Diabetic with lack of discipline & motivation

Options
Greetings all. My name is George and I am a type 2 diabetic. Have been for about 5 or 6 years. I'm a 57-year-old obese man. My last weigh-in was 315. I take .5 Ozempic and 2000mgs of Metformin. I really need to get my nutrition and fitness on track. Any support and/or motivation tips are welcome.

-George

Replies

  • snowflake954
    snowflake954 Posts: 8,399 Member
    Options
    Welcome. Coming here is a first important step. You just need to keep taking those steps forward. You can definitely do this, but what it really takes is patience day-to-day. Get your daily calorie goal from MFP. Get a digital food scale. Start weighing and measuring all food and drink. Log it all in your food diary. At the end of the day you should be within your goal. That's it. Everyday.

    As you go on, you'll find yourself making food choices to fit your goal. You will most likely change your way of eating a bit. Try to build new habits, because when you lose the weight, you don't want it back. You are retraining yourself to eat correct portions for you. You can and should eat food you enjoy--just not too much.

    Also, if you are not exercising, try to start some type of movement. Walking is fine. Log your movement into MFP and you will get more calories for the day.

    I wish you great success.
  • George0190
    George0190 Posts: 10 Member
    Options
    @snowflake954 thank you for the encouragement. I have started logging in MFP, again. I intend to begin walking each day and rejoining my local fitness club.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,170 Member
    Options
    It sounds like you're taking some very positive steps (figuratively and literally!). Small changes add up over time, and manageable changes tend to stick longer term. You can do this.

    One thing that was important for me, getting started, was believing that it was possible to improve fitness, lose weight.

    When I joined MFP, I was already 59, menopausal, and hypothyroid (though properly medicated for that). "Everyone knows" that women can't lose weight pasts 50, past menopause, at any age when hypo, etc., blah blah blah. Sometimes "everyone knows" things that just aren't true, but those myths tend to sneak around in some subtle spots in our self-expectations. (I'm not obese any more, BTW - haven't been, for well over 6 years now, after around 30 previous years of overweight/obesity.)

    To help with self-expectations, exorcising those myths, one thing that helped me was to look at threads in the "Success Stories" part of the MFP Community. There, amongst many reports, you'll find stories by men around your age who lost weight, got fitter; diabetics who improved their A1C, were able to reduce (sometimes even eliminate) meds; etc.

    Here's just one example of improvement in someone diabetic, with comments from others:
    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/40753201#Comment_40753201

    Another motivating thing for me was finding that along the route - long before goal weight was achieved - there are dozens of smaller, positive life improvements that happen via being more active, getting better nutrition, or just beginning to lose weight. There's a huge thread with a bunch of those here, to give you an idea of some good things you can anticipate as you move forward:

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1275030/whats-your-most-recent-nsv/p1

    Wishing you huge success - the effort is worth it!
  • lorib642
    lorib642 Posts: 1,942 Member
    Options
    Nice to meet you. I am 58F with type 2 diabetes. I wrote a long post but it disappeared. You can do this! Have you seen a dietician.? They may be able to guide you with nutrition. The American Diabetes Association has a website with information . Just by losing weight my numbers improved some. I did not take diabetes seriously until my husband was diagnosed and changed his diet. I have my Fitbit linked to mfp and it increases my calorie goal when I move more.