Carrie 

Carrie continued to lose weight after filming finished 18 months ago, and says that although she doesn’t follow a strict diet she is careful to keep what she eats in check. Carrie is now on a ringette team, which keeps her fit, but also enjoys rollerblading and working out at the local playground with one of her ringette friends (she still uses the same playground workout she was doing on X-Weighted).

Carrie says that before she went on the show, she honestly didn’t think that losing weight was possible. “I definitely needed the show to motivate me to lose weight. Andrea and I had tried before, but it never really worked. Being on the show gave us the oomph we needed,” she says.

Although having 3 kids keeps her pretty busy, Carrie still finds the time to cook decent meals and get out there and exercise. “You just have to make that time for yourself,” she says,  “I think there is always time to exercise, even if it is when the kids go to bed.”

Carrie loves the way that clothes fit these days, so much so, that she gets dressed up any chance she gets. “Because I spent so long wearing yoga pants and plain black t-shirts, now I get dressed up just to get the kids from preschool or go to the store,” she says.

Losing weight was a life-changing experience for Carrie. “I’m just so much happier now, I feel like I can do anything,” she says, “I’m not so worried about what I look like or what I’m wearing, it’s really nice to go out and not be worried about whether people are judging me about my weight.”

Andrea

Andrea says that she had the time of her life while X-Weighted was being filmed. “When I first started, I had no idea that my whole life was going to change. I figured this was just another extreme measure to lose weight that I’d just end up gaining back. I had no idea that I was actually going to change as a person,” she says.

Because Andrea went through such a drastic change, she initially found it hard to believe that she was now a slim woman. “I just didn’t recognize that girl at the end of show makeover, but now that is how I live every day. I don’t leave the house unless I look like that, with my make-up and my heels,” she says.

“I had no idea who I was after the show,” she says, “I didn’t know what I was supposed to do now because as far a I was concerned the rest of my life was about hiding from the world, being overweight and just doing the same things that I’d always done.”

Also, after the show aired, Andrea’s biological brother (she was adopted and had never met any of her biological family) saw the episode and got in touch. Andrea was reconciled with her biological family, which included 9 siblings, which was wonderful but also incredibly stressful.

“On top of this huge transformation, I tried to make up for 30 years I’d missed with my biological family and I just snapped. I lost it and turned in to a total teenager staying out and partying all night, it was ridiculous. I couldn’t handle all the change coming so fast,” she says.

This put a fair amount of stress on Andrea’s marriage. “There was quite a long time where we weren’t sure if we were going to stay together. We were high-school sweethearts. We got together when I was 14, and so he’s been with me for 17 years. But I became a completely different person,” she says.

After seeing a therapist, Andrea has learned to reconcile the new her with the old one, and is now “getting towards being in a good place.” She is finding balance. “It's okay to have a life where I go out and have fun but I have to balance it with the life that I had previous to that, as a wife and mother,” she says.

Andrea says that the biggest thing that she got from being on X-Weighted, was the change in her attitude: “I look in the mirror and like what I see, other people's comments don’t matter and the only person’s opinion that matters is my own. I hope I get to take that with me for the rest of my life because it is really freeing.”

October 2009