There’s that moment after you turn 45, or 50, or 55 when–for many of us–you stop and say, “Wow, I’ve gained some weight.” Maybe you need to lose 30 pounds or 50 or 100-and you know it, but you really don’t do what it takes.  I’ve been in that category for at least 5 years, pleading my divorce, or my startup, or…my whatever..as reasons to not totally hunker down on something I KNOW is going to be demanding and hard. Something I have failed at many times–and don’t want to fail at once more, though I believe I probably will.

Talking to people I know who have lost considerable amounts of weight, I am starting to wonder how they changed their thinking, as well as how they changed their habits.  I have a friend, who is trying to lost 50 lbs, who says his wife has lost 90 lbs in the past 8 months because she “changed her relationship to food.” A still eats ice creams, cheese, and baked goods, and she’s not a big exerciser, but she is significantly thinner than she was.  An acquaintance, Dion Almaer, has a piece on Medium called “How I have lost over 100 lbs and don’t know how.”  In it, he describes some basic steps he took:

He also started to exercise, but it seems, from his essay (and all the coverage he’s gotten from CNN and other media) that he really changed his mindset first.

I need to get focused about losing weight and exercising, and I have some steps I want to take:

  • See a nutritionist and talk about portion size, then start measuring what I eat.
  • Cut out wheat (again.) And sugar (creeping back into my diet).
  • Exercise. Move. Exercise.
  • Work less, focus on myself more.

Here’s some other narratives about losing large amounts of weight I’ve checked out; they’re all about hope more than anything, but they are motivating.

There’s that moment after you turn 45, or 50, or 55 when–for many of us–you stop and say, “Wow, I’ve gained some weight.” Maybe you need to lose 30 pounds or 50 or 100-and you know it, but you really don’t do what it takes.  I’ve been in that category for at least 5 years, pleading my divorce, or my startup, or…my whatever..as reasons to not totally hunker down on something I KNOW is going to be demanding and hard. Something I have failed at many times–and don’t want to fail at once more, though I believe I probably will.

Talking to people I know who have lost considerable amounts of weight, I am starting to wonder how they changed their thinking, as well as how they changed their habits.  I have a friend, who is trying to lost 50 lbs, who says his wife has lost 90 lbs in the past 8 months because she “changed her relationship to food.” A still eats ice creams, cheese, and baked goods, and she’s not a big exerciser, but she is significantly thinner than she was.  An acquaintance, Dion Almaer, has a piece on Medium called “How I have lost over 100 lbs and don’t know how.”  In it, he describes some basic steps he took:

He also started to exercise, but it seems, from his essay (and all the coverage he’s gotten from CNN and other media) that he really changed his mindset first.

I need to get focused about losing weight and exercising, and I have some steps I want to take:

  • See a nutritionist and talk about portion size, then start measuring what I eat.
  • Cut out wheat (again.) And sugar (creeping back into my diet).
  • Exercise. Move. Exercise.
  • Work less, focus on myself more.

Here’s some other narratives about losing large amounts of weight I’ve checked out; they’re all about hope more than anything, but they are motivating.