Over 40 but still going to do it...

[KerriS]

I've gotten out of the habit of my daily exercise and getting ready to hit 45.  I would like some over 40 friends to help keep me motivated but aren't going all out crazy.  Right now just trying to reach my 10k steps a day while working at a desk job all day.

[KerriS]

Thanks @StuBee2! 🙂

[Wyllyam]

Birthday present idea:  Stand-up desk.  Mine is by Rocelco, but they make them cheaper and also better ($$$).  Also, you will need a floor squishy-pad mat to stand on.  Mine's a Royal.  I spend my full 8-hour shift now standing, leaning, shifting position, and typing and conference calling.  I sit only over lunch.  I'm not sure about the calorie burn increase, but my back, hips, and shoulders feel a world better.  (I'm 47).

As someone who lost most of my weight (100 lbs!) in the dark ages pre-FitBit, excersize rules and will help you endlessly, but all of my weight was lost with diet.  I use the FitBit dashboard religiously now, and work very hard on logging every crumb.  By experimenting, I've found that I'm extremely carb sensitive (I think this happens to many of us as we age).  If I keep my carbs under 100G a day, I lose or maintain.  If I go over 120G, I gain.  Even healthy carbs on a body building-style diet (40/40/20) causes me to gain.  I knew in my 30's when I lost the weight that I did it on a South-Beach/Men's Health diet, limiting sugars, but I didn't realize how effective that change truly was.

I'm not endorsing Atkins or any particular diet (as much as I used to LOVE bacon LOL).  Eat healthy, but if you're over 40 or stalling out, try shifting carbs to healthier foods and healthy fats.

[KerriS]

This winter weather is bringing me down.  I've got to kick myself in the butt and not use it as an excuse.  Thanks for the reminders on logging food.  When I've been successful in the past, the keys were logging my food and staying moving. I've not done either lately.  I've got to get back to being diligent with this.

Thanks to all for the continued motivation!  We can do this together!!!

[Lollee13]

Add me to the group! 🙂 Good luck in your journey, I understand the whole desk job dilemma and trying to get steps in. Initially I had only set my goal at 3000 steps and was hard to make that during the day! Luckily I have a co-worker that is getting into fitness and so we switch off where I leave my desk and walk for about 15 minutes or so and then I come back and she goes. I am already over 9,000steps and it's not even 3:00pm yet! So, it's working out nicely. Otherwise, I was going to just pace back and forth behind my desk while waiting for patients to check in lol. 

[FrogMystic]

@Wyllyam How soon did you start noticing an improvement in your back and shoulders with the standing desk? I'm turning 47 in July and have been having a lot of back, neck, and shoulder issues, too. My PT says sitting at a desk is a big cause of it. I'm strongly considering buying a standing desk and maybe one of those leaning chairs to go with them so I can take pressure off my knees and hips when I need to.

Really needing to work on my posture. I don't want to be a Mr. Burns!

As for overall progress, weight is coming off at a nice clip. I've had a few hungry days, but with the calorie zig-zagging I'm doing, it hasn't been that bad. Lucked out with gorgeous weather most of this week for walking. A new red tailed hawk has recently moved into the neighborhood. Very inspiring to hear him/her calling when I'm out doing a hill. Discovered the neighbor's cows are scared of my sunglasses for some reason. They usually come over and say hi. When I was wearing them yesterday, they spooked and ran halfway across the pasture until I took them off. I guess they make my eyes look like a predator's, big and dark.

The goldfinches and robins have arrived! Bluebirds should be right behind. Spring is my favorite walking season. Always something new to see and smell, and it's not yet oppressively hot and humid. Daffodils, paperwhites, grape hyacinths, oxalis rubra, henbit, speedwell, and bluebells are also coming up all over the place. My dog really likes this weather, too. She's always motivating when it comes to getting out if I feel my drive flagging.

Whether you're having a good week diet and exercise-wise or a bad one, you're doing it with awareness. Being here, checking in, being accountable with each other and supportive makes a huge difference. With weight loss there really is no pass or fail. It's a constant process. Your setbacks teach you as much as your successes, so I hope you're able to celebrate your journey and the courage it takes to try regardless of what the scale told you today.

[KerriS]

@FrogMystic, so love your "spring filled" words!  I'm truely looking forward to the spring weather and getting back out to walking outside.  Thanks for the boost! 🙂

[SunsetRunner]

Just turned 41 and my bf got me a fitbit for my b-day gift.  So here I am, exploring what Fitbit has to offer. I am so glad that I found this topic. 

Count me in!  Been working out lightly but I don't seem to lose weight much. 

Now that I was able to make a habit of working out (or exercising) 5-6 times a week, I think I need to focus on craving management and to slowly challenging myself to do harder exercises... 

[robguitar]

After only exercising 2 days last week, I got up and exercised this morning. I'm really shooting for hitting the gym 5 days this week. 

I like the low carb diet suggested above. I bought a food scale and I'm going to use the dashboard and see how many calories I'm actually eating instead of guessing. A few years ago I dropped 20 lbs. on a strict vegan diet. I really don't want to go back to that though.

[Esya]

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@FrogMysticwrote:

How soon did you start noticing an improvement in your back and shoulders with the standing desk? I'm turning 47 in July and have been having a lot of back, neck, and shoulder issues, too. My PT says sitting at a desk is a big cause of it. I'm strongly considering buying a standing desk and maybe one of those leaning chairs to go with them so I can take pressure off my knees and hips when I need to.

Really needing to work on my posture. I don't want to be a Mr. Burns!

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For back, neck and shoulder issues and to improve your posture I can strongly suggest yoga. Have a look at it and see how you feel about it.

[KerriS]

Started off on the wrong foot with my food but I've tracked it ALL and will improve the rest of the day and get some exercise in.

My goals for this week are to log my food each day and get to the gym at LEAST 3 times.

What goals have you guys got for the week?

[robguitar]

I want to accurately log my food and hit the gym 5 days this week.

[Esya]

This was the first day for me of accurately logging my food and I want to keep it up for this week.

[Esya]

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@Esya wrote:

This was the first day for me of accurately logging my food and I want to keep it up for this week.

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I feel I started off on the wrong foot with this. While logging my food, I also changed the amounts of what I had in order to hit the green area (not under or over) for the amount of calories for my food plan that I set up. For me it felt like a lot of food and this morning my scale showed quite a higher weight. I am aware that it is just one day and that ones weight will fluctuate, but I feel my weight follows my diet pretty close. So instead of aiming to hit that green box again, I am going to track what I would normally eat for a few weeks first and see how often I hit the green box, under(orange), over(red) and how my weight changes. That way I get an understanding and then I can see if I want to make changes or not.

I am just always concerned that my weight might be dropping too fast, too low and/or losing muscle instead of fat. A lot of it is in my head I think, as I can easily put some weight on when I want to. I am not even sure what my weight goal should be, my BMI is perfect at 20,7, but I would love to drop my fat %. So, going to take a step back and start with what I was doing and track that to get insight first.

[FrogMystic]

@Esya I would love to be able to get back to doing Yoga some day. I used to practice Hatha Yoga fairly regularly. Some injuries have made it difficult, even with modified poses, but my current round of physical therapy has strengthed me some, so maybe one day. I never felt better than when I had a regular practice schedule.

I learned a really hard lesson this weekend. Sunday is usually one of my longest walk days. I try to hit around 6 miles and wind up taking a lot of steep hills. About a half mile into the walk, I started feeling really off. I VERY foolishly ignored it and told myself to tough it out. Roadkill is certainly no joy and doesn't have a zephyr clean scent, but my normal reaction is just, "Ew," and keep going a little faster to get out of the scent zone. This time I found myself fighting nausea, which really should have been clue number two to turn around, cut the walk short, and go home. But no, I had to be stubborn.

By the time I got home, I felt like I was going to pass out. By the beginning of Sunday night, I was running a high fever. By yesterday mid-day I had a full blown, very violent stomach virus, and my legs were absolutely killing me. Would it have been as bad had I not pushed myself to walk through feeling ill? I can't answer that definitively, but previous experiences tell me no, it would not have. At the very least, my legs wouldn't have felt like somebody worked them over with a mallet.

So my goal, not only for this week but for future times, is to listen to my body. No amount of weight loss is worth feeling that way. I am not logging any food for the rest of this week. I am going to take recovery slowly, replenish my sodium and lost fluids, give the Fitbit a little break, and if I do walk, it will be a stroll on level ground. Fortunately, it seems like whatever it was I had was one of those 24 hour things, since I don't feel like death warmed over today. Just tired. If I gain a little this week, then I gain. I lost 3 pounds of fluid in one day, and I know that level of dehydration isn't healthy.

[Esya]

@FrogMystic

Those can be the toughest, but most needed lessons to learn. I hope you feel better soon. Take good care of yourself.

W.r.t. the yoga, hearing you have experience you might be able to start at home slowly to build it up again. Like 5 mins and not making it about a workout, but about self care. For example easy poses and visualising poses you cannot do (by visualising poses that you cannot do, you actually activate the brain and signals are sent through the body which helps it improve too). Mountain pose is very good for posture, but puts no strain on the shoulders, neck and back. I cannot judge for you if you could do a bit of cat/cow every now and then. I am just suggesting to find poses that help you and not focus on it being a workout. Might also help you with listening to your body as you become more aware of it again.

[HeartBiller]

Well I didn't do very well this past week....But I am going to take a vow to do better this current week. I have set a personal goal to get my 10,000 steps in no matter what and to check in here daily for accountability..lol. I am so anxious to meet this next goal, as it would push me over the 50 pound mark... I so want to be there.

MY stats
USW - 210.0 lbs April 25th 2016
02/14/17 - 167.2 lbs -  Starting this challenge weight

02/21/17 - 168.2 lbs - Gained 1 pound 

02/28/17 -

03/07/17 -

03/14/17 -

03/21/17 -

03/28/17 -

04/04/17 -

04/11/17 -

04/18/17 -

04/25/17 -

One year of the life style changing Journey!!!

Challenge Goal Weight 158.0
UGW - 125.0 lbs

[Wyllyam]

In answer to your question, about a month.  I have read that many people do an hour or two at first, and work up to it.  I didn't however, and was in pain anyway, so I jumped right in at half the day.  By the end of a week I could do 8 hours.  

It was a real relief.  I can't stress two things enough:  Squishy shoes (lots of sole and not heels or for me, wood-heel dress shoes) and a squishy pad (mine is made by Royal, and about an inch thick).  This made all the difference.  I've tried it twice in dress shoes, and it's kind of painful on the heels.  Otherwise, it's been really easy.  Has also helped with psoas pain.

[Wyllyam]

Also agree with this.  I used Bob Harper's Weight Loss Yoga as part of my routine religiously, and I still do it at least once a week.  It will add a lot of flexibility if you put effort into it, and build a little bit of muscle (weight bearing poses can really bring up your heart rate, kind of like slow gymnastics for us old people).  

But, without the standing desk or another ergonomic fix, you'll just be putting the damage back each day.  At least that was my experience until I found I couldn't stand at all.  Walking around car shows, home shows, antique fairs, even a mall, was excruciating on the hip joints.  Much better now, and I credit the standing desk the most.

[Dieter1973]

I have been using Fitbit Blaze for almost a year now and it's indeed a motivation to keep moving. I'm 43 and I always loved walking, but the last 10 years I also gained weight; i went from 68kg to 78kg. First I didn't worry as I always wanted to gain weight but now I have to keep it under control...

When I'm at the job i'll walk about 1km/hour, so weekdays are not really a problem to reach my step goal, but weekends and hollidays are becoming dangerous. While aging and settling I tend to eat way more during those days, way more than I burn calories. I've set my weight goal to -4kg and it's alot harder to reach it than I thought it would be; the hollidays are the major problem now.

[Esya]

I guess I forgot to mention I am not in my 40's. But I found this post very inspiring and I guess I could relate the most here, which made me feel like replying. Hope you guys don't mind! I might just be an old soul . And for me age is just a number.