I know exactly, what you are talking about with your food addiction.
Even though I have not regained my weight over the last ten years, resisting the urge to eat all kinds of unhealthy stuff is and will remain a constant struggle in my life. It is a sheer act of will not to do it each and every day.
But hey, you were 400 pounds, you got down to 210 pounds, now 13 years later you are at 235. Looks like quite an achievement to me. You had a lot of time for all of it to go to hell again, but it didn’t!
From 400 lbs to 210 lbs, that’s quite an accomplishment right there! Have you seen that movie “Britanny Runs a Marathon”? Saw it on Friday, thought it was pretty inspiring! And then I saw Patriot’s Day on Saturday. Good movie too, but not for the same reasons…
My best time was 2h50 back in 2000. I did 3h35 in 2001. I was on a 2h38 pace, but I cramped badly after 25 km and ended up walking most of the time to the finish line. Took 16 years before I ran another one (pretty much stopped running from 2002-2012, I was only mountain biking). I ran 6 solo marathons from 2017-2020 (4h40, 4h13, 4h11, 4h33, 3h36 and 3h31) before I ran an official one last fall (3h19), good enough to qualify for Boston for my age group. Broke a hand less than a week before the marathon and only got my cast (up to my elbow) on the Thursday. Ran with the cast anyway.
Initial goal for Boston was 3h10, but I got covid back in December, and although symptoms were pretty minor at the time, I ended up losing about 20-25% of my shape in the weeks that followed. Adjusted my training several times to try to recover (went from running 95-120 km per week to just about 30 km for 4 weeks in March), but I still haven’t recovered. Did a 22 km test run @ 4:46/km yesterday, my first long run since the 30 km I did in February, and I’m still tired this morning. Meaning I’ll be running Boston in tourist mode… Hopefully under 3h45.
I have finished over 60 marathons and ultramarathons, but at slower paces. For years, I was a group leader with the Jeff Galloway Marathon Training program, which uses run/walk intervals. All of my marathons for years were run/walk, but I finally ran two nonstop-running marathons in 2016 (4:10 finish and 3:59 finish). I prefer nonstop running, with no walk breaks, because the miles just roll by.
This discussion is motivating me to get back in shape.
Good on you guys! I can walk a good distance but running no, maybe only 1/2 km. My young daughter once told me I would not survive a zombie invasion because I don’t have the stamina it takes to run away & fast. Now that made me feel old. Oh well. I’m just going to have to hang back and fight 'em!
I am not as old as many in this thread, though as Paul Simon said: “older than I once was and younger than I’ll be”. I’ll turn 40 later this year.
I will say that over the past decade or so I have spent a lot more time concerned with nose hair and ear hair than I perhaps anticipated would be necessary.
I suppose I should mention a couple of quintessential old person things I accomplished last year.
A. I turned 65 (!). * starts thread “What’s your favorite blood thinner?” *
B. I broke my hip starting one year ago today. It happened over a 10 day period while the doctors were saying it was just arthritis. [Would not recommend! If I could give it zero stars I would] I didn’t know that much pain was possible. When I finally went to the ER, the CT scan showed a displaced femoral neck fracture and they gave me a hip replacement.
Two weeks later, tests came back positive for metastatic prostate cancer that had spread to my bones and weakened my femur (before you ask, I DID get all the screenings). I was pretty devastated, but my treatment seems to be keeping it subdued for now which is cool. I’m trying to stay positive. It would be silly to waste the rest of my life worrying about death.
Anyway, I’m not looking for sympathy or anything, I just want to get it out in the open so I can refer to and possibly joke about a major occurrence in my life.
TL;DR: I should start a seniors’ band called “The Artificially Hip”.
Ended up doing 3h40 in Boston (half in 1h41… started falling apart after 30K, as predicted… lol). An incredible experience, that race is HUGE (30,000 runners, 500,000 spectators). Scream Tunnel was crazy!
After 2 weeks off, I’ll start training to qualify again. I really want to do that 3h10.
Yeah. I’ve faced imminent mortality a couple of times, but this is more statistical I guess. I wish I would’ve been in better shape going into this. * runs marathon in 1258 hours *
I guess it’s never too late.
Oh yeah, I’ve gotten older. I don’t know how I’m still alive. I had 2 cancer surgeries the most recent a rare thyroid cancer. Now only have 1 lobe and refuse to give it to a surgeon who just likes to chop parts out of people. I have cirrhosis but I had that on murmurs 1, so that’s not changed. I have pulmonary hypertension which got worse when I had covid. My hair is completely white except for a dark strip at the ends which is dyed. I have long covid. I’m in bed more than I’m awake. The Emily Baker podcast is the only thing keeping me sane. Well, sane is one of those words. Most of you could testify I never was entirely. I still have a brutalist sense of humour.
Thank you, Lori. Maybe it’s Mother Nature’s compensation for all the important bits failing. In natural light, it’s pure platinum white. And to think dumbass here used to dye my roots because I thought it was battleship gray knocking. It was lockdown negligence that showed me what I was obliterating every 3 weeks.
I’m grey on the sides, my hair is naturally dark blonde & goes lighter in the summer sun. I colour it darker to light auburn so it doesn’t look like straw, which I hate.
I should seriously book myself in for new glasses, but me, procrastinating again.
I don’t think I’d finally given up on the idea of hiding just how gray I was the last time I saw you, but I’m in the sisterhood of gray hair myself now! Mine isn’t that gorgeous shade you have, but there’s still enough brown in it to give a good streak effect. Yours looks fantastic!
Well, thank you! I actually need to cut it again because it looks pretty scraggly at the ends. As for looking the same, well…it helps that my front-facing camera has pretty low resolution!
It’s a tough thing to go through. A seniors’ band called “The Artificially Hip”, your sense of humor… 
Solidarity with miracles.