How did you start when you decided it was time to lose weight?

Hi all. I’m desperate for some direction or ideas. Over the last five years I have gained so much weight that I’m now facing the need to lose about 30 kg (and in the last six months or so the weight is piling on quicker than I can blink). I just don’t know where or how to start. And I’m sorry for the long post.

For some context: I’m early 50s. I’m two years into menopause - I have been extremely fortunate in not experiencing any symptoms and am not on any hormone replacement, nor have a mirena in. I am on lifelong medication for having an under active thyroid and regular testing keeps my medication even. I’m about 5ft2 and weigh close to 90kg. 60-65 kg is probably where I should sit (though for my height it’s supposed to be 45-55 kg). I had a Caesarian so have the mummy shelf and carry all my weight in that unhealthy tummy area. I’m wearing size 18/20 clothes which don’t look great on because they are made with the assumption that someone of that size should be about 5ft6 or 7 and have the appropriate shoulder width and length to suit.

I hate going out because I have no clothes to fit into which has made my social life suffer, and my work clothes are growing tighter every day. My love life isn’t as active as it could be because of the way I feel about myself (though my hubby still desires me as much as he has ever done).

I have a wonderful supportive hubby and a not-quite-tween child. My husband is gone by 4:30 am to start work. He’s a great mate and everything in our house is shared 50/50 with household chores, not-quite-tween care, etc. He’s active in his work so weight mgmt is not an issue for him, though he supports us in cooking healthier type evening meals. My not-quite-tween wakes 2-3 times a night and wakes me so I have regular broken sleep. I drag myself out of bed at 6:30 am to get school lunch ready, pet duties, dishwasher packed, me ready, and ensure child is ready. I leave home around 7:45 am to get not-quite-tween to school and myself off to work (half hour travel each way to work). My work (which I totally love) is full on. I rarely get the opportunity for even a half hour lunch break and barely remember to drink water during the day. I’m often not home until 6:00 pm. Then it’s helping out with homework, dinner, clean up, and finally sitting down around 8:00 pm. We are in bed by about 9:00 pm due to hubby’s early mornings.

Between us hubby cooks a meal and then it’s leftovers the following night, and I cook the next night with leftovers, and so forth; we make meals that serve six and get two nights and an adult lunch each. Mostly, our evening meals are reasonably healthy with dishes packed with veggies/lentils etc to stretch out the protein (may have more carbs than is good for us in terms of rice, pasta and potatoes, but as I said, one normal meal cooked is broken into three portions for us each plus two tween dinners). We don’t snack after dinner though have been having 2-3 small glasses of cask red wine a night to chill - which I’m trying to cut back to weekend nights to be honest (I feel I like this is my only guilty pleasure in life at the moment). I have breakfast at work, usually a coffee mug with some honeyed porridge with lite milk heated in it for portion control, around 10:00 am, so have that fasting period from about 8:00 pm after the last glass of wine, if I’m having one, until around 10:00 am; I have two cups of instant coffee from then til lunch time and I’m working on trying to like lite milk in the cup from the usual full cream milk. Lunch is a $3 supermarket frozen meal if I don’t have dinner leftovers. I don’t tend to snack during the day but occasionally give in to a having a sweet bickie from the work biscuit jar, and I do eat more than is good for me if there is a work morning tea (which isn’t too often).

I’ll be honest and say I don’t exercise other than my 7min walk from the car park to work and back; I can’t figure out when to fit it in or have the energy to, on those rare occasions if I do get away from work a little early. With hubby leaving for work so early it’s not really possible to do an early morning walk and leave not-quite-tween home alone sleeping (not quite old enough or responsible enough in my books as yet), though I do have a treadmill I could use. The broken sleep leaves me too tired to try to get up early and walk anyway. There is no medical reason for my child to be waking up 2-3 times a night, but has always done so since babyhood (witching hours of 1.30-4:00am). In all respects child is happy and healthy. Just isn’t a good sleeper and come 4:00 am I need to encourage that sleep period for both of us from then til around 6:45 when my child wakes naturally. As my child gets older and does more things for themselves to be school ready I know I’ll get more time, but I feel that is still a couple of years off.

In my single years I found light n easy a great way of managing my weight but that isn’t in my budget now. Neither is any of the dinner boxes such as hello fresh. I don’t have anything in the budget for a gym membership either. I’m thinking of going the way of shakes (namely The Healthy Mummy ones, as I saved up and joined to be a member ages ago) but even then I’m finding them to stretch my budget a bit too far, particularly with the cost of living having gone up so much of late; most niceties in the budget have gone towards fuel and groceries. I’ve tried weight watchers but didn’t find a group I liked that offered at suitable attending times and online WW didn’t work for me because the last thing I felt like was being on the computer after a 9-hour day being on a computer. And it isn’t in my budget currently either.

I don’t really want to have to take the drastic measure of stomach surgery because that is huge, and isn’t quite so straightforward with lifelong side-effects, when I talk to those people who have had it done, especially for those that are around my age or older.

Looking back at what I’ve written it looks like I’m offering up excuse after excuse but I’d really like to hear from someone who is like me, or has a lifestyle like mine, that might be able to help me take the first steps into improving my health and energy by starting the weight loss. And that has been successful at losing and keeping off the weight.

I’m ready for a change but just don’t know how to do it or where to start, so here I am asking for some help. Thank you in advance.