Maggie

Right at the end of filming, Maggie found out that she was pregnant. “It was kind of a big surprise. I had to come to terms with it, and realize that I was going to put some of the fifty pounds that I’d lost back on,” she says.

Because of everything she learned on X-Weighted, Maggie says that she had a much healthier pregnancy than she might of otherwise, and only ended up gaining a little weight with her son, Logan. “Because I had done all the weight loss before I got pregnant, I knew how I was supposed to be eating. I’d changed my mindset about food and my cravings weren’t nearly as bad as I thought they’d be,” she says.

After giving birth, Maggie was only twelve pounds heavier than she was at the end of the show. “A lot of the pregnancy weight just came off straight away. Now I’m about five pounds heavier than my lightest weight,” she says. She keeps fit by going to the gym, which she loves. “It's my alone time away from the baby,” she says, “other people enjoy shopping, but for me it’s the gym that helps me relax and unwind.”

Maggie says that before going on X-Weighted, she just didn’t know where to start when it came to losing weight. “Paul gave us hope, he said “This can be done”,” she says, “plus we’d seen other people do it on the show.”

Maggie says that although when she first watched her episode she was mortified, as she never really realized how big she looked, she loved that it was a happy ending for her and her sister, Liz. “I love being repeated, I always watch it,” she says. 

Liz

Since filming, Liz has had another baby, named Olivia, but says that other that that not a lot has changed in her life. She hasn't managed to keep all her weight off, but only because she just had a baby - "With a newborn and a 3 year old, it's tough to find time for me," she says, "Olivia is still not sleeping through the night, so I'm up every 2 hours."

Although Liz is finding little time to exercise, she knows what it is that she has to do to drop the baby weight, thanks to everything that she learned on her weight-loss journey. "I know how to eat healthily, and I know that I can't bring unhealthy foods in to the house because if I do, I will eat them," she says.

For several reasons, Liz says that she loved her X-Weighted experience. "I'd do it again in a heartbeat," she says, "It was so much fun and the advice was invaluable, especially Fred showing us how to do our make-up properly and our hair. I'll never go back to long hair again, now I know my hairstyle reflects my age and I have fun with it - I've dyed it red, I've had highlights, I love changing it up." Liz says that going on X-Weighted strengthened her relationship with her sister. "We were close before, but going through our X-Weighted journey together made us closer than ever before," she says.

"I feel a lot more confident that before I did X-Weighted. I feel like I look my age. There's no more pulling my wet hair back in to a ponytail and that's it, I look after myself," says Liz.

December 2009