100 lbs+ to lose & heart disease. Here for support & friends

Hey everyone! I have been using MFP on and off for a long time now. This is my first time on the forums though. I’m 28 years old as of today and I have over 100 lbs to lose and it’s extremely intimidating. I know I can do it. I want this so bad for so many reasons and I just need to stay focused. I know what I need to do but I know that I really do need support so I’m hoping by reaching out on here it will help me keep with things so I don’t yo-yo anymore.

Let me provide a little background. In high school I finally lost weight, got fit and was really active. I was a varsity tennis player and a vegetarian. The first knock back was that I was in a car accident, hit by a drunk driver. It knocked my back out of alignment and took almost a year of PT and Chiro to get back to a semi-active life. I gained a lot during that time despite being good with food. I kept gaining and then shortly after my 18th birthday I started getting extremely ill. I didn’t know it at the time but I was actually dying. I ended up in the hospital in 2003 with severe heart disease (idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy), congestive heart failure and stroke. I was very lucky as I was told I was near death, they weren’t sure how I survived. I was bedridden for quite a while and then on a very very slow track to getting active again as they monitored my treatment and my heart. I had to limit my activity. I completely changed my diet for low sodium and could no longer be vegetarian per doctors recommendation. I know that sounds silly but I needed more protein and the alternative options either had too much sodium or were thing I had extreme distaste of so reintroducing meat was my decision.

This all threw my body off and I continued to gain weight. I was at my max (at that time) of 265 when my cardiologist had me take a medication to help. It helped me get down to about 200 lbs which was great. I could start being more active again however during all this I had gotten married and it quickly turned into an abusive situation. After just a couple months of being married in 2005 my husband became abusive, physically, mentally, emotionally and sexually. I hit an all time low but was still running, it was my only out. I finally gained the courage to leave him in 2006 and it didn’t take long for me to find my next love. He helped me recover however in the process I got comfortable, emotional and started to do emotional eating and gained a lot of weight really fast. This was also from trying to accept that because of my heart problem I can’t get pregnant.

By 2010 I had hit my highest mark at 318. I was angry and done! I worked hard and lost just over 50 lbs in about 6 months. I maintained for a while but then it started coming back. I got comfortable again, stressed about money and life and now here I am. Right around 300 lbs again. My current husband and I have worked hard to get a house, new cars, and get our life in order. I’m so happy with him and my new life now, we are even in the process of trying to adopt a foster child. Our next home study visit is tonight! I want to be able to run around with my kids, I want to be able to see my kids graduate and get married, even maybe meet my grandchildren. If I don’t get my weight down I don’t even have a chance of my heart improving more. My prognosis was meek to begin with, I want to make it better. I have been running more and even completed two 5ks now! I jogged a good amount of them! I want to run one though. I want to keep going, I want to do a half marathon and show that even with a heart problem you can do it!

Losing the weight is a lot harder for me I have been to nutritionists, dietitians, talked with my PCP, Cardiologist and was even seen for my metabolism (my doctors were trying to push bariatric surgery which I refused). The problem is that my heart meds purposefully keep my heart rate down. When working out at my hardest my rate wont go over about 135 bpm which is what is supposed to happen for me. If my rate gets to 170 bpm my defibrillator in me starts to warm up at 200 bpm it goes off. This means I never get into the “burn zone”. So although I’m keeping with it and know that I can do it, it does take a lot more.

My husband is trying to lose with me this time so that helps, we both joined a gym yesterday that we really fell in love with. We are going to try to start going at least 3 times a week to start and then slowly increase from there. I’m adding in walks at home in between the gym days.

After all this I suppose I’m just looking for people to share the journey with. People who don’t judge how much weight I have to lose. I once tried Weight Watchers and was frequently attacked and shamed on the forums for being so young and so overweight already (was 22 at the time), It was heartbreaking. So please feel free to friend me, I could use some more friends.

Thanks for reading all of this if you did!