50 year old bound and determined !
 

Hi Everyone;

I've been slowly orienting myself to the fitday forums after years of using this tool for tracking my food intake. I'm 50 years old, kids are grown and out on their own, and now I have time for me. In my 20s I did aerobics and cycling and in my 30s I began jogging and participated in some 5/8/10K races, and even a half marathon. In my 40s, I jogged sporadically and had a love/hate relationship with Bikram yoga. Now I simply walk everywhere since I chose not to have a car three years ago. I walk 10K/day to and back from my office.

In terms of weight loss, I've been up and down over most of my adult life. Emotional over-eating has always been my problem but something switched in my mind when I turned 50. I decided I deserve to have the body I want. I've read so many books and practised clean eating over the years that it was more an issue of cutting out junk food. My niece's wedding this summer was a good motivator. Since May I lost 30 pounds - went from 177 to 147. I'm 5'9" tall. The most important factor for success for me is to keep finding big enough motivators to keep going on maintenance because my job can be high stress and some days I want to come home and just ... EAT my stress away. I also would like to get to 135 pounds because I insist on looking sexy in this decade LOL. The last ten pounds are weird. Fear of success? I don't know. As I get close to goal weight, I feel fat and I don't understand that. Does anyone else feel that way? It doesn't make sense because I fit into clothes, get comments from people, etc. Maybe it's because I'm tall and I've always felt like a bit of an oaf lol.

I have the deepest respect for large people who are committed to healthy lifestyle and feel like cheering when I see them out jogging. It doesn't matter if we are large or thin, eating clean and execise are challenging and I don't ever kid myself that I've "made it". Eating clean will be an ongoing challenge for me since I'm an addictive personality and food has always been the drug of my choice.

I really love a little booklet I own that has a reading for every day on abstinence. Talks a lot about filling the void in a healthy way. I'm taking Dutch language lessons since I was born in Holland before we came to Canada, and I'm involved in my church, etc. just to ensure I'm getting "fed" in the right way.

Well, that's it for me. Looking forward to reading all the great posts on this forum over the next few months, and will continue to use the fitday food log.
Thanks and have a great day!

If you are aiming for 135 lbs, you are aiming to be quite thin!

Welcome, morphasia :). Thanks for sharing your info. I totally hear you on the last ten pounds; they are "weird." And difficult!

But something curious happened with me, and with some others who have posted before. When I got to my goal weight, I started working on maintenance calories. And ultimately I dropped ten more pounds over an extended period of time (I'm since struggling to get back to maintenance, but that's another story). But it was like my body knew what it could do and what was needed, so I just rolled with it, as it was still within the healthy weight range.

So, just try to listen to your body and try some different things. I think the "fear of success" is common and also is the feeling of still being fat. That's where the forums help a lot!

Welcome.

Feel free to join us in either or both the 'Jump on the Braggin Wagon..' (7 Day motivational) thread in the womens section. (There are a couple of guys there too.) or the 'Did you exercise today' thread in the Exercise section for some companionship and motivation.

Thanks for the welcome Kathy, Cassie & Ron! I'll be sure to check out those other threads, Ron. Thanks for the tip.

Cassie - what you say makes a lot of sense. It's having the patience to "rest" in maintenance and place my focus on habits one day at a time.

Kathy, you're right 135 is thin on a tall bean pole like me, but I really love that look and it's within my range. I'll see how it goes. Could take me a year to get there ;)

Morphasia,
Have you considered weight training to sculpt your body? I am a big proponent of weight/resistance training especially for women. I've read and seen many women who have achieved the body image they wanted through lifting. Check out Bodybuilding.com and especially the Women's Transformations on the Motivational section there for some examples.

Have done so in the past - may begin again in the future. Thanks for the helpful links :)