, so I find simplest is best for me (chicken breast, salad, yogurt, etc) if I'm going to stick with it.

I know from years of experience that I am most successful when I follow a structured plan, but that can also be my demise. If I spend time on the weekend preparing and portioning out my food, it makes it so much easier to "grab and go" during the week. But when life gets in the way of being able to spend that time preparing, all my best laid plans go astray.

I have a long commute (45 min each way) and work long hours, so exercise is also an area where I need help. I have a treadmill at home, and lots of workout DVDs and equipment, but making time for it has been a challenge. I've found it difficult to fall asleep early enough to make waking up early to exercise a possibility, and I'm often so tired when I get home that I'm lucky to make and eat dinner before I crash.

My daughter will be getting married next year, and that was a wake-up call for me. Of course I want to look and feel good on her special day, but I also want to LIVE long enough to be an active and involved grandmother some day, and to see my grandchildren grow up and have families of their own.

Most importantly, I want to have the energy and stamina to enjoy my own life. I've started to feel my age in the last couple of years, and my doctor has put me on prescriptions for pre-diabetes and high cholesterol. It's quite possible I'm fooling myself, but I just think I'm too young to be taking pills every day for conditions I wouldn't have if I were at a healthy weight and in better physical condition.

I have a lot of weight to lose (100+ lbs), but I prefer to make smaller goals along the way, maybe 20 lbs at a time, so it doesn't seem so overwhelming and out of reach to be successful during this journey. I played softball for many years and loved it, but old injuries have made some exercises challenging for me (my daughter calls me "Rice Krispies" when I walk up the stairs from my knees).

I would be grateful to have a mentor who can be sympathetic to the fact that I'm not going to be able to start out training for a marathon, but will also push me to do better each day than I did the day before; someone who has a good understanding of nutrition but can explain it in an easy-to-understand manner; and whose own experience of losing weight can help them understand mine. I WANT to learn, so it would also help to have someone who is open to lots of questions along the way.

Hi all!

I'm in need of a mentor and motivator...

I'm Kat - 28 years old living in Singapore since this year. I'm 1,56m/1,57m tall (or short). I started with MFP end of march this year so I'm not completely new. My starting weight was 79,5kg (but I know I had around 80-81kg at the beginning of the year). I currently weigh 74,2kg and think I'm loosing too slow for my taste but I know where the faults are and that I'm the only one responsible so I'm not going to find some weird excuses for it.

For Fitness I started with Kickboxing Fitness twice a week and about 5 weeks ago.

Why do I need a mentor? Well I decided that I would like to take part in a Spartan Race Sprint this year in November. But honestly as a fitness beginner there is so much to do for it and I'm feeling overwhelmed from it and don't know on how to get started right.
I got some good tips from users here of what I should be able to do for the race. I got an C25k app and I also signed up for the Spartan training plan (but really this one seems way to much for me as a beginner... ) but I can't seem to get it structured and started. And then it's also (and that's probably the biggest problem) that I find it really hard to motivate myself to do so much training from almost zero to 200%.

So anybody feel like wanting to help? Please???

Cheers,
Kat

I'm getting back in the horse and would love a mentor. I'm a 46 year old woman with 30 pounds to lose. When I worked out regularly, I loved fusion type classes that combine cardio and strength training. I've tried running, but have not learned to love it. I tend to do workout DVDs at home, so would love support that I am missing by working out by myself. In terms of diet, I know what I'm supposed to do, but tend to lack the follow through. If anyone wants to take me on, either to mentor or just throw support to, I'd love it!