194.2 How Do You Know, Part 2

I've been thinking a lot about what I wrote yesterday regarding the question about how do you know if it is worth it to lose weight if you are older. I was 66 when I decided I had to get rid of the large amount of weight I was asking my body to drag around. I think I knew that I had reached a now or never place in my life... that I was either going to get with the program and lose the weight or I was just going to get bigger and heavier. And, the stenosis and arthritis in my spine had already made it painful to walk and I was just getting more and more disabled and dependent. But just because I had reached the decision point doesn't mean it's been easy. It hasn't been easy. I loved Kathleen's comment about the cookie that she made on yesterday's post. She wrote, ..."You have to want it more than you want the cookie. All the time. Even when the cookie is right there in front of you." She is so right, and that cookie is always going to be in front of me even when I reach my goal weight. My challenge then will be to figure out how often I can have that cookie without regaining any weight. (But that's another blog:), the one I may write as I am dealing with maintaining my weight.)

Having had time to think about this question a little more, I do think as we get older there are some subtle physical changes that are at work in our bodies that we can be unaware of that can really cause problems as we age, if we are carrying too much weight. As I've written, my issue certainly was my back. All the joints suffer as we age and so even if we think we look okay and feel okay, that doesn't mean that we aren't putting ourselves at risk.

Maybe the answer to this question, how do we know when weight loss is worth the effort, is easy. Maybe the answer is that it's always worth the effort because the weight is never doing any of us any favors. From my own experience, I can say that it is a wonderful kick to be able to get out of a chair, through a small space, or to walk quickly without giving it a second thought, or any thought. Now I just do it because I know I can. And that's a lot more gratifying than eating that cookie.