Kassi and Derick Harrington grew up in Thibodaux, Louisiana, where they grew obese and ill and miserable on the Standard Cajun Diet. Derick's life revolved around food: hunting and fishing and then frying whatever he caught. Kassi was overweight her whole life, as was her entire family. Derick suffered from hypertension, high cholesterol, an auto-immune disease, and was on the fast track to type 2 diabetes. He had no energy, no passion for life outside of the gustatory, and in his own words, was "just existing."