Help Me Prove Them (and Myself) Wrong!

Hello, and welcome (back)!

You don't have to prove them wrong. They ARE wrong.

Possibly slightly discouraging prediction, from personal experience: Once you succeed - which you will, if you commit to the improvement process - "they" will initially freak out a little, say you're doing obsessive or unhealthy things, losing too much weight, looking haggard, whatever. In the medium term, when you're all well, strong, and healthy, "they" will have reasons why you succeeded but that it would still be impossible for them, and probably even attribute your success to things you think weren't really a key factor in order to justify their belief. In the long run, when you've been maintaining that healthy weight and fitness for a longer while, "they'll" totally forget what you did and lose interest in you, and settle fully into the comfortable "it's impossible because . . . " beliefs.

I mean, maybe one or two will catch on, but mostly . . . no.

I don't want to discourage you. I want you to encourage you to do this FOR YOU. It can work, and believing it can work is part of the formula. Yeah, there may be ups and downs in the process, but if you keep chipping away at gradual improvements in habits, you will succeed.

There are many women here who lose weight and improve fitness at your age and beyond, in peri- pre- and fully menopausal status. They commit, and keep moving forward.

I'm going to share my personal history, in the hope it may help persuade you that progress is achievable.

We have some similarities, I think. I lost my mom when I was 39, my husband when I was 43, got diagnosed with stage III breast cancer at 44. Just before my diagnosis, my dad fell and blinded himself in an instant, went from fully independent to assisted living at age 83, died 4 years later. There was more in there, but that's enough: Tough time period, so I hear what you're saying, though we all grieve differently. I came out of that class 1 obese, fully physically depleted after cancer treatment. Unlike you, I hadn't been routinely active, at least not for literal decades. I was diagnosed as severely hypothyroid and treated for that. Chemotherapy had put me in menopause.

After cancer treatment, I realized I needed to be more active in order to regain normal energy, strength, and even happiness. After trying a few things, I was lucky to stumble into a sport I love like you love running. Within a year or two, starting from zero, I was training pretty hard 6 days most weeks, and even competing for the first time in my life . . . not always unsuccessfully, in age group comps.

Foolishly, I stayed overweight/obese for another dozen years, though my quality of life improved dramatically from being active, plus I made new and dear friends who were also active people. At 59, somehow the switch finally flipped in my head, and I committed to managing my eating.

Honestly, if a hedonistic aging hippie flake like me - a woman with near-zero discipline, motivation or willpower - can do this sort of thing, I think pretty much any averagely capable adult can do it. Commit to improvement, mean it, keep chipping away it it patiently and persistently . . . the results can be amazing, over a period of time.

Prove to yourself you're the woman you know in your heart you are, and create the woman you want to be. You can do it. Commit to the process, give yourself grace when there are bumps in the road, but keep moving forward as many days as possible, and you'll reach your goals. What other people think is irrelevant.

Best wishes - success will come, and the quality of life improvement will be worth the effort, IME.