BRIDE & PREJUDICE: AUSTRALIA’S MEANEST MUMS?
BEFORE BRIDE-TO-BE DYLAN REVEALS HOW SHE SAVED HER LIFE AND HER RELATIONSHIP BEFORE BEFORE
Queensland FIFO worker Dylan is a completely different person … literally. The 31-year-old woman viewers will get to know this week in Seven’s controversial relationship series Bride & Prejudice looks radically different compared to two years ago.
“I’ve lost 36 kilos through the gastric sleeve,” Dylan tells New Idea.
“I’ve come so far, it changed my entire life. I truly believe that it saved my life. I think I was headed for immobility and depression. I was so sad and the relationships I was in were always failing.”
Dylan – who has been dating fiancee Ange for over a year – decided to undergo the lifechanging surgery after years of battling with her weight.
“I have always been overweight,” she reveals.
“I can’t explain it any other way than I have a food addiction. I always tried to lose weight and never could. I would secretly eat food behind my partner’s back before making dinner.”
After turning 28, the prospect of entering her 30s as an overweight person was terrifying for Dylan.
“As I started to creep up closer to my 30s, I started to hurt,” she says.
“I started to develop this weird pain in my leg and then I started not being able to breathe properly and I have, like, a kidney thing that being overweight is bad for.
“I have polycystic kidney disease so I was born with cysts on my kidneys.
“They can’t remove them because they’re full of poison and if you remove them you can die.”
While doctors offered medication to help with her ailing health, deep down, Dylan knew losing weight would help fix her issues so she began looking into gastric sleeve surgery.
But the Bride & Prejudice participant admits that choosing
to undergo the procedure was anything but the easy way to lose weight.
“I already knew it wasn’t a fix-all process but I still wasn’t prepared for what was to come,” she says.
“It was so bad that they teach you to drink a cap full of water every 10 minutes because you won’t be able to drink a normal glass of water afterwards.
“I would drink water and have three mouthfuls and then have to throw it up. I couldn’t even keep soup down.”
According to Dylan, she still suffers “a food addiction” but it’s tricky for her to keep food down.
“What you work out eventually is that with the sleeve you can move on to start eating bigger meals,” she says.
“I still can’t eat my old Mcdonald’s meal which was a double quarter pounder large value meal with six nuggets, no sauce, because I can’t fit it in.”
Dylan admits that the stress of filming Bride & Prejudice took a toll on her weight-loss journey. “I put on seven kilos,” she says.
“I was really beating myself up over it.”
Now filming has wrapped, she’s focusing on her health and losing the weight.
“I’ve started seeing a PT and I’m trying to eat healthier,” she says.
While Dylan met her fiancee after losing the weight, Ange says she fell in love with her partner’s confidence.
“I don’t love people who don’t love themselves,’ Ange admits.
While Dylan is working hard to accept her body for what it is, she reveals that she’s considering removing the excess skin her dramatic weight loss has left behind.
“I now have skin that hangs down and my boobs are like deflated balloons,” she says.
“I can get the skin removed but then it’s just another surgery to combat another thing.
“I know that I’m a nice, beautiful person, but I still can’t accept my appearance unless I’m in clothes. I’m working on it.”