‘1,000-lb Best Friends’: Meghan Overcomes Her Anxiety to Achieve a Lifetime Dream in Exclusive Sneak Peek

1,000-lb Best Friends star Meghan is leaning on besties Vannessa and Tina as she tries to overcome her anxiety and live her dream of visiting the ocean for the first time in years. In a PopCulture.com exclusive sneak peek of Monday’s all-new episode of the TLC show, Vannessa and Tina are determined to push Meghan to live in the moment and soak up the sun, despite her anxiety about body image.

Tina encourages Meghan to show off the cute bathing suit hiding under her cover-up, but Meghan shuts down the compliment, calling her swimsuit “grandma” even as she removes her top layer to indulge her friend. “It is not grandma,” Tina assures her. “See, it’s adorable.” Meghan may have made it to the beach, but she’s definitely not enjoying herself, as she tells her friends it simply has to be enough that she’s there.

“Why are you hiding anything?” Vannessa asks Meghan. “Baby, you’re beautiful. Don’t hide nothing.” Meghan admits she doesn’t want “people to be afraid,” but Vannessa instantly reminds her to embrace herself as she is. “Let me tell you something, baby. It’s taking a lot for me to show up with nothing but my bikini on,” she tells her longtime friend. “Don’t get me wrong, Meghan. I hate my rolls but my brain tells me I’m gorgeous.”

Vannessa assures Meghan she understands how much she struggles with her body image, but it “bothers me to my core.” Meghan starts to get emotional as she shares, “Oh I get anxiety just talking about this. I, really, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I just – I just, I start panicking. When we talk about body issues, I am so uncomfortable.”

Pointing out other beachgoers, Meghan continues, “I wish I looked like that. I would give anything to have a body like that. It would be so much easier than this. It’d be more socially accepted.” She admits, “I don’t feel like I belong here. I just feel like, as excited as I was to see the beach, I wish I had waited so I could feel more confident out here.”

“But don’t you think you’ve waited long enough?” Tina asks Meghan, as she replies emotionally, “I don’t wanna cry, don’t ask me that.” Tina encourages Meghan to look at how far she’s come, telling her, “Don’t let anything bring you down today. You are here, own it. Go get in the water.” Vannessa instantly jumps on board when it comes to getting Meghan to embrace their beach trip, joining Tina as the trio makes their way down to the water to get in on the fun. 

Even as they rally for their friend, Tina admits she has an “honest concern” about going in the water, as she also hasn’t gotten submerged in the ocean in about 35 years. Vannessa is also “scared to death” to get in, admitting to the camera, “Like being this big, you will not be able to stand up, or start swimming real quickly, or get away from anything.” She jokes, “We got all this fat, there’s folds and rolls, so you gotta think if a shark sees this, he sees something like this [bite noises].” 1,000-lb Best Friends airs Mondays at 10 p.m. ET on TLC.