Motivation

A name like 'savedlady' sounds pretty motivational, to me. I imagine them to have tackled various gauntlets in their life and they’ve happened upon salvation. Maybe they're great storytellers, too.

The good news is we don’t need to exercise to lose weight. We do need to be in a calorie deficit one way or another, though. Exercise can help us with creating part of that deficit, but it’s not necessary. How you go about achieving this is up to you as not one single way will click for everyone.

The approach that I'm taking and that works for me is to weigh and then track my food here on MyFitnessPal, which I’ve done for years. I weigh myself daily and focus on a 20 day average weight trend that I set up in Google Spreadsheets. There are lots of apps that’ll do this for you, I just chose to use a spreadsheet.

I hope you can find your groove.

I'm not really a big fan of motivation as a weight loss tool. As basically a hedonistic aging hippie flake, motivation (or willpower, discipline, etc.) is not the sharpest tool in my toolbox. But I lost weight anyway.

Yes, in order to lose weight, we need to commit to making changes in our lives, and that always presents some challenges. But we have choices about the changes to make.

My advice when it comes to weight loss: Make the easiest possible plan that gradually leads to a lower body weight.

Too many people get here thinking they need to revolutionize their eating, maybe adopt some restrictive eating rules or trendy named diet, give up all treats, etc. Then some of them stack punitively intense, miserable daily exercise on top of that. That usually doesn't end well. Fortunately, none of that is essential.

What's essential is eating manageably fewer calories than we burn, and keeping that up over a period of time. Sometimes a slow loss rate can get a person to goal weight in less calendar time than some theoretically faster plan that causes bouts of deprivation-triggered over-eating, breaks in the action, or even giving up altogether. As a bonus, that gradual tweaking of routine habits can help us find ways we can be happy with our lifestyle while staying at a healthy weight long term. That's the big prize, if you ask me: Permanently improved health and appearance.

I was overweight to obese for around 30 years, lost to a healthy weight in just under a year, and have maintained a healthy weight and the same jeans size for around 9 years since. It was simpler than I expected, honestly, though of course not easy every single second.

It took a reason to commit, sure. For me, that was my doctor being increasingly insistent that I go on a statin for my high cholesterol. Statins can have some brain fog as a side effect, and I figured I'd already given up enough cognitive bandwidth to chemotherapy. (Yes, that was for a cancer I would've been less likely to get if I hadn't been fat.) I tried various changes in what I ate, without much improvement. So finally I decided to try weight loss. Bingo: Big drop in cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure.

Along the way, I suppose I found some "motivation" in the sense of reasons to stick with it, besides that. (I still have low "motivation" in the sense of white-knuckled adherence to annoying things that aren't essential.)

For one, as I reached a healthy weight, I felt So. Much. Better. Less joint pain, better mood, all kinds of goodness.

For two, I looked around me, and saw that friends around my own age (59-60 while losing) who were slimmer and more active had noticeably better quality of life on average than friends who were overweight/obese and inactive. The overweight/inactive ones were sick more often, recovered more slowly from any illness or injury, had eating/drinking restrictions because of health conditions or drug interactions, needed help from family or paid workers to do the heavier home chores, spent more money on medical supplies and what-not, couldn't handle the walking/stairs involved in fun things like art/music festivals or stadium events, and more. On top of that, they seemed to die younger, and have more years of languishing before they did so. I realized who I wanted to be more like as I aged.

I think you would have to find your own "why". That part may be essential.

But for the rest of it: My advice is to make the easiest possible plan that's compatible with your goals. For many of us, suffering can be optional.

Best wishes!

Exercise doesn't have to be a huge workout at the gym or a long run or a fast swim. Walking a few steps each day and adding on to it a little at a time is a start. Don't overwhelm yourself with, "I have to do at least______ for at least______ minutes." Just do something to move. And a little bit more each day. Sometimes we overwhelm ourselves right out of a 10 minute walk or a 10 minute dance in the kitchen. Turn it on its head and say I succeeded because I danced in the kitchen for 10 minutes. Everything big starts with one step.