Twins Brandi and Kandi Dreier, 30, from Vancouver, each weighed roughly 600 pounds when they first embarked on their weight loss journeys on the TLC reality series My 600-lb Life. However, after the sisters both underwent gastric bypass surgery, their lifelong addiction to food is now in the past. “Food doesn’t rule our lives anymore,” Brandi, who initially weighed 587 pounds, told People earlier this year. “Sometimes I forget to eat because the hunger isn’t there.”
Kandi, who started at 604 pounds, had a major scare when she was rushed to the intensive care unit after her heart stopped beating. At the time, she was put in a medically induced coma. Brandi said, “I don’t want my sister to die.” She added, “I need my sister to pull through this. She promised she wouldn’t leave me. I can’t do this without her.” Yet now Kandi is doing well. “There’s [sic] not been any other setbacks,” she revealed. “It’s like it didn’t even happen.”
The women — who have never lived apart — had a traumatic childhood that led them to abuse food at a young age. According to the Daily Mail, their mother was an alcoholic, their father was a drug dealer, and they were molested by one of their father’s acquaintances.
“We started gaining weight when we were young, as soon as we were able to eat solid food because our biological dad used food as a babysitter,” Kandi explained. But these days, Kandi and Brandi are eating a healthy diet of salads, turkey burgers, and vegetables and have each lost 200 pounds within the past year. Amazing!
Kandi and Brandi during an interview with People in January 2017.
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The reality stars also had some advice for anyone considering losing weight with gastric bypass. “They just need to stay focused, and if they really want it, it can happen,” Brandi said. “But the surgery is not like you have it and it’s fixed. You have to work at it.”
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