‘Our mother's death was the toughest lesson in self-love'

The death of their mother, who suffered from anorexia, was the catalyst two sisters needed to transform their lives and their bodies.

- Deborah Herd

It wouldn’t have been surprising if the death of their beloved mother, Lindy, had completely broken sisters Cairalee Durand, 33, and Nicky Durand, 27. Instead, the tragedy was the spur the Cape Town siblings needed to turn their lives around.

Their mother, Lindy, died three years ago, aged 54, from anorexia, a disease that had controlled her life since she was 16. Inevitably, the devastating eating disorder also impacted her family, with many of Lindy’s struggles defining her daughters’ lives too.

‘Obviously, with our mom suffering from anorexia, looking after our bodies and healthy eating wasn’t something we grew up with,’ says Caira-lee, a digitalmedia manager. ‘We didn’t have a good example to learn from and neither of us ever learnt to have a positive body image.’

While anorexia prevented their mother from eating enough to maintain a healthy weight, over the years both Caira-lee and Nicky became unhealthily overweight. ‘We didn’t stand much chance … we used to go to bed with Coca-Cola on our bedside tables,’ says Caira-lee, who weighed 108 kilos at her heaviest.

But during the past two years, each of the sisters has undergone a slow awakening that has led to a metamorphosis both emotionally and physically.

‘As children, Nicky and I both had to parent our parents,’ says Caira-lee. ‘There were lots of good times, don’t get me wrong, but we have spent so much of our lives caring for and worrying about our mother that neither of us learnt how to look after ourselves or how to love ourselves. We were adult children.’

FREEDOM TO FOCUS