Women pushing 40 support and motivation!

Well, the nice thing about being 42 is that I'm pretty familiar with myself and what I'm usually like. I know how many drinks I'll have on average and I know what brands I prefer. I know what restaurants my friends and I like and I know what I usually want to order when I'm there. And I have all the family cookie recipes and know which ones will get me in trouble and which ones will round out a day of hard cardio nicely.

Experiment a little and pre-log a few scenarios that you know will come up. Figure out what you can change from your usual and still be happy. Figure out how many calories to pre-bank in advance if you know about something in advance. Know whether or not you're the kind of person who can bank calories for later in the week.

Really, it's not too bad if you take a very frank look at what you're *usually like* and decide if you like that, and if you do, plan to be like that in a way that works long term.

Welcome to the journey. Last year around the holidays I had a firend who is a few months older than me mention being in the best shape of her life by 40. At the time I was struggling with my weight and decided that was a damn good goal. So I adopted it. The tricky part for me was the long term aspect, since 40 was almost 2 years away. I have lost weight before, but keeping it off can be a struggle for me. So I set my weight loss goal at 35lbs initially which would put me at the top of my healthy BMI range. There was an 8 week weight loss challenge at my new gym in Jan that I used for motivation. I lost the most weight in my gym and earned myself $500. I also realized that 23 lbs in 8 weeks was not sustainable and figured out how to adjust things for my long term goals. I hit my low weight at the 6 month mark with 45lbs lost. Then vacation and work stress hit and I gained about 10lbs back. But see, I have that long term goal of keeping the weight off. So now as I approach the holidays I am trying to be mindful and work to lose even a couple of the 10lbs I gained back, so when Jan hits and I know I have motivation and support I can smash those goals.

So that was my long winded way of answering your small vs long goal question. Both! Set small goals to keep you going and long term goals for when life inevitable happens you get your head back in the game. Along the way I have added some other fitness goals. I ran the fastest half marathon I ever have in September. I am working to be able to do a pull-up. Still a ways away on that but making progress. I am thinking about trying for a sub 50 min 10K and there is a half iron-man I would like to complete either this year or next.

When I am actually in the swing of MFP (which, I have not been for awhile but trying to start that up again in the new year), I track my calories and stay under goal 6x per week with 1 day to eat whatever. When vacations and holidays come up, I don't bother tracking. What I find over time is that my appetite decreases when my calorie intake is down most of the time, so I don't eat THAT much more when I take days "off." Sure, in a week's vacation I will gain a few pounds because of extra food/salt/alcohol, but when vacation is over my food vacation is over and I'm right back to it and lose the vacation pudge right away.

That's what works for me. I also try not to worry too much about the weight loss because it's slow for me. I'm hypothyroid with PCOS, and I'm in my 40s now so it's all going to be much harder.

Anyway add me if you want And that goes for anyone reading this! I like having a network of friends on here to support/motivate.

Age is just a number but if you have reached that ‘I need to look after myself better’ then do it, use that motivation now rather than later . Start today 👍