Need to Lose 100 LBS -Robins Thread !

I had to stop back to share this article that came into my mailbox from my local Senior Center. It is from New York Times, and it answers a question posed by a senior citizen ... and while most of the posters on the forum are much younger ... that is when you need to start ...

Can You Regain Muscle Mass After Age 60?
Is it true that the muscle mass we lose at, say, 60 years old cannot be regained?

Reader Question:
I'm a 77-year-old man in good health. I've dropped 10 pounds over the last 40 years, all muscle. Is there any way for someone my age to regain muscle mass without resorting to steroids?

Answer:
Let’s start with the good news about aging muscles. You can rebuild them, even if you are middle-aged or older.
“Our lab and others have shown repeatedly” that older muscles will grow and strengthen, says Marcas Bamman, a professor of integrative biology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. In his studies, men and women in their 60s and 70s who began supervised weight training developed muscles that were as large and strong as those of your average 40-year-old.

But the process of bulking up works differently in older people than in the young, he said.

Skeletal muscles are composed of various types of fibers and “two things happen” to those fibers after we reach middle age, Dr. Bamman says. Some die, especially if we have not been exercising our muscles much. Sedentary adults can lose 30 to 40 percent of the total number of fibers in their muscles by the time they are 55, Dr. Bamman says.

Others of the fibers remain alive but shrink and atrophy as we age.

Young people who work out add new muscle fibers and also plump up their existing ones. Older people do not. We increase the size of our atrophied muscle fibers with exercise but, for a variety of physiological reasons, do not add to the number of fibers, Dr. Bamman says.

But in practical terms, who cares? Older muscles will become larger and stronger if you work them, Dr. Bamman says.

The key, he continues, is regular and progressive weight training. If you don’t belong to a gym, consider joining one, and then plan on tiring yourself. In order to initiate the biochemical processes that lead to larger, stronger fibers, Dr. Bamman says, you should push your muscles until they are exhausted.
In his studies, volunteers used weights calibrated so that the lifters could barely complete a set of eight to 12 repetitions before their arms or legs grew leaden and they had to rest. They repeated each set two or three times and visited the gym three times per week. If you are new to weight workouts, ask for an orientation at your gym or consult an athletic trainer who often works with older clients.

Source: The New York Times

I dont weight train bc I dont like working till I'm exhausted. Then I dont have the strength to control my emotions and I cry and get very depressed and suicidal ... Every personal trainer I've hired has worked me to exhaustion. I break down and cry and quit bc whats the point in living if you are miserable? Weight training makes me feel like a miserable failure.

lizzyh207 wrote: »

Wednesday Wish - get back to the habit of working out regularly. Find my motivation and make it stick. I aslo wish that my co workers would stop bringing in Christmas treats or that I would learn to say no.

@lizzyh207 here is what I've done regarding Christmas treats. If they are put out in the morning I tell myself that I can have them, but I can eat them after lunch. If I see them in the afternoon...I can totally have one as I walk out the door. Usually they are either gone or look pitiful or I forget about them by the time i said that I could have one that it works out. If they are still there and still look good and I've been craving it then I get one. And because I waited now I will eat significantly less than I would have if I grabbed one when I first saw them.

For me telling myself something is off limits is guaranteeing that I will binge eat that item. For me this has to be a lifestyle change not a diet. If it's a diet then I will cheat and eat my way into a much higher weight. I don't know if you can tell or not but I hate rules and people telling me what to do. Even if it is myself.

@campfirequeen1 ugh! Dogs are the worst! I hope u get your wish!

4 days in a row I've made my steps goal! Which means Fitbit added 500 calories to my day, and I didn't feel nearly so bad about the fun size Snickers I ate today.

My new commitment, once I get a chance to make a trip to the store, is to try for an actual breakfast that's healthy, and not coffee/energy drink and maybe a poptart if I can suck it down before the kiddo sees that I have it. I've seen several recipes for over night oats that sound pretty good, and I've always liked oatmeal, so I'm gonna give that a shot and see how it goes. I've cut coffee down to just one cup a day, but I'm still kinda dragging in the mornings, so I'm hoping a good breakfast will help me out.

Finally Friday! A week of logging and preparedness and I'm down 3.5 of the 6ish I gained over my thanksgiving/family crisis. My company Christmas luncheon is today. I will fearlessly enter the buffet line and try to make good choices. My podiatrist appointment is still over a week away. Hopefully a shot of cortisone in the sole of my foot and I'm good to walk again. I have noticed a change since I stopped. I have to get back on the road. I don't seem to have the surplus of energy I was getting used to. 50 less pounds to lug around makes a lot of life more fun but the exercise gave me the extra to get up and do it.

I managed to eat my nearly 1000 calorie dinner without guilt because I planned the rest of my day around it, even exercised in case I needed some extra calories. And I enjoyed every bite!

Before when I've tried to lose weight, I was convinced I had to deprive myself of things like cheesy 3 egg omelets. It had to be all grilled chicken and steamed veggies and bland boring blah as punishment for letting myself get fat. This time around I am allowing myself these indulgent dinners, and experimenting with different things so my palate doesn't get bored. I am not going to let food boredom be the reason I give up and start stuffing junk in my face.

MermaidPrincessRach wrote: »

I dont weight train bc I dont like working till I'm exhausted. Then I dont have the strength to control my emotions and I cry and get very depressed and suicidal ... Every personal trainer I've hired has worked me to exhaustion. I break down and cry and quit bc whats the point in living if you are miserable? Weight training makes me feel like a miserable failure.

I don't like working til I'm exhausted either!!!! I had a very happy time at a small gym I joined in 2002... one of the staff showed me how to use the treadmill and the resistance machines (including the settings that were suitable to me at the time), and I embraced it all. I increased the resistance settings when I felt the current setting was no longer a reasonable setting, and all in all, felt like a million bucks. Nobody was telling me what to do, it was all self-directed. If I had a question, there were staff around happy to answer. After several years, the gym manager, a friendly, always welcoming person, for some reason, started to clamour that I needed to challenge myself more, and up the intensity. So I gave it a whirl, his way, and found it to be TOO MUCH... and dialled back to my "reasonable" settings. After a while, he would be at me again... and I would give "his way" another whirl, and then I would dial back, and that cycle continued too the point where I stopped going to the gym very often, and finally cancelled my membership. However, what I should have done is tell him to STOP BADGERING ME!!!

Fast forward to 2012: I joined the neighborhood YWCA, took advantage of a session with a staff member to go over the equipment, and said to myself: "I will do everything in my power to keep my thoughts of the gym itself, and my time spent there, POSITIVE!" I was therefor careful to defer the free personal assessment/personalized training program offered, to keep someone else's expectations out of the equation. Here I am, more than 4 years later, very happily visiting the gym almost daily, and taking into account only the standards I set for myself.

I lost a great deal of weight in 2012/2013, but have regained almost a third of it in the last three years. My current goal is to stop with the up and down, and return to my lowest point. Anyway, before I started regaining, I can still remember observing my upper torso in a bathroom mirror, and, for the first time (since my previous gym membership) being absolutely awestruck at the shapeliness of my shoulders and midriff... so I'm confidant that my "reasonable approach" works for me, and may well work for you as well!

Please don't let your bad experience get you down. My advice is to try going it alone as I did, at least until you have made enough progress to get a sense of the joy the whole gym experience can be... and at that point you can decide whether involving a trainer would serve your best interests. Good luck!

DH just went off to work for the night. I hate being alone without him! But there will be No Pity Party for me tonight. It is time for me to enjoy a little "me" time: read, color, sew, go grocery shopping, wrap gifts, take a walk, ... what ever I want! And he will be back home later tonight in almost no time! Then you can tell him all about the fun you had!

Hey I just found this community and it seems so amazing and encouraging! Feel free to add me as a friend! on a journey of losing 100 pounds

@Dalceridae - Happy to know that my ramblings are helpful to someone and not just good for clearing space in my brain.

Tonight's dinner was a perfect example of the art of compromise. My husband wanted smoked sausage. Usually when he wants smoked sausage, I cook it up with some potatoes, or we have sandwiches with onions, peppers, and cheese. Instead, I cut it up and mixed it with a couple bags of frozen broccoli, a can of healthy choice cheddar cheese soup, 1/2c milk, and 1/2c shredded cheddar, then topped with 1/2c shredded cheddar and some crispy french fried onions... Threw it in the oven for 45 minutes and ate! It turned out really good, and it was really filling. And fairly healthy, if a bit sodium laden, at ~400 calories per serving, with about 8g fiber, and 28g protein, using turkey smoked sausage. Maybe next time I'll try a similar thing with chunks of chicken boobies and maybe a little bacon. Mmm.

When you cook for two, and only one of you is in need of losing weight, dinner can be tricky.

Hi there! I have been on MFP for a while but never took advantage of the community aspect of it until now! I started my weight loss journey (again) in September and have lost 8lbs so far....but feel myself demotivating (is that a word?) because I have 100lbs to lose and at this rate its going to take me years to lose it! I don't have much support in this journey, which is fine in some sense because ultimately I have to do this for me, but I could use some encouragement (and hopefully I can encourage a few people to!) ...so here I am!

@pinkstarberry Congratulations! That is so awesome and also so inspiring! I started at nearly your starting weight almost 4 weeks ago, but have a long way to go before getting below 200, so it means so much to know that it's possible.

I've heard from others that it takes a long time for your brain to catch up with your body, so I can understand how emotional this must be.

Monday, i was under the weather yesterday with a stomach bug. I couldn't stop eating this morning. Junk too. One bad day in a week, it's a good thing there is always tomorrow.

@pinkstarberry, that is fantastic! And I know exactly how you feel - I hit that same milestone a couple of weeks ago, and I was over the moon about it. So many years of being obese, and even morbidly obese - it feels like incredibly to be merely overweight. Congratulations!

And @Dalceridae, for me that's certainly true. I've list nearly 90lbs since early April. I'm far, far less "bulky" than I was at the beginning of the year, but my head does not seem to know it. Case in point: today I wrote a fleece vest that had been to right for me to wear the past few winters. I put it on, zipped it up, and had a moment of not being able to figure out why the neck there was so much room between the zipper and my belly. The thing was HUGE on me! That kind of stuff happens nearly daily. But it's a really nice problem to have ;-)

Hi Everyone! I've been "lurking" for several weeks, reading everyone's posts, but having little time to respond (altho I always want to!). Just know in still here and silently rooting on reach and every one of you!

@jesslynwo, welcome to the group. Pls remember that every fraction of a pound downward is a step in the right direction. Getting back to health is a process. For some or goes faster than for others. But as long as the numbers on the scale go downward, you're in the right track. Keep it going, and DON'T GIVE UP!

@Nikion901, we will miss you! Wishing you a very Happy holiday season and looking fwd to having you back when you can.