KRYSTAL HALL (VOICEOVER): I was really
young when I started to understand
that food could make me happy.
When I was a toddler, my weight was normal.
It wasn't until I was around five
that my weight gain started.
Christmas Eve, right before I turned five years old,
we went and stayed with some family for the holidays.
And that's when one of them molested me for the first time.
After that, my life was never the same.
But that was just the start of it
because it lasted until I was 13.
I didn't say anything to anybody for a long time.
And so every time my mom sent us to their house,
it happened to me again.
And she sent us to their house a lot
because my father wasn't around, so she
worked all the time to take care of me and my sisters.
And it got worse when my mom started dating someone
after all that started because he was physically
abusive to me and my sisters.
I have two sisters.
And when my mom wasn't around, he would beat all of us.
And then his brother would come over and do even worse to us.
He would molest me and my sisters.
So I lived in constant terror then
because I wasn't safe anywhere.
So I just tried to escape, and food became that for me.
Food made me happy.
And when I needed that, I ate.
So that's when I really started gaining.
And by the time I turned seven, I weighed
about 150 to 200 pounds.
So I was putting on weight quickly,
and that didn't really change.
By the time I was 10, I was already up to over 250.
But I never really thought it was a big deal until I turned
around 11 or 12 years old because I
started getting bullied at school pretty heavily.
So it was miserable.
But eating is how I've escaped it all.
So from 10 to 13, I put on another 100 pounds.
I got over 350 pounds by the time I was 13.
But the abuse stopped around then.
Because when I was 13 years old, I told Mom about the abuse.
And she couldn't handle it.
She didn't really say anything to me to comfort
me or anything like that.
But she did do something because it all stopped after that.
I was still mad at her then because she was the one
who let all of that happened.
And after that, we didn't really have
a relationship for a long time.
But at least she made sure it stopped.
So things got a little better through high school.
And over the next four years, I put on another 70 pounds
and was around 420 pounds when I graduated.
So I was still gaining but just not as much as before.
After I graduated high school, I was 18 years old,
and I was afraid of men, afraid of dating men to the point
where I thought I was gay.
And that led me to meeting a girlfriend at the age of 18.
But she had kids, so I had to start working
to help out and pay for things.
And that was a lot for me.
And I ate my emotions.
I ate my stress.
Every time the kids would want to eat, I would eat.
And over the next few years, I got over 500 pounds.
After college, I went and worked for our local crisis center.
And then I went and worked for a company
that helps with the developmentally
disabled community.
But I was still gaining.
And eventually, my weight really took a toll,
and I was unable to really take care of my clients the way
they deserved.
So I left.
I went worked at a cab company because it
was somewhere that didn't require me to be as active.
And I did that for around four years.
So for a while, I had a lot to focus on in my life,
and food wasn't as much of like a constant thing for me.
But slowly, my whole life changed, starting with me
and my girlfriend breaking up.
We were together for 12 years from the time
I was 18 till I was 30.
But as time went on, I started to realize that I wasn't gay.
Ultimately, after many years of contemplation, I did leave.
And I got a place with my sister Katie for a while.
We lived together with her son Josh,
but Katie started struggling with drugs.
She kept trying to quit for her son,
but she relapsed three different times while living with me.
And that was stressful because all the stuff
with my sister culminated in me having to take custody of Josh
to protect him.
So he still lives with me because I won custody of him.
And fighting for Josh led me back to using food to cope.
So I started gaining a lot again until I met Freelin.
When I got with Freelin, it kind of slowed
down a little bit at first.
But I met him a few years ago when I was 32 and still
working for the cab company.
And Freelin and I did not like each other at first.
We were very, very standoffish with one another.
He hated me.
I hated him.
But we just let bygones be bygones and worked together.
And somehow in the midst of that, we both fell in love.
FREELIN: I first met Krystal, I was driving for a cab
company in Portsmouth.
And I get a phone call out of the blue,
somebody telling me they're my new boss.
And I just said, I'll take your word for it, and hung up.
And it was Krystal.
I thought she was a horrible person at first.
She thought the same about me.
But after three or four months of working with her,
we just kind of started talking and never really stopped.
KRYSTAL HALL (VOICEOVER): So we got
engaged shortly after that then got married this past year.
And it's been me, him, and Josh living here as a family.
And I'm thankful to have both of them in my life
because they're what drives me to keep going every day.
They give me a reason to be OK.
But I'm not OK.
I can't even take care of myself now or provide for my family
because I had to stop working because I got too big.
And Freelin is so great about working and providing
and everything.
But at the end of the day, he's exhausted.
He works 50, 60, 70 hours a week just to get us by.
But then I need him to do more to help me do things
I should be doing on my own.
And I hate it, and it's all because I can't give up food.
[SOFT PIANO]
You know, the cravings, they don't go away.
So I'm always binge eating.
And because of that, my family's life revolves around food too.
[SOFT PIANO]
The one thing that he always has said
is he doesn't care how big I get.
He cares about my health.
And he was OK with my weight when
we got together because it wasn't affecting
my health like it is now.
Now it's a whole different story.
And I hate how I'm passing on how I eat to Josh,
and what I'm doing to myself is starting to affect his health
because Josh will eat large amounts of food
for somebody his age and size.
He'll eat fast and not pay attention.
And I know that's because that's how I do it.
What he's doing is a learned behavior,
and he learned it from me, his mom.
And I can't live with myself if he ends up like me.
So I know that I have to change before that gets any worse,
before I get any worse because I hate
what I'm doing to my family.
And I don't want to be like this anymore.
Grandpa's been in his room for a while,
and I gotta get him out here for dinner.
Do you want me to go get him?
No.
He can hear me.
Grandpa, dinner's done.
JAMES (VOICEOVER): I love my granddaughter very much.
And she eats too much, and I ain't afraid to tell her.
But she won't listen anyhow.
If you're gonna eat, you're gonna eat anyhow.
You know?
But I worry about losing Krystal.
Because if she don't lose weight, she might die.
And it'd be pretty hard to take really, you know,
being your granddaughter.
KRYSTAL HALL (VOICEOVER): I hate being as immobile as I am.
I want to be able to do more.
I want to be able to go more places and do more things.
I want to be able to do more around this house.
I want to be able to take care of my grandpa
and be able to take care of my son and my husband the way
that they deserved to be taken care of.
But that's never going to happen if I don't lose weight now.
I think I'm ready to confront my demons.
I think I really am because I've never been
more ready to change my life.
And I have to change before something bad happens to me
and food costs me everything.