Louisiana-native Chay Guillory weighed just under 600 pounds when first appearing on My 600-lb Life. These days, after shedding more than 200 pounds, Chay’s life has changed in more ways than one. On the Where Are They Now? special, it was revealed that, following weight loss surgery, Chay would be living life now as a woman by the name of Lola.

“I feel like for so long I have lived a lie,” she said in the episode. “I was trapped in a 600-lb body and now I started to believe I can do this. And once I lose the weight, it will be possible for me to be the person I have always identified as—and that person is a woman.”

When her original episode first aired, Lola lived with her grandparents and was hardly able to care for herself. After losing her grandmother, her food addiction reached a new high, but these days, she’s managing to slow but surely keep off the weight. “My body moves easier,” she said. “There is more pep in my step, and I just feel so much better, and I can do so much more.”

Besides staying physically healthy, Lola is learning to take care of herself mentally too, trying to uncover what drove her addiction to food in the first place. “Since surgery some things are different,” she said. “I am living with my uncle and helping with his kids because he travels for work, but over the past year, I've had to deal with a lot of my emotions that led me to go to food.”

Most importantly, it’s Lola living in her true gender identity that is keeping her from her destructive eating habits. “I have been living a lie for so long, but I can't hide this any longer,” she said. “I feel like that has been at the root of my all eating for so many years because I haven't known how to deal with the emotions of all this. There is no one I can talk to about something like this.”

And from the looks of social media, she’s maintaining her health and fitness journey! She uses her Instagram to not only post about her food habits, but also shows off her makeup looks. Keep up the hard work!

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