A different angle

hvkorynta wrote: »

Hi Everyone,
My name is Victoria and I am joining as a new member, however I am not new to dieting. I have used my fitness pal in the past, as well as many other approaches. I have not been very successful in my weight loss journey over the last 20 years. I am a nurse and feel that I have pretty good knowledge of what a person should do to lose weight, yet I am failing. I have known for years that it is all about a person's head space. So this time I am changing my angle. I am 64 years old and now or never need to focus on improving my health to make this part of my life the best it can be. I want to stay active and truly enjoy my golden years. I am retired and do not have the stress in my life that often comes with living in the "rat race". My goal is to visualize the life I want to be living and to identify and start taking steps to get there. The life I want to be living is active, so I need to feel and look healthy. That means paying attention to the nutrients that go in my mouth. I heard that is so important If you can believe it, this has never been my focus. I have only worried about the amount of calories and how fast I can get it done. I hope to not even worry about that, and instead find out how to get the daily requirements and explore new healthy choices. This will be a hurdle for me. I have made bad choices for years. I hope to learn new eating options and other ideas from this community. Hears to learning new ways of doing things at every age.

That's an excellent strategy . . . doing something different, thinking about how to make it healthy, and as easy as possible - not treating it as an urgent project with a quick end date.

I joined MFP back in 2015, already retired, after 30-some years of class 1 obesity before that, at age 59. By age 60, with MFP's help, I was at a healthy weight by my 60th birthday, and have stayed at a healthy weight since. (I'm now 65.) The weight loss in itself brought improved health markers (cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure all solidly normal now, used to be high), less joint pain and far less frequent flare-ups, better mobility, and an overall improved sense of physical well-being . . . not to mention the sense of agency and self-mastery that comes from figuring this out and making it work long term. So worthwhile.

You can do this! We bring strengths to the process that we didn't have when we were 20-something: Strong self-knowledge of our strengths and limitations, plus how to exploit the first and game the latter; an understanding of how to chip away at a long term goal through small steps (skills honed by the practices of advancing our careers, continuing our education, raising a family, managing our finances, etc.), and a sense of perspective on what's really important in life.

One of my personal mantras has been to treat weight loss as weight-maintenance practice: Sure, lose weight (at a sensibly moderate speed); but do so in a way that involves experimenting and gradually tweaking my habits to figure out how to maintain my weight long-term while staying happy, well-nourished, sated, energetic, and keeping important-to-me food traditions and food-related social connections a positive part of my life.

Wishing you much success!

If you want a place to state your “I am...” affirmations feel free to join me here.

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10816799/i-am-this-moment#latest

Anyone is welcome that feels it would bless them

hvkorynta wrote: »

I am feeling very apprehensive about my approach although I feel like I am paying more attention to nutrition than I ever have. I have been steadily tracking and monitoring everyday. I drink two liters a day, am taking vitamins. I have not gone over my calorie goal in the 3 weeks I have been doing this, yet I am only down 2 lbs. I am on a mission to make the journey more about learning to eat well so I know it will be slower, but come on. One day I was 3 # less than I am now but it did not stay there. I do not want to give up. Where has my matabolism gone?

It sounds to me like you're doing well: You're getting the most vital parts of the process nailed down (managing calories, pursuing improved nutrition).

Just a couple of thoughts, from someone who's lost, and maintained for a few years now:

Two pounds in 3 weeks is good progress (and it might even be 3 pounds, right?). Sometimes, people come here with conceptions of weight loss from popular media (the reality shows like "Biggest Loser", the tabloid headlines that say things like "Lose 20 Pounds in 30 Days!!!" In my experience, both mine and interacting with people here the last few years, long-term successful people often are losing around a pound a week, a little more some weeks, a little less others . . . and they just stick with that, continually working on getting those good eating/activity habits to be their wired-in daily routine. Over weeks to months, the pounds melt off, the victories stack up (not just on the scale, but other life improvements like health & mobility), and they find their way to long-term success.

Sometimes, people who start off with huge radical changes, and bigger dramatic losses, end up burning out, and either binging periodically (bringing their average weight over weeks/months loss way down), or give up entirely. Huge loss goals are a hard thing to sustain, while keeping the strength and energy we need for daily life. I think you're doing just fine.

I'd also comment that the scale can be a lying liar that lies, and the number the shows up on it on any given day is not a reflection of our worth as human beings. It's just our body's relationship to gravity at that one moment. It can be dramatically distorted by the shifts in water weight and digestive contents (on their way to being waste). If I'm losing a pound a week on average, but my daily water weight changes are swings up and down by 2-3 pounds, it's going to take several weeks for me to see a clear trend (even if I'm using one of the free weight trending apps). Doesn't mean fat isn't leaving, it just means it's playing peek-a-boo on the scale because of water weight. This is an excellent read on the subject: https://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations . Highly recommended.

As far as metabolism, one thing some of us do is work on increasing the amount of movement in daily life to burn a few more calories. It's not dramatic, but it can be helpful. When we're overweight and maybe inactive, it's easy to establish less movement-oriented habits in our daily life. The point of what I'm talking about here is to consciously work on changing that. There's a bunch of ideas about that in this thread: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10610953/neat-improvement-strategies-to-improve-weight-loss/p1. Not every single thing in there will be everyone's cup of tea, but there might be some useful ideas.

The other thing we can do for metabolism (and the effect is still small), is to work on increasing our strength. This doesn't have to be some massive bodybuilding program with gigungo weights. Doing something regularly that challenges our own individual current strength level is going to gradually improve our metabolism, over a long period . . . and it also has benefits in daily life. Sometimes, women our age haven't been encouraged to be strong, in the way that's so wonderfully more common for young women today. But it's still a thing we can work on and improve, at any age.

Repeating: I think you're doing just fine. Please don't feel discouraged. Think about it: If you lose even 2 pounds every 3 weeks for the next 6 months, you'll be 16 pounds lighter at the end, and you will have created some sustainable new healthy habits. Those 6 months are going to pass, no matter what each of us do along the way. With what you're doing now, you can be quite a bit healthier by 6 months. You may even find that as you refine your habits, like activity, logging accuracy, etc., that your loss rate is a bit faster.

Hang in there!