Twins Lost Almost 400 Pounds Combined By Being 'Accountable' for Each Other

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When Tonia Brown's weight reached 380 pounds, she was frustrated.
'I was getting tired of it. I wanted to lose some weight,' the 51-year-old from Shelby, North Carolina, tells TODAY.com. 'I wanted to start taking better care of myself because I was getting older and starting to feel it.'
About eight years ago, Brown started eating a ketogenic diet and walking around the house. When her twin sister Tonie Ervin noticed Brown losing weight, Ervin examined her own habits.
'I realized that I was going to become the fatter twin,' Ervin, 51, of Shelby, North Carolina, tells TODAY.com. '(I) started doing keto and exercising because she made me.'
In total, the two have shed nearly 400 pounds with keto, exercise and bariatric surgery.
'It really, really helps to have Sister with me doing it because I don't know if I could have done this myself,' Brown says.
A Focus on Diet and Moving Their Bodies
After Brown began exercising more and eating a different diet, she started shedding some weight. That's when Ervin, who weighed about 400 pounds, approached her sister.
'After about 50 pounds or so, she pulled me aside at one of our events for church and said, 'Hey, I don't know what you're doing, but I really don't want to be the fatter twin. So please tell me what you're doing,'' Brown recalls.
Walking and eating a keto diet — which is low in carbs, high in fat, with moderate amounts of protein — helped the twins lose about 100 pounds each. But then their progress stalled.
'We hit a wall,' Brown says. 'You get older, that's what happens. And after about two years or so of hitting a wall and not losing any weight, we plateaued really badly.'
Still not happy with their weight, the twins discussed bariatric surgery.
'Once we started discussing it with the doctor, we jumped right into it,' Brown says. 'What happened was I went to Sister and said, 'I'm having bariatric surgery.' (And she said) 'Oh, we're having bariatric surgery.''
The two — who 'are probably together more than anybody really has any right to be,' Brown says — met with the bariatric surgeon for a consult at the same time. But he set boundaries.
'When he realized we were twins, he came in and said immediately when he saw us together … 'No, I can't see them together. They have to split up,'' Brown says. 'We don't blame him. It's a lot of information to mix up.'
Ervin underwent surgery first in late November of 2023, and Brown had her surgery about a week later. The two experienced very different recoveries.
'Mine was pretty breezy,' Ervin says. 'I wanted to immediately go home, and I was a little fussy about (staying the night). But aside from that, I didn't have much of a problem.'
Brown began vomiting after surgery.
'I developed a blood plug at the bottom of my — they call it your pouch. That is your new stomach,' she says.
The doctor gave her two options. Brown could drink enough water to 'pop' the blood plug, or they'd have to go in with an endoscope and break up the plug.
'I did not want to go under anesthesia again,' Brown explains. 'I started hammering water, and about two hours later, it stopped coming back up.'
Even with the complication, Brown doesn't want to dissuade people from having the surgery if they think it's the right choice for them.
'It's something you need to be aware of,' she says. 'But don't let that flavor your experience … Honestly, I would do that again even if I knew that was on the docket.'
After their surgeries, the twins started losing weight again very quickly.
'You're dropping 10 pounds this week and another 10 pounds that week and five pounds this week,' Brown says. 'We came out of clothes so fast.'
Their diets have also changed since surgery. They now focus more on eating protein and add fruits and vegetables to their meals.
'When you do keto, it's a lot more fat-focused,' Ervin says. 'When you do the bariatric, you don't want to focus on that fat.'
Eating too much fat after surgery can cause the food to move quickly through the GI tract and can be 'very unpleasant when it happens,' she adds. As they have tweaked their diets, their exercise continued.
'We both walk,' Brown says. 'At 50 it's hard, but you get it done.'
Brown weighs about 166 pounds now, and Ervin weighs about 223 pounds. While they both would like to shed a little more weight, they are happy with their progress. 'I am surprised to be this low,' Brown says.
Below, the two share tips on what works for them.
'Change Your Ways'
'I call it 'Just change your ways of eating,'' Brown says. 'Get up off the couch. Get up even if it's 20 minutes a day.'
She says making small changes adds up to a real transformation of one's habits.
'You're like, 'Oh, it's just one day, it's not going to make a difference,' Brown says. 'But one day is another day and another day and a week and then it's a year and then it's 10 years later.'
Focus on Non-Scale Victories
Brown and Ervin recently went to a concert out of town. While on their trip, they sat in high bar chairs, a non-scale victory.
'We always avoided high bar chairs because my feet swell and I can't get up and down,' Brown says. 'We sat on a high bar chair for that concert for six hours and could not believe (it).'
On the trip, they also wore bathing suits, something they avoided when they weighed more. And they rented a compact car.
'I was worried about getting a compact car because I was afraid to fit behind the wheel,' Ervin says.
But they were both able to fit comfortably.
Find Support
While some people don't have a twin to help them navigate weight loss, the two agree that having another person makes it easier to reach goals.
'When you have someone that's going to hold you accountable … it works,' Ervin says. 'You find yourself out there doing it because someone else is doing it and they're expecting you to do it with them.'
This article was originally published on TODAY.com