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MyFitnessPal Community

Looking for pals (inc. my long story)

Joster91

My name is Justin, I'm 26 years old and looking to lose some weight, tone my stomach, and maintain or build muscle at some point, but mainly improve my nutrition.

I was born with a gene malformation that is related to Marfan syndrome and Beals syndrome. It effects my body in many ways, including muscle decay, hyper mobility, and my main concern and problem my heart, I have a Thoracic Aortic Aneurysm, my aorta is already 3.7cm dialated, if I were ever to get over 5cm I'd likely need open heart surgery to have it repaired. I have high blood pressure as well. When diagnosed with this in the last year it was quite to wake up call but I wasn't in a good place mentally to start my journey at the time but now I am and ready to help myself.

The lifestyle I lived did not help me in anyway, I would sit at a computer almost all day, and play games, eat very unhealthy foods in excess, I would also smoke, drink casually, and not exercise at all. Everything I was doing was counter intuitive to helping my heart slow down its dilation.

I am now smoke and alcohol free, cut caffeine out of my diet, no longer use a computer and game at all. All that's left now is to get healthy and exercise.

I started my new diet which include intermittent fasting(I only eat between 12-8pm, yes skipping breakfast other than a glass of orange juice), look into intermittent fasting if you don't know what it is, becoming quite popular. I started a couple days ago and so far I feel good about it, I chose intermittent fasting because I can stay in my calorie goal easily, as well as in my old lifestyle I wouldn't eat until the afternoon and evening anyway but in much excess so I was used to the timeline. I'm looking to make improvements. My problem is exercise, because of my gene I have to be very careful, I'm starting slowly with just jogging/walking and looking to incorporate body weight circuit exercises to maintain and maybe build muscle as well as toning my stomach.

Wish me luck, maybe add me, interested in following others journeys and get inspired, and get ideas for improvements, if anyone else here has a similar medical problem as me and have ideas I'd like to hear it.

I have no experience in nutrition, diet or exercise and basically trying to learn on my own by reading what I can. A lot might change in what I'm choosing to do as I learn more but starting somewhere.

Take care and good luck to all.

Replies

Joster91

TL;DR, Heart problems, I have to make changes to my diet and exercise, I don't know what I'm doing, but starting somewhere.

AusManok74

Hey Justin, good on you for deciding to make the changes you need to get more healthy. I don't have a particular health condition, however when I started out I did weights and walking every day as well as tracking my kj/calories on MFP. Over time I've started running regularly and have hit my goal weight. Just be consistent, swap out some of the less healthy foods for some more healthy options, get active, don't be too hard on yourself and I'm sure you can achieve what you want.

Joster91

Thanks for the advice, I still live at home and my parents eat quite healthy, so most days I'll be eating what they eat and controlling my portions. I'm making the conscious decision to avoid fast food and junk, but some days when I visit friends they like to have pizza nights or go get a burger, I'll be controlling my portions of this much more and looking at healthier alternatives on the menu. As for exercise I'm getting started slowly and walking more, hopefully my body will start getting use to this and I can up the intensity, slowly but surely, never going back to before that's for sure.

MrsWatkins2024

Hi Justin. I’m glad to see that your making changes to help improve yourself. Keep up the good work and have a positive attitude and you will achieve your goals

Joster91

Thank you, positivity is an important thing, something I have a hard time with, working on it everyday.

cargotrailer

Justin, welcome to MFP. My suggestions from my experience are;
Don't make any "diet" changes that are not sustainable. It sounds like you are on the right path with how you plan to handle the pizza and burgers.
When I started exercising several years ago I couldn't walk up a flight of stairs without being completely out of breath. I started P90X, with a pull up bar and a set of 20lb dumbbells. You may want to look into it.
Don't expect weight loss to be linear, there will be ups and downs, don't let the ups (weight wise) bother you.
I am also practicing intermittent fasting, don't expect it to be some magic weight loss trick. It basically just makes it easier to fall under your calorie goal and to me it is more convenient to skip breakfast. (And technically speaking that OJ breaks your fast.)

Joster91

Exactly why I'm doing intermittent fasting, much easier to do my calorie goal, and I'm used to not eating till after noon. Thanks for the advice. I'm going to be changing my diet and exercise plan a lot over the comin weeks and months as I bring in my doctors and heart specialist advice into practice. I don't know as of yet what they will say about my current choices(doc app fri) but anything I might be doing has to be better than sitting at a pc for 8 hours a day and eating entire frozen pizzas to myself for lunch and a whole el passo taco kit to myself for dinner, honestly don't even know how I even stayed at the weight I was. And I know the OJ is technically braking the fast as it's over 50c but I'm so used to a glass in the morning, and didn't think it would make too significant of a change. Maybe I'll just do the vitamins and water... I love that OJ in the morning. Lol

GaryMilan2017

Well done mate well where all here mfp family to support you as much as we can.

christygirl38

Justin, glad to see you've jumped into the community! I too am starting out with MFP and so had some success with intermittent fasting too. May need to try that again. Best of luck!

Cynthia1066

I've heard and read good things about intermittent fasting. Fasting doesn't work for me -- I'm Type 2 diabetic and need to keep my blood sugar steady -- but it sounds like it works for you. Kudos!

Joster91

Lots of good benefits to it. But you're right with diabetes you have to keep up on your levels, must be tough trying to manage that with getting fit, hope things are going well for you.

Thanks everyone for the encouragement.