Has anyone overhauled their lifestyle?

[FancyNewt]

I am 52 and want to sort my health out. I have a plan to lose weight , start cycling and I have found a workout to increase flexibility. I also want to start strength training.

I don't drink loads ,but I'd like to cut down.

I work from home in a sedentary job and get very little activity.

I am feeling a bit overwhelmed so think I need to break it down into small goals. It feels like a mountain at the moment.

Had anyone done similar ? I could do with some inspiration.

I'd like to do the same. I'm teetotal pretty much but work quite long hours and also feel overwhelmed. Wondering about focusing on one thing a month or fortnight and tracking things in a diary or on an app. Would also be interested in how others have managed this.

That's a good idea about one thing per month.

I have OP. I cut down carbs and eat more protein which gives me more energy and reduces food cravings.

I also exercise more. I'm trying to do regular exercise classes online. Fabulous 50s on YouTube is good. You can do a stretch class for only five minutes or cardio from ten minutes to an hour. That's on top of my regular pilates and aquafit classes. I'm also trying to get up to six thousand steps a day.

I didn't do all this overnight. Point being you can start somewhere and build up. It gives you confidence to make a start.

I have OP. I am almost 50 and decided in January that I did not want to be overweight for my 50th birthday and made a plan to really focus on my health. I joined Slimming World and it took me 7 months to lose 17kg (I lost a little more than my target weight). I feel fantastic and look better than I did in my 30s. I also joined Parkruns and I run every Saturday morning - it’s a great atmosphere and everyone is really friendly. I got fitter through parkruns so now I run midweek too. Finally I got some weights and a yoga mat and I do weights most evenings. Just for 15/20 mins but it’s making a difference. You can definitely do it. (I also have on office job, working crazy hours, and my excuse for the last decade was that I didn’t have time but when I finally decided to focus on me (rather than everyone else) I realised that I could find time). What did it for me is having to go to a weigh in every week, which kept me focused. Good luck! You can do it!

For me, work is the heart of it, whatever other tinkering I do around tbe edges. If my job and money situation is stressful and rubbish then it doesn't matter how much yoga I do or how healthily I try to eat, the job and money stress will make me unwell. So that is the number one thing to change. Then family, relationships etc. Work out what the source of any stress and unhappiness/discontent is. Then sleep. Good sleep hygiene, bedtime routine, what might be affecting sleep - alcohol, caffeine. Then food. Don't focus on cutting out or down but eating well, to start with. Five veg and two fruit a day, dinner - 1/3 of the plate is veg, preferably a brassica/green veg is involved. Exercise - ten minutes brisk walk a day, increase to twenty and then half an hour. You could listen to music, an audiobook, or get a walking mill and do it in front of the TV. Take up yoga and/or meditation and breathwork. I started off sitting in the car in a car park with my eyes closed listening to Headspace for ten minutes. Most of all, make it sustainable, manageable, enjoyable, and while many things mentioned are interlinked, don't do everything at once. Particularly things like massively increasing exercise while cutting down on food can be a hiding to nothing.

Yes, this is me over the last month. I accidentally discovered that ultra processed bread seemed to be causing the awful joint pain I was experiencing mainly in my knees and it spiralled from there. I had a sort of epiphany and realised that I had to get in training for old age if I still wanted to be around and healthy! Currently 54 and menopausal. I had a major illness and surgery a couple of years ago which did not help my health and I have a vestibular problem which was never properly rehabilitated.

I made a list of what I wanted to achieve and then broke it down into smaller bits. So this last month I have overhauled my diet from a fairly standard Western diet to a basically wholefood diet focusing on getting the essential nutrients. It's what @spoonbillstretford said about tinkering round the edges (I've used those same words more than once in the last month) but for me the thing is my diet. I've eaten what feels like a lot of food to get all the good stuff in and I've lost 5 kg.

I also did a side quest of making sure I remember to take my blood pressure medication religiously every morning as I had previously been quite slapdash. I hope at some point to be able to ditch it, but not yet.

Next will be exercise. Now I can walk without pain I have hauled out the treadmill from mothballs. I have some kettle bells somewhere and I'll be thinking really hard about exactly what I want to be able to do in 20 years time and how to train for it. This is NOT going to happen in a month, it will be a slower process. I'm thinking I need to retrain my vestibular system first before I really get stuck into it though.

I don't drink, so that's not an issue for me. As for work, I am my husband's carer, can't change that.

I think my best strategy is to take it one day at a time and don't worry about being perfect. Progress, not perfection.

At 55 I realised I was really no longer the skinny relatively sporty 20 something I thought I was in my head. I was achey, increasingly eyeying stairs with suspicion and a bit glued to the sofa. And 2 sizes bigger than I should have been. I cut out unnecessary alcohol, so I’ll have a drink if I’m out with friends, but not sit on the sofa chugging a large glass of wine.

I joined a gym that has weights classes (I’m not and never will be a gym person but I just go), I upped my protein and veg, started walking to work (40 minutes there and back), prioritised sleep….Ive dropped a dress size, lost weight, and feel loads better. It’s not been quick but it’s steady. Still got a stone and a half to go.

What also helped was a once over from the nurse at the GPs, she was uncompromising about my weight and blood pressure…..