Long-time fans of “My 600-lb Life” remember the second season’s patient Christina Philips as one of the people achieving one of the most impressive transformations. She passed from weighing well over 600lbs to getting down to 100lbs, but the path wasn’t at all easy for Christina.

To survive, she had to turn her life around in many other ways than just eating healthily and exercising, using her pure willpower to limit and push away her enablers. Christina’s story is inspiring not only for the physical transformation she underwent, but also because she found new reasons to keep living, and only keeps getting better several years after her last appearance in the show.

So how did Christina turn her life around? How does she look now, and how is she doing? Stay with us to find out.

Beginning of Her Journey

We met Christina Philips in the fifth episode of the second season of “My 600-lb Life”, at a point in her life when she could barely walk, and needed the assistance of her mother Tammie, and husband Zach to assist in performing basic hygiene tasks for her.

The most shocking part of Christina’s case was her age. She was only 22 years old when she appeared in the show for the first time, but already weighed 638lbs  at that point. As she recalled back then, her bad relationship with food had its roots in her childhood, when her parents’ complicated dynamics led Christina to find refuge in food, having no insight into the consequences of that.

According to Christina, her family’s situation was ‘scary’ at times, pushing her to become protective of her younger siblings. This was corroborated by her sister Jessica, who described her as a mother figure.

Christina’s unhealthy eating habits continued throughout her teens, weighing over 300lbs in seventh grade, and so on. Her condition worsened once she turned 18 years old, with Christina admitting she’d gained around half of her then-current weight since getting married.

By the time Christina set foot in Dr. Now’s office, she could barely walk without losing her breath, leaving no doubts about how much her life had spiraled downwards.

Process & Setbacks

One of the aspects which made Christina’s journey all the more difficult was the presence of her enablers. While her mother and husband had helped her take care of herself, and were clearly worried about her condition, they also showed themselves still supporting Christina’s unhealthy habits, and had adverse reactions when called out on their behavior by Dr. Now.

As Christina confessed during one of her early weight control appointments, she was eating pizza, burgers, and other junk food even after enrolling in the program. That resulted in her gaining 17lbs in a couple of months, which according to Dr. Now’s calculation, must have meant she was consuming 7.000 calories a day to get to that point.

That incident was a wake-up call, not only for Christina but also for her family. Her improvement stagnated because not only was she unable to say ‘no’ to the food, but because her family was also unable to tell her no, despite the insistence of Christina that she was experiencing low appetite, and had gained water weight.

Christina was hospitalized to improve her situation, but even then her progress was minimal, due to her enablers!. She was consuming junk food even in hospital, despite being put on a strict diet, leading Dr. Now to perform lymphedema removal surgery on her.

Results

Having the masses of fat on her legs removed was a big starting point for Christina, who up to that point hadn’t demonstrated that she had it in her to lose weight on her own. She recovered her mobility after the surgery, and found a way to eat healthier, to the point she lost over 100lbs in a couple of months.

Nevertheless, Christina needed to make big efforts to keep her healthy habits going, though that didn’t happen until much later. One of her biggest setbacks was suffering a gallbladder attack almost a year into her treatment, but she recovered from it after undergoing surgery.

Fast forward to one year after the treatment, Christina weighed 390lbs and saw her life’s quality improve immensely, alongside her relationship with food and family. Later on, she appeared in a “Where Are They Now?” episode, weighing an impressive 160lbs, meaning that she’d lost 548lbs since the first time we saw her in the show. At that point, she was also in the process of having skin removal surgery.

Nevertheless, it took Christina a while to accept her body as it was, developing body image issues which led her to want to keep losing more weight than she should, while following a malnourished diet. Fortunately, Dr. Now soon caught up on her eating disorders, and helped her gain muscle mass.

Where Is Christina Now?

Christina Philips’ path wasn’t easy, but she made it in the end. The most concerning aspect of her journey was to see her falling over again in her old habits, with her family contributing little to help her improve, but she demonstrated that it was possible to turn her situation around.

These days, Christina is better than ever. She’s the proud mother of three children, whom she conceived with her boyfriend Shane. The couple were previously friends, but their relationship didn’t develop until she and her ex-husband Zach divorced in 2015.

According to Christina, her relationship with Zach was based mostly on her dependence on him during her toughest times, making Christina realize the not-so-positive essence of their bond.

Besides being a mother and having a happy family, Christina now takes part in 5k runs and other physically active activities. Her mood also seemed to improve a lot, as seen in the many happy pics she now shares on social media.

All in all, there’s no simple nor easy way to recover one’s life after suffering from morbid obesity, but cases such as Christina’s teach us that it’s more than possible to get another chance at life, even in the face of adversity.