Scumspawn

The gym is great, I'm doing 4 exercises only! 12 reps, 3 sets, super light weights. Pull downs, some sort of thing like a push up only sitting down, leg presses and gentle cycling. Once I've got them sorted and not broken myself more I'll add something else.

Thank you, that is helpful. I'm not expecting to run again, I'm way too heavy and my knees would suffer.

So.... after 2 years rehabbing frozen shoulders I'm going back to the gym tonight. I know I'm going to have to restrain myself and stop striving to be better all the time, that is how I hurt myself in the first place. Any tips on that would be very welcome. Also, I'm probably going to have to start with very light weights and few reps. It hurts to get a sports bra on still so I won't be doing any jumping around. I'm 50, fat and very unfit.

Half here. I've spent the last year rehabbing torn rotator cuffs. I still can't get a sports bra on without that being a major workout. So, no lifting and nothing that involves jumping up and down has meant I've gone up another dress size.

I'm using the sugar crash to get me to sleep during the day, when I'm so wired I can't sleep to catch up at all, I don't usually eat after 7 and my last meal of the day always has carbs. The sugar problem is more mid day when I'm not functioning but can't sleep. I have noticed that if I have too many carbs that brings on a hot flush too, guess it's them converting to sugar? Ate well today, no sugar apart from some honey and some grapes, no crap anyway. Thanks for your support everyone. Fitness tracker is back on my wrist, I did some squats when i was brushing my teeth...... baby steps

Whole 30 makes me miserable, but I can certainly cut out sugar. I don't drink much coffee and I've cut down a lot on alcohol. Thanks for the tip. Not even heavy duty knock out sleeping pills work - the hot flushes wake me up through anything. Melatonin has been great in the past for resetting bad sleep schedules but it's not going to work for this. I have blackout, I have good sleep hygene, it's the hot flushes that wake me up all the time and nothing seems to help that. I sleep on my own mostly which is a blessing!

Right, I'm nearly ready to start again. I have challenges though: I'm post menopausal and hot flush after any exertion, changing the sheets on the bed needs a sit down and a rest afterwards. I've done my shoulder in and can't lift anything above shoulder height. I'm sleeping in 3 hour chunks (between flushes) so I'm exhausted, never refreshed by sleep. I've been using sugar to induce a crash so that I can sleep because otherwise I'm like an overtired toddler. So, all in all I'm a bit of a fat mess. I've done the HRT options, all of which have side effects that are pretty horrible. Diet seems like an obvious one to start with, thoughts and ideas appreciated.

I guess they will either hand it on to younger people as they get older or the blog posts will change to reflect coping with bodies that don't recover from stuff so quickly. update on me, I'm fat fat fat, given up on various types of HRT because of horrible side effects, now I'm learning to live with disrupted sleep (due to hot flushes) knee is still buggered if I try to run on it, left shoulder can't lift things (rotator cuff injury last year). so, sod it, pass me the cake. I'm too tired to do much else other than eat

Thanks Elastigirl. It's a bit of a catch 22 - when I can't sleep I really cannot eat properly, I crave sugar and carbs. Sleep is the key to all this. I'm a little bit worried that a common side effect of the HRT is weight gain, because I don't want to get bigger! But, without the HRT I can't sleep at all well.

It's getting worse. This is what going throug the menopause, not sleeping (hot flushes) not being able to run because of a knee injury and not being able to lift because of a shoulder injury has done. I am despondent. The new HRT means I'm getting at least 6 hours of decent sleep now so I can start to address the food - I've been so tired I was using sugar just to get home from town. I hated how big I was in the Oct 2015 photos, I really don't like what I see now. I'm not even going to bother with measurements, I can bloat 5 inches in a day, it's meaningless measuring.

Ouch, I've been caught in rapids before and it was terrifying! I'm so glad you are ok!

Welcome Oldie :-) I'm in Bristol and go to lots of gigs - I would love to see Iggy Pop in London in May but it's £84!!!!! And I find London really stressfull, not worth it!

oh my! how awful for everyone involved! Be kind to yourself x

still here, my sleep is getting better with the new HRT but I'm wary of pushing myself too much with tackling my diet before my sleep is sorted. however, today is a mostly paleo day so I'm nudging towards the better choices.

ohhh day 7 of HRT - 8 hours sleep last night! buggered back and shoulder but hey, 8 hours sleep! wild and crazy! Way better than the 3hours this time last week.

HAVE THE VISITORS ARRIVED?

this growing old stuff is bollocks! I went to pick up a bag of gravel, couldn't be more than 10k and click, my back went. argggghhhhhhhhhhh I'm ignoring the other bags of gravel and resting my back, is that the best idea?

If I could get consistently good sleep it would be radically life changing. Apart from the odd bit of gentle lifting I'm doing no exercise at all right now, and I'm really too tired to meal plan properly so I'm eating whatever is easy - pasta and potatos.... oh, and biscuits. With decent sleep I will really be able to sort all this out but at the moment it's all too much.

Oh in that case, that's easy :-) ha! I can barely run to the end of the street at the moment, huge respect to you! I had 9 hours sleep last night!!!!! 9 hours! I feel quite groggy and as though I could do with another 9. But it's way better than 4 hours then 5 hours of throwing the covers on and off and trying to get back to sleep.

and I think you are amazing for doing a marathon with all that going on!

oh you poor thing, that is not fair at all. The mirena seems a bit marmite - either it really works or people hate it so it's worth a go - I know I hate coils so it's not for me. The HRT is ok, sleep is crap but the hot flushes are getting easier so I have high hopes it will be ok soon. Had a random bout of crying earlier, spent all day with babies, and although I don't actually like babies much it made me feel very sad, like my life is over, which is crap because i'm probably only half way through.

So tired, quick update - I took 2 weeks off the contraceptive pill so they could check my blood - good news, I'm post menopause - bad news, 2 weeks off the pill has brought all the hot flushes and insomnia back, despite being back on the pill for 4 weeks. Dr has moved me over/down to HRT instead of the pill and I have another appt for 3 weeks time - it looks like there will be a long slow trial and error process ahead to see what works for me though. Being this tired (I've been up since 3am) means I can't think much about what I'm eating and I'm craving carbs. I mentioned fat to the Dr and she said they reccomend Weightwatchers, fuck that sideways with a stick. She said do you exercise, I said I walk daily and I'm still rehabbing my rotator cuff so I do light lifting every other day, deadlifiting lighter weight seems to help my back and posture- she looked at my (toned!) arms rather suspiciously! So, first step is to get my hormones at a level so I can sleep, then I can sort my eating out but from what I am reading fat stores oestragen and my body is screaming for lack of ostragen right now, losing weight won't help me feel better. Any advice, experiences etc. would be welcome.

lurgy, will report properly later when my brain works

woot! well done you, that is so brilliant! what are you going to do with the money? :-)

I'm on day 15 of walking! I think I'll take it to 21 days then allow myself a break - otherwise it's going to get really sad when I get to high figures and I can't for some reason walk - I'm thinking of this as damage limitation, I'll feel like I fail unless I build in a fail system. I'm really enjoying the book, I don't get the koolaid reference yet though. am thinking of adding another habit...... but I'm clearly not good at writing down everything I eat every day