I stumbled upon this website from a friend and she said there were a lot of inspirational ladies here, and was she right! I thought I would seek some friendship/advice here as well. I'm 21 and a cosmetologist from Tennessee and I've never been able to get the weight off, period. I've tried diet after diet since the age of 14 and even played sports and exercised through the years and nothing keeps my weight off. I've since learned to just deal with my massive 350 pound frame and move on...but now my major complaints. I was recently diagnosed (from a free clinic, no insurance here) with congestive heart failure...at 21! and standing at various angles with my body at work puts me in severe back pain! I've tried exercising and i cant keep up with people so i've tried some low impact walking. Does anyone have any suggestions to help strengthen my lower back/abs to build up a better tolerance? I'm really at a loss for support as no one I know is as big as me, any help would be greatly appreciated!

Hello hrose,

I was around 350 when I was 21 so I can understand.

How is walking?

Are you wearing supportive shoes? And no heels? I found I used to have a lot of issues when I wore non-supportive shoes.

A good thing to stengthen your core are crunches. You can do them on the floor or on a ball. One thing too is you can work to improve your overall posture. Just sitting on a ball can help with that.

How is your food?

hrose -- Welcome!

Do you have access to a pool? A lot of people really find that water aerobics can be a great workout for those of us who have trouble keeping up on land. The toughest part can be getting the courage to put on the bathing suit, but lots of us have done it! Our lives are at stake.

You know you don't even HAVE to wear a bathing suit BTW if you consider the water aerobics Heather mentioned. Because I agree the hardest part of choosing that is the courage to get in the bathing suit.

I wear to the pool a Tri-Suit which is basically a bathing suit but the legs are long like bike shorts. You can probably find something similar or even go with bike shorts (w/o the padding) and a shirt. I've seen these in Plus sizes. Most pools won't really care if you tell them it's meant for swimming in.

I know I feel a lot better covering up my legs a big. In my case it's because I've lost quite a bit and the skin on the legs is really loose, but it also smooths out the legs and compresses a bit.

When I started my weight loss journey I was at around 340 pounds and I'll tell you, my upper back went into some form of tantrum mode...so incredibly painful. I would sit in my computer chair and cry it hurt that bad. Upon my reading and researching I learned that basically my muscles were not used to the activity I was doing, and I wasn't doing that much. The only way to help me was to get my muscles to strengthen.

Little by little it would get better, but I was doing what I could in exercise and the one thing I learned was to be patient. When I got 20 pounds off, it made the world of difference. I would do more with exercise, more than like 5 minutes, and I could walk more too. So, for now it may seem like you are not doing enough, but you are.

Keep on going with your plan of healthy eating and doing what you can with exercise. A pool is a fab idea, I myself am thinking about it...why not eh?

I'm not a major fan of the pool for obvious reasons lol, but when i was younger I actually was on swim team! i havent been in a pool since i gained over 100 pounds. It's really hard, I've tried making the changes, but working out in town the easiest thing in the world for someone to do is "hey i'm going to mcdonalds, want me to get you something off the dollar menu?" and it kind of went out of control with that. I have switched back to my nike shox from just wearing flats around work, but ive only worked one day this week so hopefully it'll be enough of a change to get me through the day. thank you so much for the support, im sure you all can appreciate how overwhelming it is.

Junonia.com has a lot of good options for swimwear for the shy in extended sizes. Here are a few options.

One piece suits




Swim capris


Swim shorts

That top photo nelie posted is exactly what I poorly was trying to describe! Since you've been a swimmer you know how well the pool works out all muscles of the body. I was just swimming yesterday and my core sure feels it... so not only is it gentle but it's going to work out the back/core like you were asking about.

Danskin has those swim suits too, but Junonia has better plus size range.

If you're trying to keep off your feet there are also some sitting exercise videos. Things like twisting the body gently too will help with the core (think like boxing punching to each side)

I wasn't quite 350 at my heaviest, but I was over 300 and I remember finding traditional exercises a bit frustrating. What helped me a lot at first was just walking as much as I could handle adding to it little by little.

I love the swim shorts. I'm a very big fan of swim shorts lol. I'd love to get the one piece too but i have a really big butt and a hideous belly so I'd look very egg shaped. I have a cute tankini top from torrid that seems to cover up the gut quite well but i never can find shorts that fit right when i actually do swim. i'll have to check these out.

I would swim if I could get into the pool with other people like me and if I could drape so much cloth around me that I looked like I was wearing some sort of parka or something haha.

But I like the swim outfit choices...my body is pear shaped...and not the "ohh how cute" pear shape lol.

Generally, if you go to a water aerobics class, you will see people of various sizes/shapes. Once you are in the water, you are all the same shape I was swimming laps and doing water running for a while. I remember there were ladies that would come in wearing a full suit, covered from neck to ankle. I imagine it was part of their religious practice but they were able to get in their exercise as much as anyone else.