Weightloss motivation

Yup, I'll second the small changes idea.

I lost weight pretty much eating the same foods I ate before, just more appropriate quantities.
As for exercise, I started out just walking and then progressed to running, indoor rowing and strength training. Find something you like, and start small. The best exercise is the exercise you'll actually do! And exercise isn't even necessary for weight loss, though it's great for health. It does have the added benefit of allowing you to eat a bit more while losing weight.

@cwolfman3 Completely agree. Sometimes we focus too much thought and energy on doing everything the *right* way(whatever that is), it's easy to forget if one simply goes about being busy, active and enjoying life, without the repetition, exact form, etc., etc., you can still be physically fit and healthy. Think back to the olden days where there were few modern conveniences available and everything was done by hand or you had to walk a ways to get to town, all that type of thing.......simple and cheap constant motion.
Haha just thinking of my dear friend who loves to play with her rocks. She's 74 and has landscaped her whole home herself, including moving substantial size rocks, along with cutting and hauling trees. But wow, is she in shape.

I am on the same boat as you.. just started last week.. I gain quite a few pounds. ...40lbs to be exact. I am taking a few suggestions from here too. So far I just started with turn the music while cleaning the kitchen and just moving to the beat..food wise..I am using a small plate instead of my regular one. I am thinking next week I might make a goal of just drinking more water. If I get used to that I'll set a goal of adding one of the suggestions here.

@AnnPT77 — wow, that’s awesome! In my heart I want to be an “athlete”. I just need to start thinking like one.

It took me forever to get to the point where I knew I needed to do something about my weight. I was not only obese, but had high BP and high sugar. I'm in my late 50s and realized if I didn't do something soon, I'd be disabled as a senior citizen. You will know when. Then you just do it. Just know if you don't, the weight won't come off and your sugar won't come down until things change. It's hard, but it's so doable! You can do it!

@cwolfman13, that's absolutely a great example of the "slippery slope toward improved happiness and quality of life", IMO.

My story is similar: I'd never been an actual athlete (wasn't really encouraged in women when I was growing up in 1950s-60s, plus I was a bookish, chosen-last-in-gym kind of a kid. I got into decent shape (and to a healthy weight) in college, just from having a very physical job, and traveling on foot or by bike on a very large campus (sometimes needing to cover over a mile in the 20 minutes between classes). Then, graduated, got a sedentary job, got fat, pretty much.

When my husband was alive, we did some active things episodically: Canoe-in camping vacations, some XC skiing, Chinese martial arts (which he taught - he was a very active guy) . . . but I was never super consistent, so pretty out of shape throughout. When I was 42, he died (cancer); I pretty much stopped doing anything active then; when I was 44, I got cancer (stage III breast cancer: bilateral mastectomies, 6 months of chemo, 6 weeks of radiation, years of follow-up meds). Right after radiation, I was diagnosed as severely hypothyroid, began treatment for that.

It's hard to describe how physically depleted I was at that point: Class 1 obese, tired, sad, weak, . . . ugh. Plus I had a demanding, stressful, long-hours sedentary job in IT.

That was the point when I realized that if I ever wanted to feel strong, energetic, and - yes - happy ever again, I was going to need to work at it.

Like you, I started slowly, with some yoga classes a couple of times a week through local school adult education. Then, I started doing some of the yoga daily, slowly increasing the poses.

Somewhere around then, friends asked me if I wanted to participate in a 5-mile fun bike/run/walk event with them, on a bike - they'd loan me a bike. I wasn't sure I could do it, but I said I'd try. It felt like kind of a lot, honestly (there were even some hills!), but I did it. I decided to buy a bike (my old one was decrepit and rusted out), and got a hybrid. I'd ride it a few miles at a time, flat bike lanes nearby, not very ambitious, but manageable.

Then I found a "Weight Training for Women" class that was also school adult ed. It turned out to be taught by a super nice guy, powerlifter who loved teaching women (partly because we'd follow instructions more than the guys he also talk, but also - he said - because he loved seeing us discover that we could do more than we thought, get strong). He was really encouraging, met us where we were, but helped us progress well beyond that start, sensibly and gradually. I did that for a couple of years, even joining the Y so I could keep going through class breaks.

Somewhere during that time, there were announcements about a rowing team for breast cancer survivors that the big local university's assistant women's coach was starting. I kind of thought I was out of my league, wondered if I was crazy to even try, but had liked canoeing, so I signed up.

It was addictive, intoxicating. We rowed on water in good weather, indoors in the university's facilities in Winter. They let us row indoors on our own in Winter, in their facilities, as long as there were at least 2 people present. (Some of the collegiate rowers befriended us, would join us doing that.) Team met once a week, we'd meet up other times to machine row.

But that team only happened during the academic year, September through May. I wanted to keep going, so I took the local rowing club's learn to row class, to learn how to row smaller boats (sculling, two oars per person). I started doing that regularly with buddies from my team, and some of the collegiate rowers who rowed at the club over summers. I even went to rowing camps on vacation - a week, rowing 3 times most days, plus other activities.

I was able to pass the swim test for camp, but it was a close thing. Since rowers gotta swim, I took adult learn-to-swim then lap swimming classes at the Y, to improve those skills. I started taking spin classes at the Y a couple of times a week during Winter, then all year long. I started doing aerobics videos during Winter, too, until the low-impact ones I need (bad knees) got to be not vigorous enough to help me progress. I bought my own rowing machine to use at home, trained on that. I started doing the Concept 2 Holiday Challenge most years (200k on the machine between US Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, about 4 weeks).

I competed in rowing machine races, even won a couple of age group medals. I competed in on water races, too, sometimes 4-5 separate races in a day (and I lived through it!). We even medaled (rarely 😉). I kept going to rowing camps, taking coaching workshops, got USRowing coaching certifications.

All of the above took around 10 or so years to roll out - really gradual. Toward the end of that, I retired, had more time. I established a schedule of rowing 4 days most weeks in season on water, machine rowing in Winter (usually with some strength training alongside), took spin classes twice a week all year at the Y, did some Winter pool swimming to stay in practice (I still don't like to swim), took other classes at the Y to see what seemed fun. Generally, I was working out 6 days most weeks.

Though it might surprise some, while training/exercising at that level, I stayed overweight/obese for around 12 years, training regularly. There were various bumps in the road along the way (broken ankle, various minor surgeries, etc.), but finally, at age 59, I had enough bad health stuff still in the picture (like high cholesterol, high BP), that I decided I had to lose weight.

That's when I joined MFP, treated weight loss like a fun science fair experiment for grown-ups, and lost 50+ pounds in just under a year, pretty much keeping up my same workout schedule, just working on the eating side of things, eating mostly the same foods, just different portions/proportions/frequencies to manage the calories.

With the pandemic, I've switched from spin classes at the Y to buying my own stationary bike for Winter. Now I'm alternating stationary bike and machine row 6 days most weeks in Winter, with some strength training and floor exercises; in Spring-Fall, 4 days a week of rowing boats, and a couple of days of biking on paved trails (which has become 10-20 miles easily vs. the 5 or less that used to be hard), often taking 5 mile walks on rowing days at a nice park trail. It's great.

If you'd told 45-year-old me, when I was just finishing cancer treatment, that 66-year-old me would be living this life, I would've laughed and laughed. I'll quote Bob Dylan: "I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now."

Slippery slope, gradually getting fitter, feeling better, finding active things more fun, chasing that fun . . . !

Now, I wish I'd gotten smart younger: Might've been able to avoid that pesky cancer-treatment hobby in there, along with a bunch of other health issues . . . not to mention just having more fun in life along the way.

Yes! I have felt the same and it has taken me a while to realize I have to get into habits and not rely on motivation alone. I set calendar events for every day to set a daily schedule. For example at a certain time I walk, strength train ,etc.It keeps me accountable. I also started journaling each morning and that helps. Each morning i also log my food in myfitnesspal. I try to not give excuses. You got this!