55-65 year old women's success?

It is so great to see lots of new messages here! One of the things I most love about this thread is that it is not about a particular diet plan but truly about giving and receiving support along the journey that we are all on. We each have our own way of going about losing weight and we each have to figure out what truly works for us. The first of this month I reached my one year anniversary here on MFP. There are so many things I have learned and I still feel like such a novice! The support I have received here has made a tremendous difference for me. Just knowing that we are all in the same boat here and we actually want our fellow shipmates to succeed is a good feeling.

My stats:
Age: 60 as of November
Height: 5'4" optimistically
Starting weight: 244.7 pounds
Current weight: 165 pounds as of last week which was my original goal.
I am a retired postal worker. No disgruntled jokes, please.

Last year, the week before Christmas, I was vacuuming the carpet and got a little dizzy and had to sit down. This happened twice and I will be honest and say it scared me. I'm pretty sure I was one very short step away from either a heart attack or a stroke. The idea of living with the results of a stroke is what spurred my conviction to join MFP. The old joke about "you gotta die of something" just wasn't all that funny when I was more concerned about living with something that might greatly limit my lifestyle and activities and my ability to communicate. I set a date to start MFP and was determined to stick with the plan. I am happy to say I am still determined.

For me, living in the "real world" is how I look at my diet. I am a sugaraholic. I will probably always be one. I knew from the beginning that in order to succeed I would have to incorporate the things I love to eat into my diet so I wouldn't feel totally deprived and just chuck to whole plan. I still snack too much, but I keep controlled calorie snacks in my house, my purse and my car so I don't impulsively buy that candy bar that looks so good in the checkout line. When I first started, the first couple weeks were the hardest. Yes, I did think I was starving a little bit, but I decided if it wasn't meal time, I would drink some water and wait thirty minutes before I ate anything. Usually it was within fifteen minutes of a meal before I was actually feeling really hungry. A lot of the time it was mostly boredom or stress that sent me to the kitchen. I was newly retired and still figuring out what to do with myself every day. After that first couple weeks, it got physically better and after about three weeks, if I ate more than I should at a meal I got that overfull feeling which I no longer enjoy at all.

Some hard truths I had to accept:
I am the only person who can change what I put into my mouth. I am responsible for that change and for every pound I carry that I shouldn't. When I first started watching what I ate, it was somewhat difficult to get people to understand that when I said no thank you to food I meant it because in the past I would have eaten whatever they were offering and probably had seconds. I have seen people on MFP complain that others are trying to sabotage them by having or offering them food they shouldn't eat when they know that they are trying to lose weight. We need to remember that we are changing how we do things and it is difficult for us, but it is also difficult for our family and friends to know what their role is. Bottom line is this, it is still up to me to determine what I will and will not put in my mouth every day all day long. If I really want to try whatever they are offering, I do, but I have learned that it is ok to have just one little taste and THROW THE REST AWAY.

For me, I was determined to stay within my calorie goal everyday or as close as I could get. I do not trust myself not to eat every single exercise calorie I get, so I really don't input a lot of my exercise. My goal every day from day one has been just to move more today than I did yesterday. If I know I have been very very active in a given day, I will eat over my original calorie goal and I will input some of my exercise mostly because I hate seeing it say I was over. It's a mind game I am playing with myself but it works for me.

I have a food scale sitting on my kitchen counter all the time. When I first started on MFP, I weighed every single bite I ate. Nowadays I don't do as much of that as I started out doing but I do recommend doing so to learn what a serving size REALLY is. You can get one for less than $15.00 at Walmart. It made tremendous difference for my daughter and for me. Log every bite every day. Show up for yourself every day.

I had to learn to value myself enough to think I am worth the effort! For me, this was major!! It is very easy to get upset, stressed out, time-crunched and throw out the plan. Easy is just shoving food in my mouth without thinking about the consequences. My consequences were scaring me with a simple task with a vacuum cleaner. I have nine grandchildren that I want to see grow up and want to take camping every year and I am not prepared to do so from a wheelchair so everyday I show up now and for me I know that I will have to show up everyday for the rest of my life. But I now believe almost all the time that I am worth the effort! Sometimes I still have to talk myself out of raiding the kitchen and eating everything in sight. I now try to maintain a happy balance in my daily meals meaning if I eat one heavy meal I try to balance it with a light one so I stay in my calorie goal. I am not perfect. I will never be, but I am working on me and it feels good.

If you did the math above, I have lost just under 80 pounds in the last year. My goal is not to be model thin, but to be healthy and mobile. My knees don't hurt like they used to. I don't get short of breath like I used to. My blood pressure is down. I'm starting to recognize the thinner person in the mirror as me without the shock factor. Most of all, I believe that if I keep logging I can stay at this weight, but I also know it's completely up to me. No one else. And I do believe if I can do his, so can anyone else who makes the changes in their head to really commit to doing so every day. Yes, there will be bad days, but remember this: every day is a brand new day! Put yesterday behind you and start again today and tomorrow and the next day. Don't beat yourself up if you have a bad day or even a bad week. Start every single day fresh.

YOU ARE WORTH IT!!!

Everyone is doing great. I didn't go back to page 1 and I probably posted before but I'm 65 , 5.6 was up to 224 and today I am at 174.5 so I am getting there. My first goal is 150, I may like to go to 140--145. My knees are bad and I will need total knee replacement for one knee. I've been waking anywhere from 6700=12,000 steps per day.